(NPPLC) Chapter #31 李寄

[somethingfunny]

This thread is for the discussion of chapter thirty-one in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Rouzer.

 

I've stolen the text from here and although the punctuation looks a little different, it was the first one I found in traditional characters.

 

東越閩中，有庸嶺，高數十裏，其西北隙中，有大蛇，長七八丈大十余圍，土俗常懼。東治都尉及屬城長吏，多有死者。祭以牛羊，故不得福，或與人夢，或下谕巫祝，欲得啖童女年十二三者。都尉令長並共患之，然氣厲不息，共請求人家生婢子，兼有罪家女養之，至八月朝，祭送蛇穴口，蛇出吞齧之。累年如此，已用九女。爾時預複募索，未得其女。將樂縣李誕家有六女。無男，其小女名寄，應募欲行。父母不聽。寄曰：“父母無相，惟生六女，無有一男。雖有如無。女無缇萦濟父母之功，既不能供養，徒費衣食，生無所益，不如早死；賣寄之身，可得少錢，以供父母，豈不善耶！”父母慈憐，終不聽去。寄自潛行，不可禁止。寄乃告請好劍及咋蛇犬，至八月朝，便詣廟中坐，懷劍，將犬，先將數石米餈，用蜜麨灌之，以置穴口，蛇便出。頭大如囷，目如二尺鏡，聞瓷香氣，先啖食之。寄便放犬，犬就齧咋，寄從後研得數創，瘡痛急，蛇因踴出，至庭而死。寄入視穴，得其九女髑髅，悉舉出，咤言曰：“汝曹怯弱，爲蛇所食，甚可哀愍。”于是寄女緩步而歸。越王聞之，聘寄女爲後，指其父爲將樂令，母及姊皆有賞賜。自是東治無複妖邪之物。其歌謠至今存焉。

 

I was hoping to have a little break but if I'm going to get Rouzer fully put to bed before the end of the year I might have to come back to this sooner rather than later.  There should be a few days for anyone to make some first comments, or even provide your own translation if you're interested.

 

Happy reading.

 

Edit:  Ah c**p, I got the chapter number wrong in the topic title, can a moderator change it 31 please?  Thanks!

[somethingfunny]

OK,

 

This story is pretty badass, a little bit dark and fairly straightforward.  It also comes in quite a nice rhythm and its written in nice little punchy phrases.  I'm going to stick to not providing a full translation but instead just go straight into things that can be discussed.  As this is a fairly simple story, theres not much apart from grammar that has me confused, but I'll still provide a little comment at the end.

 

1. 大十余圍  I feel Rouzer is a little misleading here as in his definitions he indicates the meaning of 围 here to be 'handspan', which gives the sense that this phrase means 'its bigness was more than 10 handspans', which I guess is OK if I can interpret 大 as having some kind of reference to the snakes girth, which is what I'm assuming we're talking about here.
2. In the first part of the story, the snake - either through dreams or talking to shamans - lets the people know of its fondness for eating 12/13 year old-girls which bothers the authorities, at which point a poisonous gas comes out and kills them all!  What??  I understand each individual part, but not how they link together in terms of physical space and over time.  The bit I refer to is:  尉令長並共患之，然氣厲不息
3. 共請求人家生婢子  Rouzer has this down as "maidservants born into people's families" but I don't see how he gets there.
4. 父母慈憐，終不聽去  What's this 去 doing here?

 

That's pretty much it in terms of big problems, I once again got clarification from a modern mandarin translation here, although unlike previous lessons, I was pretty clear on what had happened before consulting that.

 

I have to say, I'm not sure whether I should be impressed by Ji's actions, or shocked at the ineptitude of the officials.  If all it took to kill the snake was a little girl with a sword and a dog, why couldn't any of them do it?  Not even getting into the idea of a girl killing an 80 foot long evil snake.

 

For me, the real take away message from this lesson was here:  父母無相，惟生六女，無有一男。雖有如無。女無缇萦濟父母之功，既不能供養，徒費衣食，生無所益，不如早死.  Who the f**k is this girl?  Was she just thinking out loud here or was she actually saying it to her parents?  I mean... 雖有如無.  For me this hands down beats the Mencius' mother three-paths bad sexism.