Translating #23 - bed or riverbed

[lightofdarkness]

to be 'picky', so

7 + 3(8) = 5 + 5(10) = 9 + 1(16) = 10 as a quality

representations are:

5 + 5 = 10 (quality of 10)
7 + 1 = 10 (quality of 8)
F + 1 = 10 (quality of 16)

 

[ewald]

After reading Brad's translation I realized that the Xiaoxiang line commentaries might be illuminating. After translating them myself, my impression is that it's something active happening here, not a gradual process of wearing out of which we see the results. That is, if we can take the Xioaxiang as authoritative... (can we?)

Line 1
... in order to destroy the lower part

Line 2
... not yet having them together

Line 3
... getting rid of the upper and the lower

Line 4
... cut(ting) close to disaster

Line 5
For the palace's favored people there is eventually nothing particular


The talk about "higher" and "lower" suggests that Zu2 must mean something that's a lower part ("feet", "legs", "base"), and not "sufficiently" as I thought.

The "destroy", "getting rid" and "cut(ting)" suggest an active process of damaging.


Ewald

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Ewald-
On this question:
"That is, if we can take the Xioaxiang as authoritative... (can we?)"

I'd have to vote no on "authoritative".
I'd say it has something really good to offer a third of the time, is wholly wide of the mark another third. About the same for the Tuan Zhuan.

Still it can be useful, as I think it is in the lines of 23. The active destruction I think is taken on behalf of gravity, to pull the over-exalted down to earth.

 

[ewald]

It's almost a year later now.

I googled on the Chinese characters bo1 chuang2 for "stripping the bed" and found a couple of texts they are in (next to scores of Zhouyi texts). These are the texts, I made provisional translations:

Shui1 Hu1 chapter 57
http://cls.admin.yzu.edu.tw/shz/bin/body.asp?CHNO=057 :
<blockquote>Ten ways for the military to strengthen the army for action come, the general of the army has difficulty to avoid stripping the bed disaster. Horses on iron chain scatter like smoke, happy to get alone, bodies going beyond the nine boundaries.</blockquote>

Shui1 Hu1 chapter 42
http://cls.admin.yzu.edu.tw/shz/bin/body.asp?CHNO=042 :
<blockquote>Further being happy that the remaining years get life back, stripping the bed profoundly happy to shed off the bad disaster. Looking up to Heaven praying to thank the compassionate Chaogai. The secret handle on the family garden received gets back.</blockquote>

http://big5.chinabroadcast.cn/gate/big5/gb.chinabroadcast.cn/3601/2004/07/13/883@230297.htm :
<blockquote>Buddhist hymn of the clouds: "Primary Chi far and wide returns to the highest purity, again following the Red Bird under the Jade-white Capital. Stripping the bed seven days for the soul to come again, under the sky equally seeing sun and moon clearly."</blockquote>


I can't say the meaning of stripping the bed is now completely clear, but from the contexts a few conclusions can be drawn.

As stripping the bed doesn't seem to make much sense in these three texts, it's apparently an expression. It doesn't have to do with beds (or raised floors) per se.

Chuang2 is a raised bed (or floor). If one strips something that is raised, it isn't there any more. So I'd say stripping the bed means "removing the bed," which is something one does when one is packing one's things to leave a place that was like home. I think this meaning fits in all the contexts that I'm now aware of.

 

[ewald]

I believe it shows from the Fanyao whether in 23.1, 23.2 and 23.4 the fourth character of the lines means either foot/leg/base, edge and skin, or sufficiency/excess, discerning/separation and superficiality.

I see only the latter making sense resonating with 27.1 (for 23.1), 4.2 (for 23.2) and 35.4 (for 23.4).

So this is:
<blockquote>line 1: Removing the bed because of sufficiency,
line 2: Removing the bed because of separation,
line 4: Removing the bed because of superficiality.</blockquote>

 

[heylise]

I saw "stripping the bed" as removing the bedding. At night it is used for sleeping, but in the daytime for sitting on it. So there is a difference between using it for rest, or for living on it.

For line 4 I also have the superficiality, but for line 1 "Stripping the rest(ingplace) through realism", and for line 2 "Stripping the rest(ingplace) by discerning". Realism makes you go for the things you see as reality, as part of your life. So you leave the bed, or use it for working, talking, meeting someone, whatever. 27.1 tells you also to do what works for you (your tortoise) instead of wanting what someone else does. And discerning has a similar effect. Get up and do what you see as necessary, viable. Make a son who can look after the family later. In both cases things go wrong if you don't follow the realism/discerning.

In line 4, leaving your rest for the sake of running after superficial things, connects very well with the running-around squirrel of 35.4.

LiSe

 

[hmesker]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

As stripping the bed doesn't seem to make much sense in these three texts, it's apparently an expression.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
That is correct, but this expression comes directly from the Yijing. The books you refer to are relatively young (the Water Margin is regarded as a text from the mid-16th century), and probably quote the Yijing. In later centuries 'bo chuang' meant the disaster of the persecution of good and loyal men, or the disaster of oppression (HYDCD-2.714-B). 'Bo chuang' seems to refer to disasters caused by matters close by, in your own home, or by close relatives - your foundation, so to say.

Harmen.

 

[ewald]

Thanks Harmen - So at the end of the day all I learnt was that more recent Chinese texts can get their expressions from the Yijing..

 

[hmesker]

It is 13:00 here - you still have half a day left

.

 

[ewald]

Yes, but I already spent that half day yesterday;-)

 

[kevin]

Hi Ewald
That was fascinating.

Perhaps you did uncover something - Presumably when the usage of the phrases reflects the meaning of the phrase at the time of use. Surely there must be a little semantic memory attaching it to the original meaning.

But I guess academics can't assume.