Yellow is the color of measure and mean.

[ewald]

Hi Lindsay - Interesting post.

As I've said earlier, I think that Wilhelm has had quite a big influence on many translators to come after him. I noticed that whenever I changed my mind on the translation of a particular hexagram line, the previous version I had was usually along Wilhelm's lines. Though I had, even in my initial version, tried to not rely too much on his work, and therefore referred to other translations a lot, I had nevertheless followed his example, but indirectly.

Wilhelm's translation appears to me to be remarkably close to Legge's. Obviously they use a quite different style, Legge being excessively verbose and using all these parentheses, and Wilhelm having this Goethian style, but their views on what the Chinese characters mean are really similar. Perhaps they just used the same dictionaries, but I think that Wilhelm was actually heavily influenced by Legge.

So while one might refer to several different Yijing translations, chances are that one often just sees a variation on Legge's and Wilhelm's views. Obviously that's not the case with Kunst and Rutt, but it is with many others. Karcher is, of the translators that I'm aware of, an exception to this. I haven't checked on several of the translations you listed, Lindsay, so maybe there are some more exceptions.

 

[heylise]

For me, the opposite happened: I deliberately put Wilhelm away, and made my own translation. Using Ritsema-Karcher as a base, simply because they had this rigid rule of using always the same word for the same character. Slowly, seeing the words again and again, in different contexts, and after I searched for their meanings myself in Chinese dictionaries, they began to get a meaning apart from the translation itself. Wider, more complete.

I grew up with Swiss (a kind of German) as my mother's language, but as a child my parents moved to Holland, so I had to switch to Dutch. Many books which I read in my youth, were German, and German stayed in my mind with its meanings, but sometimes I could not translate it into Dutch. And yet I knew what it meant. I could "feel" the word, I knew it, without having a word for it. Your mother's language is like that, every child knows what "horse" means, without being able to give an explanation.
Only when a language has no 'words' anymore, but only 'meanings', it is really your language. Only when you reach that, in learning another language, then you can really speak it. Usually you have to live for quite some time in the country itself, before it becomes 'your' language.

I tried to get a 'feel' for the characters, but through the Chinese characters themselves it was too difficult. When I combined every character with this rigid translation-word, some of it began to grow. Now I can read R+K and I know, what a sentence is about, without having to translate it into coherent english. Reading Chinese without knowing Chinese.

Many here know what I mean, when you look at the hexagrams. I can say, "I 20-ed this" and almost everyone here will know what I mean. "I am 45-ing things for my book", "she is a 61-person".

Same way I use the words from R+K. "Determination" has many more meanings for me than just being determined. It includes listening to the gods, being open for wisdom beyond personal ideas, dedication and perseverance in following the sacred and lasting instead of temporary worldly wishes or needs. All these things together form a 'feel' for zhen.

After having translated everything, or rather after having found the 'feel' for most lines and hexagrams, only then I turned back to Wilhelm. Where I had strayed too far off, I used Wilhelm to get back on track. Not as an authority, but as a guide. I think he is so good, because his I Ching is also a 'feel' one instead of only a translation.
Many others are better when you look purely at the translation, but they lack his 'feel'.

LiSe

 

[lindsay]

Bruce, you offer wise words as always, and encouragement too. But it would not be wise to encourage me too much. I might keep going.

Steve, I like the sound of what you are doing. I once did something similar by entering the whole Yi into Microsoft Access, with each unique character having its own database entry. This proved very useful for a certain kind of statistical textual analysis. I predict it will not be long before you are working with the Chinese – which is not, by the way, modern Chinese, but an ancient, literary variant somewhat like classical Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. There is no need to know modern or spoken Chinese to read the Yi.

Ewald, it may be true that in the world of translating the Yi, Richard Wilhelm is “the elephant in the room” - and, as you say, James Legge is probably the woolly mammoth standing right next to him. However, it is also true a lot of translators have gone out of their way to avoid mimicking Wilhelm and Legge and the Song influences (Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi) that dominated their thinking.

Of the 15 good translators I mentioned in my last posting, only two – Henry Wei and Alfred Huang – seem to show a heavy debt to Wilhelm. I am going to use the term “Modernist”, which hails back to a school of Chinese scholars who applied insights from the Shang oracle bones to the Yi, for any translator who tries to reconstruct the original meaning of the Yi as it was understood before the time of Confucius.

