Confucius: The Analects (Lun yü) (review)

170 China Review International: Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1994 objects, and geological observations that have made all ofthe last thirty years of exceptional interest to those involved in the subject, from the craftsman potter to the art historian, fhe social historian, and the museum curator. Each of these papers is supported by generous references and notes and each is illustrated fully in black and white. This collection stands as a useful and scholarly summary of much that is going on in Aie field. It must have been a good symposium. Mary Tregear Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (retired)® D. C. Lau, translator. Confucius: The Analects (Lun yü). Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1992. liii, 288 pp. HK $280. D. C. Lau first published his translation of Confucius: The Analects with Penguin in 1979. In 1983, Chinese University Press published a bilingual edition of this Penguin translation in their Chinese Classics: Chinese-English Series. Ten years have passed, and a newly revised bilingual edition has now been published. D. C. Lau's revisions—affecting many of the passages—can be described in the following terms. The revisions are generally confined to the translation of the text itself, with only minor changes in the translations contained in Appendix 1: Events in Aie Life of Confucius; Appendix 2: The Disciples as They Appear in the Analects; Appendix 3: The Lun yü; and the bibliography ofWorks Cited. One major feature of the revised edition is that Aiere is substantially more cross-referencing, alerting the reader to both repetition and association among various passages. In the notes to the Chinese text, Lau has continued to add parallel passages from the early corpus and citations found in later works that provide the careful reader with an opportunity for comparison (see XIV.26, XVLl, XVII.24). There are also many new explanatory notes on difficult passages. For example, Lau comments on Aie obscure expression, erh shun UfJIjH, in II.4, translated as "my ear was attuned": It is worth pointing out that the graph I= (sage) has an If (ear) component, y mversity ancj tnjs savmg 0fConfucius' may have some bearing on the fact that he was regarded as a sage by even his contemporaries (see e.g., IX.6). In places, Lau is only trying to make his resolutely literal translation even more ofHawai'i Press Reviews 171 literal. For example, in 1.5, the expression Wr^ "avoid excesses in expenditure" becomes "keep expenditure under proper regulation." Some of the "alterations" couldn't be more literal. In fhe first edition, Confucius was dressed in a rather long nightgown: í&flMíS ' fi—M'-fëX ° He invariably had a night robe which was halfas long again as he was tall. (X.6) Fortunately, on the basis of a suggested textual emendation, Lau is able to shorten Confucius' gown considerably: He invariably had a night shirt which came down to his knees. More often than not, the change in Aie translation is an attempt to get closer to the syntax of the original Chinese: O6Kf£ ' ¡tMffl} ' $n¿ÍRj ° How can one inculcate in the common people the virtue of reverence, of doing their best and of enthusiasm? (11.20) becomes: How can one get the common people to be reverent, to do their utmost and to be filled with enthusiasm? The changes made to IV.8 are a clear example ofwanting to retain fhe original metaphor: ISHIiE ' 9W°í^ ° He has not lived in vain who dies the day he is told about the Way. becomes: He has not lived in vain who dies in the evening, having been told about the Way in the morning. There are some revisions which are a matter of interpretation, and which have important philosophical implications: ^X^^iU^f^ ° Unless I take part in a sacrifice, it is as ifI did not sacrifice. (III.12) becomes: Unless I enter into the spirit of a sacrifice, it is as if I did not sacrifice. And there are alterations which are a clear admission on Aie translator's part that he failed to get it entirely right fhe first time around. In some places, the meaning ofthese passages has been changed incidentally, while in other places, it is...