(NPPLC) Chapter #19 周幽王后褒姒

[somethingfunny]

I'll be doing this lesson in the next few days but figured I'd put the text up early to give anyone else a chance that might be interested in providing a translation.  Here is the text:

 

褎姒者，童妾之女，周幽王之后也。初，夏之衰也，褎人之神化為二龍，同於王庭而言曰：「余，褒之二君也。」夏后卜殺之與去，莫吉。卜請其漦藏之而吉，乃布幣焉。龍忽不見，而藏漦櫝中，乃置之郊，至周，莫之敢發也。及周厲王之末，發而觀之，漦流於庭，不可除也。王使婦人裸而譟之，化為玄蚖，入後宮，宮之童妾未毀而遭之，既笄而孕，當宣王之時產。無夫而乳，懼而棄之。先是有童謠曰：「檿弧箕服，寔亡周國。」宣王聞之。後有人夫妻賣檿弧箕服之器者，王使執而戮之，夫妻夜逃，聞童妾遭棄而夜號，哀而取之，遂竄於褒。長而美好，褎人姁有獄，獻之以贖，幽王受而嬖之，遂釋褒姁，故號曰褎姒。既生子伯服，幽王乃廢后申侯之女，而立褎姒為后，廢太子宜咎而立伯服為太子。幽王惑於褎姒，出入與之同乘，不卹國事，驅馳弋獵不時，以適褎姒之意。飲酒流湎，倡優在前，以夜續晝。褎姒不笑，幽王乃欲其笑，萬端，故不笑，幽王為烽燧大鼓，有寇至，則舉，諸侯悉至而無寇，褎姒乃大笑。幽王欲悅之，數為舉烽火，其後不信，諸侯不至。忠諫者誅，唯褒姒言是從。上下相諛，百姓乖離，申侯乃與繒西夷犬戎共攻幽王，幽王舉烽燧徵兵，莫至，遂殺幽王於驪山之下，虜褒姒，盡取周賂而去。於是諸侯乃即申侯，而共立故太子宜咎，是為平王。自是之後，周與諸侯無異。詩曰：「赫赫宗周，褎姒滅之。」此之謂也。

　　頌曰：褎神龍變，寔生褎姒，興配幽王，廢后太子，舉烽致兵，笑寇不至，申侯伐周，果滅其祀。

 

It's a long one and as Rouzer notes theres a lot of new vocabulary (more than 80 characters over 11 pages) so I feel like this one is going to be a big effort.  

 

I've already noticed that the character 后 in 王后 rather than 後.  Any comments on this?

 

(text taken from here)

[xiaokaka]

"I've already noticed that the character 后 in 王后 rather than 後. Any comments on this?"

The simplified character 后 maps to two traditional characters: 後 and 后.

[somethingfunny]

Yeah, 后 as in 'queen' and 後 as in 'behind'.  But, for some reason, I though the meaning of 后 as in 'queen' was derived from the meaning of 'behind'.  I think I read somewhere it being related to the position of 'behind the king', or is that something that I just made up myself?

[evn108]

In this case it is meant to be 后 as in 皇后, not a variant/simplification of 後. But, even though it would usually mean something like "queen" or "empress," at this point I don't think it always has to refer to a woman. 

 

Edit: I Just saw your most recent post. I haven't heard that before (about 後 and 后 being related), I don't think it's true.

[somethingfunny]

Really good lesson this one.  Quite easy to follow and translate (Rouzer's encouragement in spite of the extensive new vocabulary is well founded) but still quite a complex and compelling story.  Similar to a story a lot of us in the west will already be familiar with.  This story has a fairly decent entry in wikipedia so I'm going to assume that those more familiar with ancient Chinese history will perhaps have already come across this story.  I hadn't, so enjoyed it very much.

 

Lots of help from here (particularly for the background to the story), here and here.

 

The order I translate in will differ slightly from the original text in the middle where it gets a bit confusing with different events happening at the same time.

 

 

Si of Bao, the daughter of a virgin eunuch, was King You of Zhou's empress.

 

Earlier, at the time of the demise of Xia, the Bao people's God turned into two dragons and, entering the royal court, they said, "We are the second two Lord's of Bao."  The Xia rulers performed a divination asking whether they should kill them or allow them to leave, but no conclusive response was given.  They divined again, with respect to their saliva and whether storing it would be auspicious.  The cloth was offered He spread out offerings and suddenly the dragons could not be seen and the saliva was stored in a cabinet and placed in the altar.  Until the end of Zhou would no-one dare to open it.  Only until the end of King Li of Zhou's reign did he open it and look inside.  Upon which, the saliva ran out into the royal court and could not be gotten rid of.  The king ordered a woman to strip and curse the saliva, at which point it turned into a black lizard which entered the women's quarters.  A young eunuch concubine, so young she had not yet lost her milk teeth, encountered the lizard.  At this point, she became pregnant and gave birth during the reign of King Xuan, despite there being no father. (i.e. Virgin birth) Through fear of the child she abandoned it.

 

At the same time there was a couple that was selling bow and arrows and related equipment made from the wood of a mulberry.  As King Xuan knew the children's song, "The mulberry bow and quiver, that will be the death of the state of Zhou" he ordered for this couple to be killed.  As the couple were fleeing in the night, they heard the abandoned baby crying and, taking pity on it, took with them into hiding in Bao.  The baby grew up to be beautiful and Xu of Bao gave her up as an offering in compensation for a crime he had committed.  King You accepted the offering and took her as a sexual favourite, releasing Xu of Bao and calling the new girl 'Si of Bao'.

