wei2

[dobro p]

Wei2 crops up in four places: 17.6, 29, 35.6, and 40.5

Karcher renders it 'hold fast' and I've been operating inside that general meaning, but I've also looked at Bradford's lexicon and although there's a huge cluster of meanings, none of them line up with 'hold fast'.

What's your take on it?

ps I've been rendering it as 'attached'.

 

[dobro p]

By the way, it's 35.6 I'm primarily interested in right now. (I've drawn it twice in the last week.) Bradford renders it 'confined' in his Yi. Gee... I'm confused.

 

[Sparhawk]

What's your take on it?

ps I've been rendering it as 'attached'.

維

IMO, "Attached," seems to talk about the subject post-fact. "To tie," "to secure," "to maintain," "to safeguard," as in active action, sounds better to me.

 

[toganm]

維

IMO, "Attached," seems to talk about the subject post-fact. "To tie," "to secure," "to maintain," "to safeguard," as in active action, sounds better to me.

The left side of the character is a thread and the bottom of it represents the twisting of several small threads into a big one, and the right side which is the phonetic part,is a small bird.

" The original meaning and reading of the character is *wij 'to bind, tie' attested in Early Zhou (Shuowen glosses it as "cover of a carriage" - perhaps as "smth. tied"?)."

惟 is the alternative form but then it can mean to consider, to think on, care, sorrow

Hope this helps
Togan

 

[dobro p]

維

IMO, "Attached," seems to talk about the subject post-fact. "To tie," "to secure," "to maintain," "to safeguard," as in active action, sounds better to me.

Yes. Karcher's 'hold fast' suggests 'hang on tight and don't let go'. Whatcha think about that idea?

 

[Sparhawk]

Yes. Karcher's 'hold fast' suggests 'hang on tight and don't let go'. Whatcha think about that idea?

Yes, I like Karcher's interpretation as it can be used contextually with many situations. Now, I was just checking Karlgren's GSR on this character (GSR 575o) and he has this to say:

...to tie, bind together (Shi); guiding rope of a net; guiding principle, rule; loan for but, only; a particle; to be. {my note: "Shi" means that it is a character that appears in the Shijing and therefore was in use before 650 B.C. and perhaps as early as 1000 B.C.}
​

Axel Schuessler's "Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese" has pretty much the same.

Now, I also like the contextually possible meanings of "guiding principle, rule." Something to consider...

 

[bradford]

Wei2 crops up in four places: 17.6, 29, 35.6, and 40.5

Karcher renders it 'hold fast' and I've been operating inside that general meaning, but I've also looked at Bradford's lexicon and although there's a huge cluster of meanings, none of them line up with 'hold fast'.

What's your take on it?

ps I've been rendering it as 'attached'.

Dobro-
That's a different Wei2 that shows up in my glossary, which only has words that show up five or more times in the Yi. The Wei that you saw with so many meanings was the wei in wu wei, not "doing."

For this Wei2 I have in my Matrix:
limit, confine, constrain, restrain, hold


The line is advising restraint. Like "rein in" if you want to make use of the word's radical (#120, rope).
Hold back would be better here than hold fast, although hold fast works well at 17.6.

 

[dobro p]

Thanks, BH. That'll help a lot. I like the way the meaning of 'rein in' you give works well with Sparhawk's Karlgren's 'guiding principle or rule'. Nice. Perhaps 'rein' would work even better?