Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings by Brook Ziporyn

The Zhuangzi has done well by English-language translators. For example, every two decades, another Sinologist has given it a new life. In the sixties, Burton Watson took our understanding to new heights. In 1981, A. C. Graham produced an (incomplete) effort marked by rigorous fidelity, philological precision, and philosophical sophistication.

In the Oughts, Victor Mair (complete) and Brook Ziporyn (partial) added their productions. Now, Ziporyn has essayed a complete (and much revised) version, which deserves praise and close attention.¹

Watson's streamlined modernist prose, one-part Waley, one-part Hemingwayesque vernacular, offered the optimal vehicle for conveying the Zhuangzi. Thus, Watson found a powerful resonance between the Zhuangzi and the inclinations of postwar Beat- and Zen-influenced freedom-seeking American culture. Graham's version, while not usually so smoothly elegant, remains unrivaled for honest and high-resolution insight into the Chinese original. So, what's left for Ziporyn to contribute? First, Ziporyn's philosophical acumen, while not quite a match for Graham's incisive authority, still runs a strong second. Readers can confirm this simply by reading Ziporyn's introductory "Zhuangzi as Philosopher" (Ziporyn ix, xxi–xxviii). Sometimes, Ziporyn can convey his insights with superb English equivalents. In Zhuangzi ii's difficult 滑疑之耀,聖人之所圖也 … 此之謂以明, Ziporyn 16 comes up with "the Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage's only map." This nearly rivals Watson 42: "The torch of chaos and doubt—this is what the sage steers by." Moreover, Ziporyn neatly conveys the Zhuangzian suggestion that in our darkened world, with our "way" obscured by all sorts of fixations and words (compare 道隱於小 成,言隱於榮華), we find our way only by the dimmest and most doubtful of illumination. As the Zhuangzi went on to say, only this gives us a way to "shed light" 以明. Elsewhere, Ziporyn capitalizes on the spirit of his age to outdo his predecessors. At Zhuangzi i 神人, Ziporyn 6's "spiritlike persons" adds a little woke sensibility to smooth the rendition; note that the original Chn specified neither number or gender. Ziporyn far outdoes the clumsy Watson "Holy Man" (holy cow), Mair "spirit man," and Graham "daemonic man." Ziporyn also pays close attention to people's names, often rendering them with brio and invention. Consider his (Zhuangzi xxxii, Ziporyn 260) 緩 Slowpoke, or the inspired punning 梱 Jamb (Zhuangzi xxv, Ziporyn 202)! Elsewhere, when faced with a mindboggling enumeration of obscure old demons (Zhuangzi xix, Ziporyn 153), he comes up with "Tufties," "Antfrogs," and so on.² Ziporyn also makes frequent and sometimes adroit use of the "double translation" technique (see "Introduction," xxxiv–xxxv). A characteristic example exploits a famously polysemous Chinese graph (Zhuangzi xiii, Ziporyn 30):

與人和者,謂之人樂: Harmonizing with humanity produces the music, the joy, of humanity.

Here, arguably 樂 at least implies both senses; compare the older English "glee." Though one might balk at recommending equivocation as solution for translation headaches, what text better rewards pluralist approaches than the Zhuangzi, which so prominently recommends "walk both ways at once" 兩行?

An awful asymmetry attends translation reviews. You can only say "this works" a few times before readers begin to nod. But "this doesn't"—for whatever the variety of potential reasons—needs fuller accounting, both to warn readers and to inform authorial revision. After all, translations have a long commercial life. So, we shall illustrate problems at length, though they occupy a small percentage of Ziporyn's text.

Above all, readers want to beware translations that, while plausible in English, import questionable assumptions into old Chinese texts. Case in point:

若夫藏天下於天下而不得所遯,是恆物之大情也. Ziporyn tries

"hide the world in the world, so that there is nowhere for it to escape to, then it has the vast realness of a thing eternal."

(Zhuangzi vi, Ziporyn 56)

The Chinese text did not wax metaphysical about "reality," nor less did it invoke "eternality." You would better keep to a more modest and faithful understanding of the last phrase, such as "the grand inclinations that keep things on a relatively constant keel." Of course, none of the major contenders escaped this passage unscathed.