 

When she gave birth to a son named Bofu, King You abandoned his current empress, the daughter of the Maquis of Shen, and made Si of Bao his empress.  He also removed Yijiu as heir apparent and named Bofu in his place.  King You was infatuated with Si of Bao and would travel with her together, ignoring important matters of State.  He would go riding and hunting frequently in order to fulfil her desires.  He would drink constantly and enjoy many pleasures from dusk till dawn.  However, Si of Bao was not happy and King You wanted to make her happy but no matter what he tried, he could not make her happy.  King You lit the beacons to warn of bandits and order troops to arrive.  The feudal lords all arrived only to discover there were no bandits and Si of Bao laughed at them.  King You wanted to please her so he lit the warning beacons many times.  Eventually, the feudal lords no longer believed the warning and would not come.  Those that loyally reprimanded him were punished, all the ministers flattered them superiors and inferiors were obsequious to one another and the commoners left in disobedience.

 

The Marquis of Shen went to the state of Zeng and together with the Yi and Rong barbarian tribes attacked King You.  King You lit the warning beacons to order the troops to come, but not troops came.  King You was killed at the foot of Mt. Li, Si of Bao was taken captive and all of Zhou's riches were plundered.  The feudal lords appointed the Marquis of Shen's son Yijiu as heir apparent and he became King Ping.  From this point on there was no difference between Zhou and the feudal Lords (Zhou no longer exercised power over them). 

 

The poem which reads, "Glorious clan of Zhou, destroyed by Si of Bao" refers to this story.  The song says, "The Bao God that turned into a dragon, truly gave birth to Si of Bao.  She married King You, and he abandoned the throne's true heir.  He lit the beacons, but they laughed when there were no bandits.  The Marquis of Shen attacked, and the religious sacrifice was destroyed."

 

A few things to think about:

 

1. The whole 'God -> Dragon -> saliva -> lizard -> Si of Bao' thing here is kind of crazy.  Are we to assume that Si of Bao is the reincarnation of the Bao God?  What's with the saliva?  According to wikipedia the second divination was along the lines of: “龙所吐沫，龙之精气也”收藏? And also, according to wikipedia, these dragons got up to all kind of naughty business in the royal court.
2. Were they told not to open the box until the end of Zhou? Or was that just what happened.  What was King of Li's problem?  I see this story is told in a few different places and I think some of these details get fleshed out.
3. This Xu of Bao.  He just goes round his kingdom, committing crimes and then offering other people's beautiful daughters in exchange for his freedom?  Man, ancient China was f**cked up debauched.
4. "以夜續晝" Love it.  I need to introduce this into my daily vocabulary, for when I get tired of telling people I'm going out and 不醉不归.
5. "有寇至，則舉" Rouzer's version doesn't have this comma and it's a shame.  Having the comma makes it very clear that the the bandits are arriving, so you all need to mobilise.
6. 忠諫者誅 and 上下相諛 were the only parts I really struggled to translate.  Is 忠 a noun referring to "those that are loyal", meaning I can read it as "Loyal subjects who remonstrated with the King, they were punished." And in the second one, I'm assuming 相 has the government minister meaning so it would be, "Ministers of every rank were obsequious towards to the king."
7. In the last quote from the poem I've included two italicised words which make one specific meaning very clear, but I'm worried that it might not be the exact correct meaning.  So I've italicised them.

Really good story this lesson and I encourage anyone who has made it this far to not worry about the amount of new vocab.  It doesn't really make it much more difficult. (disclaimer: unless you're learning without a grounding in modern mandarin in which case all words in Rouzer are completely new, but in that case, you're crazy anyway.)

[yvesc]

FWIW, concerning your 6.

a) 忠諫者誅 -- I don't quite understand the comment <Is 忠 a noun referring to "those that are loyal...?> or how you construe the sentence; it's simply ((忠諫)(者)), those who 忠諫, ie give loyal remonstrances

b) 上下相諛 -- I wouldn't even consider making 相 a title here, it's (上下)(相諛), superiors and inferiors toady to each other (instead of assuming their correct respective roles)

 

and of course there is no young eunuch in this story, I assume that's a slip of the pen. :-)

[yvesc]

some more:

 

"We are the second Lord's of Bao" -- I don't see what that means. It's "we are two lords of Bao". (lords or gentlemen or whatever) 

 

"The Xia rulers" -- presumably there was only one ruler at that time.

 

"The cloth was offered" -- sounds strange, and where is the word "offered". It's "He spread out offerings", verbal 布, 幣 as in 幣帛

 

"At this point, she became pregnant" -- 既笄而孕, when she got old enough to put up her hair (15 yo), she became pregnant.

[somethingfunny]

From your first post, both points taken, that makes more sense now.  Yes, eunuch was a slip of the pen, I meant to write concubine.  I'll go ahead and change that.

 

From your second post:

 

I see how two Lord's would make more sense.  To be honest, the way quantities is expressed (seemingly without measure words) keeps throwing me off.

 

In Rouzer he says that in 夏后卜殺之與去 the meaning of 后 would be referring to the ruling house or clan, which is why I used "rulers" although I guess I could have phrased it a little better.

 

The verbal usage of 布 makes a lot more sense.  Still not quite sure how this goes though... he makes the offerings, the dragons disappear, then he bottles their saliva?

 

I was a little confused about the pregnancy timeline.  It appears that she gets pregnant (once she is able to) and then is pregnant for 8 years (!?) before giving birth.  See here.

 

Thanks for your comments!