- John Blofeld says in his Preface that he tried to correct the many errors he believed Wilhelm made.
- Greg Whincup was an early Western follower of the Modernists (like Kunst) and came up with the first narrative theory of the King Wen sequence I know of.
- Kerson and Rosemary Huang are brilliant Modernists who went beyond Kunst and Whincup and still haven’t received due recognition.
- Wu Jing-Nuan was a semi-Modernist influenced by Daoist ideas. I find his work very appealing.
- Thomas Cleary got a doctorate in Chinese from Harvard and didn’t follow anybody’s lead. I have no idea how he comes by his translations, since he rarely explains anything and never cites sources.
- Richard John Lynn is one of first “contextual” translators who tried to put himself inside the mind of Wang Bi and duplicate Wang’s view of the Yi.
- Shaughnessy is another “contextual” translator who attempted to offer a historically accurate translation of the Mawangdui text.
- Fu Youde et al. are Modernists of a sort. They owe nothing to Wilhelm.
- Chan Chiu Ming is a Chinese academic with a wild and interesting brand of Modernism. He seems to be using Chinese scholarship not generally known in the West.

Even Henry Wei and Alfred Huang, who are at home with the classic Song reading of the Yi, part company with Wilhelm rather often on issues of translation.

Based on this, I would say Wilhelm has largely been a negative defining influence for most serious recent Western translators. This is not to say there is anything wrong with Wilhelm’s translation. In some ways, it was too successful. But it was saturated with traditional Neo-Confucian ideas and values, which are poison to a lot of people today (often for political reasons). I don’t feel that way. I like the Wilhelm translation, and find it far richer and more profound than most of the blood-and-thunder renditions of the Modernists. I don’t know if the Yijing is a wisdom book or not (in the tradition of the great masters of the Axial Age), but there is a lot more wisdom in Wilhelm than there is in Kunst or Rutt. It is the most philosophical of all translations.

If you want to go back to the roots of the Yi, and try to reconstruct the original meaning of the text, you probably have to leave Wilhelm behind. But if you want to use the Yi the way the Chinese themselves have used it for centuries, and follow a long tradition of interpretation beginning no later than the Han, then Wilhelm may still be your best option.

Lindsay

LiSe, I'm sorry I wrote all this before I read your post.

 

[bruce_g]

Along the lines of LiSe’s “feeling” post, I’ve wondered what it may have been like before there was writing in ancient times. A father, teacher, elder, aunt, grandmother takes the young one into the forest, using nature and/or some form of magic to impart to the young one an important life lesson. Mountain, water, thunder, sky, lake, fire, wind and earth: the tools to teach. There was no Yijing book, no tarot cards, and only vague knowledge of the stars; though there may have been the entrails of an animal or the tossing of a stick, cooking of shells and such, by which a connection to the unseen world could be made.

Is this any less Yijing than what we call Yijing today? No question, Yi has a unique history from a unique culture, but it’s truths and lessons lived long before the “Yijing”. I don’t mean to be too irreverent, but sometimes it seems the focus is on face of Yi rather than the heart of Yi. There never seems a shortage of mind of Yi though; not that that’s a bad thing. Many people who have deep understanding of what Yijing teaches have never cracked the book, much less a tortoise shell.

I think all this is interesting, and some of it is truly great, but I also think that any niche interest runs the risk of living in a bubble.

 

[lindsay]

"I think all this is interesting, and some of it is truly great, but I also think that any niche interest runs the risk of living in a bubble." -- Bruce G.

This could be the most interesting topic ever discussed in this forum.

Interesting because the stakes are high. There is the possibility we are all self-deluded fools. It could be, as Bruce suggests, we all live in a bubble. Is the Yijing a "niche interest"? Well, how many people do you know who are as interested in the Yi as you are? How often do you say, at work or in a public forum, "Wait a minute, folks! I think we should ask the Yi about this question"? How many people, over the entire life of Clarity, do you think have visited this forum? How many paid readings do you think Hilary does every week?

Now, how many people go to church and contribute money? How many people follow sports? Who is interested in news about the stock market? What is the traffic like on celebrity websites? How many people watch television? Who cares about the latest fashions? Today's hot music?

Do you think Yi devotees enjoy a lot of social respect? Is divination widely considered a respectable pursuit? How do most people feel about claims to know the future? The unknowable in general?

So this is how it is. What can we say in our defense?

