22.2 - a beautiful beard

[diamanda]

Dear Charly,

Very sorry to hear your hard disc crashed, I hope the problem is fixed now.

Thanks so much for elaborating to such depth about that 須 character. I had never noticed before that this character also appears in line 54.3, thanks for pointing it out. In that line, the younger sister marries "due to beard/necessity/duty" (I really hope that the younger sister doesn't actually have a beard... on her chin that is, lol). What do you mean that the character there refers to "elder sister"?

Actually 須 xu1 has another meanings, among which FIBRE, FIBER, FIBROUS.
In my country FIBRA is used to mean COURAGE, WILL, CHARACTER, SENSIBILITY, FEELINGS.
Based in that use, a translation could be :

賁其須
bi4 qi2 xu1
MAKING HONOR TO ONE'S CHARACTER or FEELINGS
Say behaving accordingly with how is oneself, accordinly with one's will or one's feelings.
​

It's very interesting that 'fibre' in your language can show feelings and courage. It somehow brings to mind another character, from the changes of 27, 經 - which shows threads following a certain course. I can see how 'fibre' could show the substance one is made of.

Fantastic find that both Wilhelm and Schuessler seem to insist that it's a beard on the chin. Very possible that they wanted to avoid 'disreputable puns' as you say.

Honouring your DUTIES sounds like yet another very apt translation.

And also thanks for the link to that amazing old thread!

 

[charly]

(I really hope that the younger sister doesn't actually have a beard... on her chin that is, lol). What do you mean that the character there refers to "elder sister"?

Dear Diamanda:

Even young girls can have a beard in the chin if it is a false beard. About the Elder Sister:

(54) marriage
Gu Jiegang and Li Jingchi, referring to Ode 236.4–6, argued that Diyi, king of Shang, gave one of his own younger cousins to be King Wen’s principal wife while Wen was still Earl of Zhou. When that marriage produced no son, Wen raised the rank of one of the ‘sororal’ brides, the Lady Shen, who became his principal wife and the mother of King Wu. As one of the sororal brides, the Lady Shen too would have been a cousin of Diyi. This story accounts for obscurities in the line statements, including the excellence of the inferior lady’s dress and the infertility images in the top line. (See G194 and S240–4, where Edward Shaughnessy makes his own detailed application of the story to the hexagram.)
The Ode is not absolutely clear, but the relevant parts can be understood in this way:
He (Wen) had a bride from Shang,
a young cousin of Heaven.
Wen chose a lucky day
and met her at the River Wei,
building a bridge of boats –
it was a splendid sight.
Again a command from heaven,
orders for King Wen:
in Zhou, in the capital,
to make Lady Shen his next queen.
This eldest daughter played her part
and boldly bore King Wu.
‘Cousin of Heaven’ would mean ‘cousin of the monarch’ in Zhou usage, even though it here refers to a member of the Shang royal family.
(Tag) Guimei ‘A younger female cousin given in mariage’. The word for marriage from the bride’s point of view is gui ‘to come back’, because the bridegroom went to fetch her and bring her back to his own home. The word mei, often translated as ‘younger sister’, can also mean cousin, since it is applied to younger female cousins of the same generation.
(Base) According to the practice of sororal polygyny by Zhou kings, two or three younger sisters or cousins of the same generation would accompany the bride to her new home as secondary wives or concubines. There is a description of this in Ode 261.4:
A hundred carriages rumbled,
the eight bridle-bells jingled.
Incomparable was the splendour.
All her younger cousins accompanied her,
thick as clouds.
The Zuo Commentary contains a number of references to the practice, including: Yin year 1 (Legge p3); Zhuang year 19 (p99); Cheng year 8 (p368); Cheng year 10 (p374); and Ai year 12 (p826). See also Marcel Granet ‘La polygyny sororale et le sororat dans la Chine féodale’ (1920), reprinted in Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine (1953).
The sentence about the lame one who steps out is probably out of place and has nothing to do with the wedding story.
(2) The oracle belongs with the second part of the Base Line oracle: the two together are the same as 10:3.
The omen for a prisoner also occurs in Hexagram 10 (10:2).
(3) This line can be variously understood, largely because of doubt about the meaning of xu, here translated as ‘elder sister’ implying ‘senior wife’. This meaning is allowed by Karlgren’s ‘elder sister’ (including elder female cousin; K133e), and gives agreement with Gu Jiegang’s preferred story, mentioned above. The word can also be understood to mean ‘lady-in-waiting’ (D694), which perhaps means ‘secondary (or sororal) wife’. Kunst, invoking a loan character ru, says the bride went with her bondmaids (R 347).
‘Yet she marries …’ may mean ‘she made a visit to her mother’s house after the wedding.’
(4) ‘Missing her time’ most obviously means failing to bear a son, which would explain the promotion of the secondary bride by King Wen; but Gao (G316) interprets this as ‘postponing the wedding’.
(5) The finer sleeves represent the lady of Shen’s eventual advantage. Gao (G319) claims that the sentence means the second wife was more beautiful.
(Top) The two ritual offerings turned into bad omens. They are also dramatic symbols of an infertile union, referring to the first wife. This couplet has an internal rhyme, or is an alternately rhymed quatrain. Either way it is the only one found in Zhouyi.
In the Zuo Commentary (Duke Xi year 15, see also page 180), this couplet has a variant reading, giving the same meaning, but with different order of verses and different rhymes. The differences, which by their slightness bear witness to the integrity of the textual tradition, are illustrated by the following romanization and literal translation. The rhymes are repeated in Old Chinese transcription. The connective yi in B1 and D1 is possibly not to be regarded as part of the quoted text.
Received Text Zuo Commentary
A nu cheng kuang (*khjwang) woman bearing basket C shi hui yang (*jiang) man stabbing sheep
B wu shi (*dzjet) no fruit/content D1 (yi) wu huang (*xwang) no blood
C shi hui yang (*jiang) man stabbing sheep A nu cheng kuang (*khjwang) woman bearing basket
D wu xue (*xwet) no blood B1 (yi) wu kuang (*xjwang) no gift

