孟子：梁惠王（上）

[somethingfunny]

After not doing much Classical Chinese for a while, and messing around with a few different teaching materials I found online, I’ve decided to finally take the good advice I’ve received here and work through a full text.  I figure this will be more interesting at this point than working through Wang Li’s 古代汉语 – I do have a copy of this, and hope it does get some use at some point.  However, I think a larger project with more commitment and a clearly defined end goal will provide the impetus I’ve been lacking. 

 

As the language seems to be fairly standard, and I’ve found the content quite interesting, I’ve decided on 孟子.

 

To ensure I do a sufficiently close reading, I’m going to be more or less translating the work into English as I go, one chapter at a time.  I anticipate that this will potentially take me a number of years, but the alternative is that I run the risk of just reading a modern Chinese version, or an English translation and therefore achieve basically nothing.

 

Here are the resources I will be using:

• Chinese language copy of 孟子 I picked up in China, written by an academic called 金良年.  I have no idea about the quality of this work, but it has the original text, notes and a translation into modern vernacular, as well as interpretative comments.
• English translation by D. C. Lau.
• ctext.org with all its glossary goodness and the translation by James Legge.
• Pulleyblank (for a laugh).

 

The Mencius comes in seven chapters, each divided into two.  I’ll therefore be doing this in fourteen sections, documenting my progress as I go.  What I really hope is that this can be a place for discussion about particular points in each chapter, relating to both grammar and content.

 

So, let’s get started…

 

梁惠王上

 

An easy one to start with, as it contains some very famous passages covered in most Classical Chinese teaching materials.  There are however, a few points I’d like to talk about:

 

Section 2:

 

This section includes a quote from 诗经, although I couldn’t find it in my copy!  It’s supposedly in the 大雅 section, but mine doesn’t have the 灵台 poem.

 

The section ends with the following comment from Mengzi: 民欲与之偕亡虽有台池鸟兽岂能独乐哉？

 

I’m curious about how people treat the 独 here?  Personally, it doesn’t seem necessary to the intended meaning of: “If the people wished to die with him (King Jie), then even though he had the pavilion, pond, birds and animals, how could he take pleasure in them?”

 

Section 4:

 

This bit ends with a discussion of some Confucius: 仲尼曰：“始作俑者，其無後乎”為其象人而用之也。如之何其使斯民飢而死也？”

 

There seems to be some conflicting ideas in the translations.  Confucius is talking about the person who began using wooden figures in a human likeness during burial ceremonies, but what does he mean by 其無後乎?  I also don’t really know why Mencius is raising this story at all, as it seems to have little relevance to the preceding discussion about animals eating people.

 

Section 6:

 

In this exchange:

 

“孰能一之？”對曰：“不嗜殺人者能一之。”

“孰能與之？”對曰：“天下莫不與也。”

 

My English language resources have 与 as “give”, whereas my Chinese resources have it more as “return to”/“go to”.  Personally, I don’t really like this “who will give 天下?”, and think that asking “who would go to a ruler who does not take pleasure in killing?” makes a lot more sense in the context.  To further complicate matters, Lau makes an argument that the text is corrupted and rather than "孰能與之", it should actually be "孰能御之" which then tallies with Mengzi's final rhetorical response "誰能禦之?"

 

Speaking of which, the final line of this section is: 誠如是也民歸之由水之就下沛然誰能禦之.  I’ve seen this punctuated in the following two ways:

 

誠如是也民歸之由水之就下, 沛然誰能禦之

誠如是也民歸之由水之就下沛然, 誰能禦之

 

The trouble is what this 沛然 is doing. 

 

In the first case, we get, “This being the case, the people will go there in the manner that water flows down.  With such a torrent, how can it be stopped?”

 

In the second case, we get, “This being the case, the people will go there like water flowing down with the force of a tremendous torrent.  How can it be stopped?”

 

Any thoughts?  In the glossary I have this: 沛然，雨盛貌 – should I read this “the appearance (貌) of large quantities (盛) of rain (雨)”?

 

Also, I’m assuming that all this talk of 定’ing 天下 is a result of it being the Warring States period?

[Jim]

1 hour ago, somethingfunny said:

I’m curious about how people treat the 独 here?  Personally, it doesn’t seem necessary to the intended meaning of: “If the people wished to die with him (King Jie), then even though he had the pavilion, pond, birds and animals, how could he take pleasure in them?”

Some sort of parallelism between 偕亡  and 独乐 I'd expect - they would all die alongside him so why should he be the lone beneficiary of the kingly bling?

[OneEye]

8 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

This section includes a quote from 诗经, although I couldn’t find it in my copy!  It’s supposedly in the 大雅 section, but mine doesn’t have the 灵台 poem.

 

 

靈臺 is in 《大雅·文王之什》. 

 

However, there are times that you may come across things like 詩曰 or 書曰 and the quoted section doesn't show up at all in the received version of the text. That's because at this time in history (Warring States), these texts weren't really canonized, so there were different versions floating around. Some scholars argue that you shouldn't read quotes like this as "The Classic of Poetry says," but rather "A poem says," or "A document says" rather than "The Book of Documents says," since that's likely closer to how people at the time thought of things.

 

The classics were edited into their current form during the Han Dynasty. This entailed scholars comparing many extant versions in order to arrive at "the" official version, but it also involved some politically-motivated alteration of the texts, and the older, now non-canonical versions were destroyed. Scholars have been able to reconstruct parts of these original texts using excavated bamboo strips and other sources. You can read more about this process and some of its implications in Edward Shaughnessy's excellent Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (also available in Chinese as 夏含夷《重寫中國古代文獻》).

[somethingfunny]

So my copy of 诗经 (that I picked up a long time ago and have now used for the first time) has only three poems in the 大雅 section, but I see now on ctext that there are many more.  I think I might need to spend some time looking at the structure of the 诗经.

 

How familiar are you with these poems (and their translations)?  I originally translated 灵台 as “Ling Pavillion" but then 孟子 explains that the name 灵 was essentially applied afterwards as an adjective for their magnificence.  As such, English translations have things like "sacred terrace", or "marvellous tower".  There also seems to be some disagreement over the architectural definition of 台 at the time of writing.  I'm guessing there's no archeological record of such a building.  You'll have to forgive me, my historical knowledge of this period is pretty shoddy.

[OneEye]

I'm not especially familiar with the 詩經. I spent more time with 尚書 and 左傳. Not great with archeology and history either, outside of textual materials (oracle bones, bamboo strips, bronzes). 

 

As for 臺, the original meaning was "四方而高的臺觀" according to 季旭昇. As for exactly what that looked like, I'd have to look it up. Wilkinson's Chinese History: A New Manual is a great starting point.

[somethingfunny]

I've come across that book before, but never had the chance to look at a copy.  I'm glad to see it get endorsed - maybe I'll visit the library at the weekend and have a flick through.