Lindsay

 

[bruce_g]

Could always ask Yi?

Lindsay, I think we finds it where we finds it, but "it" isn't very different no matter where it’s found. Joseph Campbell found it in mythology. Jung found it in psychology. Chris finds it in his science. Christians find it in Jesus, and on and on.

What makes a sports fan, rock concert audience or religious group come unglued with excitement? 16 and/or 51. What makes an expectant mother moody? 44. What makes a young kid ask so many questions? 4. There are no exclusive laws of I Ching, but it is a fascinating and in-depth map to navigate with. Those who make a god or gospel of it.. well.. ya know.

 

[bruce_g]

Just had a funny image. Well, to me it was, anyway.

Imagine that every member of our species underwent some sort of cosmic internal change, and they can no longer call “it” names. The best they could do is jump up and down, pointing at it! Now imagine the species also realized that “it” is in them: "it" is what they are made of. The world population, jumping up and down and pointing at themselves, and of course, at one another.

 

[ewald]

Lindsay - I do think it is hard not to get influenced by Wilhelm. For many his was one of their first translations they used. It is tempting to follow his interpretations, and for instance his interpunction.
Obviously, the Modernists have a quite different approach, and are not very likely to follow Wilhelm. Personally I not only have no use for their portrayal of barbarism, but I also don't quite trust their rewriting of the delivered text.

For the sake of illustration, I'm listing some translations of 61.3. I'm going to leave out the Modernists, as they have an entirely different approach.
This is the Chinese:

得 敵 ，
或 鼓 或 罷 ，
或 泣 或 歌 。

Legge has:

The third SIX, divided, shows its subject
having met with his mate.
Now he beats his drum, and now he leaves off.
Now he weeps, and now he sings.

Wilhelm/Baynes:

He finds a comrade.
Now he beats the drum, now he stops.
Now he sobs, now he sings.

There's not much of a difference between these two.

Balkin's usually close to Wilhelm, but in this case does differ:

He finds a rival.
Now he beats the drum, now he stops.
Now he sobs, now he sings.

The mate or comrade has changed to a rival, but the rest is identical to Wilhelm/Baynes.

Sasha Newborn uses the word hu to mean he/she:

Hu meets hus rival.
Now hu beats a drum, now hu stops.
Hu sobs, then hu sings.

Here it's a rival too, but the rival is met, not found. The rest is, save for the use of hu, and leaving out of the third now, identical to Wilhelm/Baynes.

Leary has two different translations.
In the Buddhist I Ching:

Finding a mate,
one sometimes drums, sometimes stops,
sometimes cries, sometimes sings.

In the Taoist I Ching:

Finding enemies,
sometimes drumming, sometimes stopping,
sometimes crying, sometimes singing.

He has both mate and enemies. The word now is changed to sometimes.
In general I have found that Leary stays pretty close to Wilhelm's.

Unfortunately I only have a Dutch translation of Alfred Huang's. I'm going to translate this to English, as I think it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong:

Confronting an opponent.
Now he beats the drum, now he stops.
Now she sobs, now she sings.

Strangely, the other person is confronted, not found. This is in my view an incorrect translation of 得, which basically means to get.

Karcher, in The Elements of the I Ching:

You acquire an antagonist, an equal and opposed force. You beat the drums to sound the attack, then you call for a cease-fire. You weep, then you laugh. There is very little you can do in this situation. It is not really appropriate for you.

Here an interpretation is added for the drumming and the stopping. In effect he's translating 或 with now.

In case of consulting the Yi, it obviously matters a lot whether someone comes out to be a comrade or a foe. Strangely, dictionaries mention both as meanings for 敵. A rival is someone who is not quite an enemy, but not a partner either, so I can see how translators solve the dilemma by using this as a translation. I wonder how the dictionaries got to listing these opposite meanings, though.

When I found that 鼓, to drum, can also mean arouse, stir up, motivate, and that the sobbing 泣, is particulary weeping silently, I noticed that in the second and third parts of this line there are opposing pairs. Stirring up and stopping go against each other, weeping silently and singing also do. So 敵 is in my view correctly translated with words like opponent, antagonist, and perhaps enemy, but not with mate or comrade.

This is currently my translation of 61.3:

Getting an opponent.
One stirs up, the other quits.
One weeps silently, the other sings.