We mentioned "shedding light" above; we must add that Ziporyn 14–16 "Illumination of the Obvious" neither conveys the original force nor, finally, sheds much light. The long note "M" (Ziporyn 24–25) sheds no additional light on this troubling phrase, which readers may ponder in the uncertain glimmer of "the torch of chaos and doubt," above. A spate of recent Chinese-language monographs on 以明 only highlights its obscurity.³ Ironically, Ziporyn has tumbled into the very trap set for unwary experts in the following paragraph from Zhuangzi ii (Ziporyn 16):

"they tried to make others understand as obvious what was not obvious to them, and thus some ended their days in the darkness of debate."

We praised Ziporyn for "double translations," but one has to look case by case.

*vi 有真人而後有真知 BZ 53:

there can be "a Genuine Understanding" only after there is such a thing as someone who is himself genuine even while being human-human yet genuine, genuine yet human: the Genuine-Human.

Even the weary who tackle note "C" will not find themselves much instructed about 真人. Why just simply English this as "… when you find a genuine person?"

*vii 未始出於非人 Ziporyn 68:

he never leaves behind the nonhuman: regarding others as wrong on account of their nonhumanness. This obscure and misleading rendition, which apparently depends on a dubious suggestion that 非 acted as full transitive verb "regard as wrong," approaches double translation malpractice. Much better Graham: he has never begun to draw from the source which is not man.

*xxii 不知答也 Ziporyn 174:

he did not know to answer, he did not know how to answer, he did not know any answer.

Someone should apply Ockham's Razor to this triple translation.

*xxiv 若亡其一 Ziporyn 195:

as if they had lost the one thing that mattered to them, and with it the unity of their own beings. Watson 261 had already succeeded with the simple: "as though it had lost its own identity." Ziporyn hastens to add note (3): "Literally, lost their one(ness)." This could also mean "lost the Oneness," or "lost themselves," or "lost their own unity." Such "whatever-ism" evokes the world limned in Peter Pomerantsev, "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible."

We approve Ziporyn's admittedly haphazard (xxxv) policy of translating some characters' names into English; the Zhuangzi does feature onomastic inventiveness that would charm Charles Dickens. But not all renditions work, and sometimes we question the point. For example,

*iii[秦佚] Ziporyn 30: "Graingrind Misstep" is awful for common surname 秦; commentators usually understand 失 as 佚, a common name;

*xix-張毅 Ziporyn 152: "Resolve Unfurled." A dubious choice, given the routine nature of both surname (China has more than 87 million Zhangs) and given name;

*xxvi 余且 Ziporyn 221: "Mefornow"; better Mair 149: Feeish. 余且 *la tsa sounded enough like "fish-net" 魚罝 *ŋa tsa to warrant Mair's waggish rendition; not so Ziporyn's.

The last example leads us to consider, briefly, Ziporyn's odd bent for mechanically translating Sinographs instead of considering the words involved.

*Zhuangzi ii: 其名為弔詭 Ziporyn 20

I would name that nothing more than a way of offering condolences for the demise of their strangeness.

Taking leave of commentarial wisdom and common sense, Ziporyn seems blind to the obvious kinship between 弔詭*tˤ[i]wk*[k](r)ojʔ and 諔詭 *tˤ[i]wk*[k](r)ojʔ, which of course Ziporyn, like most, understands as "strangeness and monstrosity." (compare Zhuangzi iv: 諔詭幻怪 and xxxiii: 諔詭可觀)

*Zhuangzi xx 唯道德之鄉: Ziporyn 158-"nothing for it but the old homeland of the Course and its intrinsic powers." Ziporyn apparently doesn't understand the common graphic substitution of 鄉 for 向, apparently doesn't recognize the common idiom 唯X之 Vb: [you must head in the direction of] x. Otherwise, he would follow the wiser lead of, say, Graham 121:

Is there any direction to take except by the Way and the Power?