Richard Rutt: Zhouyi.
Translation notes for H.54

All the best,

Charly

 

[charly]

Dear Diamanda:

Another quote:

beard (n.) Look up beard at Dictionary.com
Old English beard "beard," from West Germanic *barthaz (source also of Old Frisian berd, Middle Dutch baert, Old High German bart, German bart), seemingly from PIE *bhardh-a- "beard" (source also of Old Church Slavonic brada, Lithuanian barzda, and perhaps Latin barba "beard").

The Greek and Roman Churches have long disputed about the beard. While the Romanists have at different times practised shaving, the Greeks, on the contrary, have strenuously defended the cause of long beards. Leo III. (795 AD) was the first shaved Pope. Pope Gregory IV., after the lapse of only 30 years, fulminated a Bull against bearded priests. In the 12th century the prescription of the beard was extended to the laity. Pope Honorius III. to disguise his disfigured lip, allowed his beard to grow. Henry I. of England was so much moved by a sermon directed against his beard that he resigned it to the barber. Frederick Barbarossa is said to have been equally tractable. [Tom Robinson, M.D., "Beards," "St. James's Magazine," 1881]

Pubic hair sense is from 1600s (but neþir berd "pubic hair" is from late 14c.); in the 1811 "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," the phrase beard-splitter is defined as, "A man much given to wenching" (compare beaver in the slang genital sense).
beard (v.) Look up beard at Dictionary.com
c. 1300, "to grow or have a beard," from beard (n.). The sense of "confront boldly and directly" is from Middle English phrases such as rennen in berd "oppose openly" (c. 1200), reproven in the berd "to rebuke directly and personally" (c. 1400), on the same notion as modern slang get in (someone's) face. Related: Bearded; bearding.

Source: Etymonline
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=beard

Believeme, I din't invented it.

Yours,

Charly

 

[charly]

... Fantastic find that both Wilhelm and Schuessler seem to insist that it's a beard on the chin. Very possible that they wanted to avoid 'disreputable puns' as you say.
...

Dear Diamanda:

I understand Msrs. Baynes and Schuessler coincidence. it´s a literal translation of Wilhem:

22.2

Macht seinen Kinnbart anmutig.​

R.Wilhelm original german
http://schuledesrades.org/public/iging/buch/?Q=5/1/2/22

Google translates it as: «Making his chin beard graceful»

Baynes as: «Lends grace to the beard on his chin. »

I wonder if XU in chinese and BART in german have the same senses as BEARD in english.

All the best,

Charly

 

[diamanda]

Wow, a wealth of information, gracias! The Richard Rutt extract especially is very enlightening.

Believeme, I din't invented it.

I never thought you did!

 

[Fortuny1889]

I asked for practical advice:
How do I say this, how can I start the topic?

22.2> 26

I interpreted it as

do not have hair on the tongue

which in Italian is "do not mince words" a way of saying not to hold back in saying something true and irremediably serious, even if it can be unpleasant and annoying for the listener.

Then I found this tread ... interesting, so I wanted to leave my contribution.

F.

 

[IrfanK]

Here in the United States a "beard" can mean someone who is pretending to be the escort. Thus if a woman, Jill, is having an affair with a married man, Joe, she might arrange to "bump into him" at a restaurant while she is with Jim, who is the beard. The three of them then sit down together and anyone seeing them would assume Jill is out on a date with Jim but actually she is with Joe.

I've heard it used (by Americans) to refer to a gay man who has a female friend (his "beard") to pass as heterosexual. Similar kind of idea, I guess.

The only thing I can think of from Indonesian is the expression seperti kebakaran jenggot (like his beard was on fire). This refers to an unpleasant situation that causes panic and consternation and requires a swift defensive response.

 

[marybluesky]

In Persian:

to pawn your own beard= to use your own credibility to help someone in predicament;

bad stuff is to stay on its owner's beard butt= the owner of a damaged/ low-quality material has to keep it as no one will take/buy it- often used when someone finds flaws in something recently bought/taken;

to give beard& scissors to someone= to give someone full authority in a matter;

not to bleach own beard in the mill= to gain experience with age

 

[Trojina]

Er Mary when you write 'bread' I'm guessing you mean beard ? 2 very different things and you have said 'bread' all the way through your post. I was really puzzled.

 

[rosada]

Beard/Bread: These last postings reminded me of how my mother once referred to moldy bread as "growing a beard". I must have been about 4 at the time. Totally grossed me out. Still remember all these years later..!

 

[mandarin_23]

Hi Diamanda,
in Germany we say "das hat einen Bart" (this has a beard, is bearded) when we hear explanations that are outdated, outgrown, not new or fresh, or if we hear some news we've known already. Like "Oh, really, I've heard about that before". This idiom expresses boredom. So this idiom is used - not for lies, but for boring theories and perspectives, for jokes we have heard before, for ideas which are not really thrilling.

 

[marybluesky]

Er Mary when you write 'bread' I'm guessing you mean beard ? 2 very different things and you have said 'bread' all the way through your post. I was really puzzled.

Yes I mean beard. I edited the post, but was repeating the mistake while editing it