 

[lindsay]

Ewald, your post is very, very interesting - but I have to go away for a few days. Can you wait for a reply? I hope so, because your stuff is too good to miss.

Lindsay

 

[ewald]

Sure, Lindsay.

 

[hal_c]

Thanks Lindsay, Ewald, everyone.

"Do you think Yi devotees enjoy a lot of social respect? Is divination widely considered a respectable pursuit? How do most people feel about claims to know the future? The unknowable in general?

So this is how it is. What can we say in our defense?"


In our defense, we can say that everyone confronts the unknown, is at the mercy of the unknown, and that Yi divination works. When the Yi, the question and the diviner click, a disaster can be forestalled, or a good thing can happen. Anyone can relate to that.

What can we say in our defense when we are using the Yi for far more than the life changing question? It must be, at this point, that we are seeking wisdom. I do wonder that I run a risk of being without proper guidance, at times. This is regretful.

For this reason, I agree with you Lindsay, that this could be the most interesting topice discussed in this forum.

I know that I find myself turning most often the back section of Wilhelm, where the relation and position of the line are explained. In cases of quandry, this section usually helps put some balance of the question in perspective. But not always, as in the case I am currently working with, hexagram 18, line 2.

This has been a fascinating discussion, thank you Lindsay for all of your excellent points and research.

 

[stevev]

What can we say in our defence?

It took my thoughts with me, on the answer to this question, when I posted to http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=3045&page=5 I had a lot to defend. The IChing receives no respect in the world I live in. I remember hearing Confucius jokes long before I had ever seen the IChing, you still occasionally hear misquoted sayings like when bird in tree sings before three, or something like that. So what, most people’s heads are full of junk, at least the IChing is an attempt at cleaning it out, there may be better ways but for me the IChing just reached out and grabbed me and I still like the feeling of it’s hands around my neck? wrist? just where the bloody hell has it got me ?

 

[bruce_g]

Hal and Steve, excellent points. Thanks for also defending why I remain a student of Yi.

Forgive another opinion on this, and only based on what I’ve witnessed - by no means a conclusive study:

I believe a student of life does best to have many influences but only one master/teacher. To be devoted to one master/teacher doesn’t call us to ignore other benevolent influences or inspirations, unless it is a jealous god. Yet, those who run from one teacher to another never seem to ground themselves enough in any teaching to make much personal progress. For whatever reason, whether I chose it, it chose me, or we were drawn to one another, the I Ching continues to be my most valuable teacher. Or, is the I Ching my most valuable influence, while I follow only my own master? hrmm...


I throw myself on the mercy of judge and jury.

 

[stevev]

Guilty as charged !

For me the IChing is my master reference. All other influences get classified within in the structure where where their opposites and complements and inverses and transverses help put them into perspective.

 

[bradford]

Hi-
Pardon if I missed something here. Been too busy to read all the posts.
Lindsay showed the character Huang, usually translated Yellow, Yellow Brown or Golden.
In the Early Zhou it derived lots of it's associations as the color of the Loess soil and so became a strong Earth symbol, or of the middleness of the middle kingdom. It had a strong attribute of humility, but especially the great beauty one finds in the ordinary. Thence it came to symbolize true or real value. In this it carries many of the meanings of our word "Golden", which although not always a strictly literal translation, often carries the intended meaning the best. It also picked up some rather Taurean associations from it being the color of rawhide, which could be both pliable and firm. The Zhouyi use was of couse too early for Confucius and his Mean, or for any kind of Imperial glory connotations.
From the dictionary on Loess:
loess |les; ləs; ˈlōˌes| noun Geology a loosely compacted yellowish-gray deposit of windblown sediment of which extensive deposits occur, e.g., in eastern China and the American Midwest.

 

[lindsay]

Are we still talking about yellow? Here is a quote I read recently:

"The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks." -- Randall Jarrell, American poet, 1914-1965.

I like this quote because it pokes fun at people who pursue the brilliant insights of a Golden Age, whether it be in Greece or China or Atlantis. A great deal of the motivation behind the quest for the Zhouyi belongs to this sort of thinking. Confucius himself was enthralled with the brilliance of the Zhou past, which - strangely enough! - justified his ideas against those of his more popular contemporaries. Could it be that something like this is going on today?