*At vi (Ziporyn 61), we encounter an odd character, Master 意而ʔ(r)ək-s lˤə, who might endure disfigurement if only they could "roam freely by its hedges." (Graham; compare Ziporyn 62). When this character recurs at xx (Ziporyn 160) as 鳥名曰意怠ʔ(r)ək-s lˤəʔ, and in xx (Ziporyn 162), 鳥莫知於 鷾鴯ʔ(r)ək-s lˤə, Ziporyn never shows any awareness that we have one personage written three ways. He just automatically gives us "Mr. Thinkyou," "lazywills," and "swallow." Very likely, Zhuangzi's Master 意而, as a bird, hoped at least to roam freely among the usual confines of a small bird 願遊於其藩 *bar. Compare: 入遊其樊*ban, Graham: "entering and roaming free inside his cage," and recall the little birds from Zhuangzi i:決起而飛槍榆枋: "We keep flying till we're bursting, stop when we get to an elm or sandalwood …" When (Zhuangzi vi 劓汝以是非) Yao snipped off Master 意而's nose, arguably we should render it as "lopped off your beak."

Ziporyn also commits grammar faults you would never expect from a seasoned Sinologist. Consider Zhuangzi xii, Ziporyn 104:神生不定者,道之所不 載 也. Ziporyn "the Course cannot carry or be carried by them"? This misreading of 所, one of the commonest Old Chinese words, defies belief. But compare Zhuangzi vi 萬物之所係,而一化之所待. Ziporyn 56 somehow extracts:

how much more it would be to bind oneself equally to each and all of the ten thousand things, to let oneself rely on each transformation.

His subsequent "Note J," too long and twisty to relate here, makes the astonishing assertion "in pre-Buddhist writing the 所 is an all-purpose localizer and nominalizer, which can mean either 'that which does' the verb that follows it, or (as in the post-Buddhist cases) 'that to which is done' the verb that follows."

Ziporyn then his labors mightily to find one borderline justifying case, as if you could defend a man who drove drunk onto an off-ramp, killed a family, then tried to justify the breach on the grounds: "Look; offramp traffic goes both ways. I can cite 3-4 cases of drunk drivers who drove onto the offramp!" Even if he could find a dozen cases, Ziporyn could not justify so fundamental a misunderstanding of Classical Chn grammar. The confusion also infects how Ziporyn renders 所以; consider Zhuangzi xxi 女殆著乎吾所以著也. It must mean something like "I am afraid that you have gone on paying attention to what I used to attract attention" (cf Graham 169), yet Ziporyn 167 torques this into:

You are right now seeing more or less all there is of me that can be seen. Compare Zhuangzi ii Ziporyn 16: 是非之彰也,道之所以虧也 When rights and wrongs wax bright, the Course begins to wane.

At the very least, we need "how way[s] wane."⁴

One more example illustrates the difficulties inherent in translating so fraught a text as the Zhuangzi; it also shows that, even when we "do everything right" and follow accepted authorities, we can still stumble. Zhuangzi 12.52- 彼 假修渾沌氏之術者也.識其一,不知其二;治其內,而不治其外.夫明白入素,無為 復朴;體性抱神,以遊世俗之間者.汝將固驚邪? 且渾沌氏之術,予與汝何足以識 之哉?! A quick canvas of leading Sino-translators shows how easily we go astray:

*Ziporyn 105: "That guy is just a bogus practitioner of the arts of Mr. Chaotic Blob …

*Watson 129: He is one of those bogus practitioners of the arts of Mr. Chaos …

*VM: "He's a false practitioner of the arts of clansman Wonton …

Only Graham 187 gets this about right: "He is a follower and practitioner of the tradition of the House of Hun-t'un."

How could three of four have strayed? It's all 郭象's fault, really: 以其背今向古,羞為世事,故知其非真渾沌也.

Since he turns his back to the present and toward antiquity, ashamed to act as our age does, we know he's not authentically Hundun.

Not a "genuine" Hundun?! There is not within the non-distinguishing 無分 別 Hundun gang a distinction between fake and genuine members, and this discrimination depends on making a value bifurcation between following simple, intuitive ways and learning the advantageous strategies of 世事?! How could anyone fall for this? A dreadful illustration of the power of inertia, and a testimony to Graham's power of independent critical thinking. In support of his innovation, let's review the relevant evidence.