But back to the color yellow. Brad makes a point already made by Ewald and also by Richard Rutt in this string, that huang2 originally referred to a kind of earthy yellow-brown color - though I am not at all sure how anybody knows this is true? In fact, it worries me to read "huang2 li2" in 30.2, a phrase that either means either "yellow light" or "brilliant yellow" - a lively hue that does not agree well with the loess hypothesis.

If you want to chase yellow through the whole Yi, here are all the places where huang2 is found: 2.5, 2.6. 21.5, 30.2, 33.2, 40.2, 49.1, and 50.5. I suggest you look at them all, and draw your own conclusions. After all, once you have seen them, you are an expert as much as anyone!

O, Ewald! I don't know if I can do without drumming in line 61.3. As you say, nearly all translators render gu3 as some form of "beating on a drum" - which may be the influence of Wilhelm, or possibly the recognition that this is what it means.

Anyway, here are two translators who march to the beat of their own drummer:

Greg Whincup:

"Enemy captives:
Some are vigorous and some exhausted.
Some weep and some sing."

The Huangs:

"The enemy is ours.
Some feel elated, others tired.
Some are weeping and some sing."

Obviously, both are Modernist renditions, and both stress - in the usual bloodthirsty way - that di2 means "enemy", even though my dictionaries suggest "competitor, rival, opponent" for di2.

One interesting thing about 61.3 is the song-like structure based on the repetition of huo4 and the rhyme between ba4 and ge1:

huo4 gu3 -- sometimes beat the drum
huo4 ba4 -- sometimes stop
huo4 qi4 -- sometimes weep
huo ge1 -- sometimes sing sad songs

Richard Rutt tries to duplicate the poetic, metrical value of the lines with this free translation:

"Great drums thud, tabor-beats surge;
Some fall to weeping, some start a dirge."

So the sound of the line in Chinese makes it a kind of song or sing-song verse. This doesn't validate any particular meaning except that all the characters must be viewed as a unified expression, with a single theme. The whole would have to be memorable enough to become a popular expression.

If this is true, then the first two characters - de2 di2 - are separate from the rest. They mean "obtaining or gaining" "a rival or opponent". They supply the frame or context for the folk saying or rhyme. Something with a similar structure in English might be:

Loosing control.
"A stitch in time
Saves nine."

Here "loosing control" is the context or situation. "A stitch in time saves nine" is a loosely rhymed piece of folk wisdom that conveys how we should interpret the situation: By not taking early precautions, one has lost control of the situation.

This is just an example of what may be going on in 61.3. Personally I think "beating the drum" is likely to be the correct translation of the parallel action referred to in the verse, if for no other reason than concrete images seem more likely to be incorporated into folk sayings.

Lindsay

 

[bradford]

Are we still talking about yellow? Here is a quote I read recently:

"The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks." -- Randall Jarrell, American poet, 1914-1965.

In fact, it worries me to read "huang2 li2" in 30.2, a phrase that either means either "yellow light" or "brilliant yellow" - a lively hue that does not agree well with the loess hypothesis.

Lindsay

Hi Lindsay
Thanks for the quote. One for the collection.
Just to point out a third option for huang li-
golden light - the kind of light I used to hope most for when doing photography,
just warm and rich, like near dawn and sunset

From the Sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant one: gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman roweth even with golden oars! For this did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it.
Nietzsche, TSZ *56-3

 

[ewald]

Brad makes a point already made by Ewald and also by Richard Rutt in this string, that huang2 originally referred to a kind of earthy yellow-brown color - though I am not at all sure how anybody knows this is true?

The "yellow ox's" from 33.2 and 49.1 are of this yellow-brown color. The "yellow metal" in 21.5 is probably bronze, which is not like the primary color yellow, but more yellow-brown. When referring to old age, of Chinese, the yellow is also some kind of yellow-brown.

Lindict has this entry "黃土 [SIZE=-1][huang2tu3][/SIZE], n., loess" (yellow soil).

So I'm pretty convinced myself that this yellow is yellow-brown.

During a part of my youth, I lived in a rural village in the East of the Netherlands, which was known for its loess. The name of that sand always struck me as peculiar to the dialect being spoken there. It's a bit strange to me to see Americans talk about loess as a kind of sand in China.

 

[lindsay]

OK, guys, I'm convinced! Huang2 = "golden, yellow-brown, loess-color." (Does loess only come in one color?) Brad's reference to golden light, the color of dawn and sunset, was especially compelling. I once read this advice in a photography magazine while waiting for the dentist: if you want to create a sense of times past, nostalgia, then one should bathe your photo in yellow light, using Photoshop or some such visual editing program. Hazy focus helps too.

Also, I have heard - but have no solid information on this point - that the ancient Chinese did not value gold as highly as other ancient peoples. Gold was valuable, but not the most treasured material or substance. Anybody know whether this is true?

Lindsay

 

[hmesker]

Also, I have heard - but have no solid information on this point - that the ancient Chinese did not value gold as highly as other ancient peoples. Gold was valuable, but not the most treasured material or substance. Anybody know whether this is true?

Yes, this is true. Jade was valued much higher than gold because it doesn't rust or melt or bend. Gold was only used for small ornaments and decoration.

Harmen.

 

[ewald]

(Does loess only come in one color?)

See for instance Loess: Face of the Earth:

Loess is a geologically recent deposit of silt or material which is usually yellowish or brown in color and consisting of tiny mineral particles brought by wind to the places where they now lie.

Google image search on loess.

 

[bruce_g]

"So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough

Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road"

 

[bruce_g]

Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,--
Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words.

Emily Dickinson

 

[bruce_g]

With all due respect…

The point, gentlemen, I’m not so subtly making is that, yellow by any other name or language is still yellow. Isn’t yellow an archetype, after all? Yellow dirt, flower, sunset, golden ring, yellow ribbon around the old oak tree – the feeling yellow gives is forever clearer than words can describe it.

It’s funny: only men would argue the meaning of yellow. I recall debating with my best friend for 3 solid hours whether blind people see. Mars Hill ain’t got nothin’ on us!

 

[lindsay]

Delete this string!

Well, Bruce, I guess you’re right. There’s really no point in trying to discuss the Yijing in detail. Most people probably find it boring – and I suppose I should apologize for taking up space that Chris and Martin could have used to better advantage.

There are so many more interesting things to talk about: whether Boodle should leave her boyfriend, or Coodle should change his job, or Doodle move to another part of town. These people need our help. Thank goodness a detailed understanding of the Yi is irrelevant to being a qualified personal advisor. Thank goodness there are five or six people here who know everything there is to know about working with the Yi, and are willing to share their expertise with us on a daily basis. If it weren’t for them, we might have to think for ourselves.

I don’t know why people study texts in old languages anyway – really a waste of time when there are so many good translations available. Re-inventing the wheel. If people spent half the time they waste studying Hebrew and Greek on reading the Bible in its original, authorized language – English - they might learn what the Bible really says about the important issues of our time, live better lives, and raise better children. The same goes for the Yi. Even if we can’t read the Chinese text of the Yi, we all know what it means anyway, right?

How can you take a person seriously who spends his whole life talking about yellow? That’s all guys like me think about. Jeez, maybe we can get Hilary to delete the whole thread, so new people won’t see how stupid people can be on this site. It’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?

I'm so, so sorry for what I've done.

Lindsay

 

[jesed]

Well, I guess "yellow" wasn't the color of measure, after all.

Isn't?

 

[bruce_g]

LOL, Lindsay. To the contrary, I love reading the details of what experts have to say – really! Please note that I included myself in the company of those who will argue the wings off a butterfly. It’s mostly a guy thing.

But, just being honest, it does strike my funny bone sometimes just how infinitesimally fine the details of translation can become among experts, when the heart of the matter – regardless which langue or translation or time period it’s from - is so obviously self-expressed.

But please don’t stop on my account. I enjoy it, as I’m sure others do.

 

[lindsay]

Good for you, Bruce! Jesed's right, of course. Just because I've dedicated my life to yellow doesn't mean I've absorbed any of its implications or symbolic values. When I'm in a certain kind of mood, I can't resist going over the top. Why should chicks have all the fun in this forum? If guys want to count angels dancing on the head of a pin instead of talking endlessly about "relationships," where's the harm in it? Remember: you're only young once, but you can be immature forever!

Lindsay

 

[bruce_g]

LOL!

:bows:

 

[bradford]

There's a personality color test out there called Luscher.
I took it once while trying to feel an exaggerated distaste
for the color yellow. Apparently Mr Luscher is a great fan
of the color yellow, cuz the results came out pegging me
as the vilest, sorriest, angriest, most pitiful somebitch
that ever lived.
Had to go out and bang on some pots to cheer up.