*The Zhuangzi never has bad things to say about 渾沌. To split 渾沌-ites into "fake" and "genuine" displays a dualist understanding that's exactly the kind of discriminating pettifoggery the farmer disdains as "有機事者必有機心," When 孔子 and a disciple like 子貢, usually, separately interview a Daoist sage (remember 子貢 claims 丈人 has 聖人之道), the format goes: disciple encounters sage, sage in embodying a Daoist discourse blows disciple's mind, and 孔子 confirms that the sage has the right stuff, unlike himself. That's how it goes in 6.67 … and also in 14.56 … in xiv you have an odd inversion, where first 孔子 and then 子貢 gets blown away by 老聃. See also Ch. xxxi, where the Old Fisher dialogues outline the same format. Rather than blindly follow 郭象's misstep, the Zhuangzi translators should have heeded 莊子集釋: 渾沌者,無分別之謂也 "Hundun" refers to lack of dualist distinctions.

*Recognizing the integrity/wholeness/cohesion of it all, but not understanding duality 識其一,不知其二—that's precisely how Daoist 聖人 operate. 孔子 even says this, when he praises 丈人:明白入素.無為復朴.體性抱 神,以遊世俗之間. Graham 187: Someone who by illumination enters into simplicity, by Doing Nothing reverts to the unhewn, who identifies himself with his nature and protects his daemon, as he roams among the vulgar.

The verse echoes Laozi; Ziporyn has to smuggle in a "but" absent from the Chn text to plaster over the rift. The 郭象-B Ziporyn line would chide 渾沌: "stop appreciating only integrity/unity and start exploring dualism and diversity!" We know where that craniotomy leads …

*假 doesn't mean fake, never in the Zhuangzi and never—so far as we can detect—in any pre-Han or even early Han text. It seems to arise only in E. Han, with 許慎,說文解字.

In its twenty-one Zhuangzi passages, 假 never means "fake."

Among 103 examples in 史記, 假 never means "fake." Consider the fascinating case of 韓信 in 史記,淮陰侯列傳:大丈夫定諸侯,即為真王耳.何以假為?! "As a hero who's pacified the many lords, I'm already an authentic prince. What's the point of a provisional title?!"

Clearly, this passage works only if 假 contrasted with 真 means "pro temp, provisionally granted" 暫時代理.

In 淮南子's nineteen occurrences of 假, 假 never means "fake."

In only five occurrences of 假 within 揚子法言, 假 never means "fake." Note the fascinating example in 法言 x 重黎:欲讎偽者必假真. Those hoping to sell/fend off fakes inevitably rely on a sense of the authentic. 讎 either means (i) 售[?!], or (ii) 酬[應對] "fend off."⁵

*Direct textual parallels further strengthen the case against 郭象. (i) Zhuangzi xxi, where 孔子 says to 老聃: 夫子德配天地,而猶假至言以修心. Graham: by your Power you are mate to heaven and earth, yet you still depend on the most far-reaching words to train the heart.

This serves as a gloss for xii's 假修.

(ii) Graham observes "in 淮南子 7 (c. 120 B.C.) the sentence reappears in a plainer context, where it can only be understood as 'He perceives the oneness of everything, does not know about duality in it'."⁶ 真人者也,性合於道也.故有而若無,實而若虛;處其一不知其二;治其內不識其外.明白太素,無為複樸;體本抱 神,以游于天地之樊 …

The natural inclinations of authentic people accord with their way. Thus, present, they seem absent; solid, they seem tenuous. They dwell within integrity/unity, unaware of dualist distinctions. They order themselves internally, ignorant of the external. Illumined about Grand Simplicity, by Doing Nothing they revert to the unhewn. Embodying their root and protecting their daemon, they roam freely among the world's enclosures.

Conclusion

From a philosophical standpoint, from philological considerations, from 假's pre-Han usage, and from perusing text parallels, it's quite clear that Ziporyn 2020 followed a long tradition in misinterpreting the passage; knowing Graham's revision, Ziporyn still chose to stray after 郭象.

So, should Zhuangzi aficianados add Ziporyn's version to their shelves? Well, non-Sinophone readers interested in Zhuangzi's literary appeal should add Ziporyn to Watson; he's often nearly as entertaining. Non-Sinophone students of comparative philosophy do well to set Ziporyn and Graham side-by-side, and scrutinize their differences. Sinologists will, per custom, assay all reputable versions and vet them, scrupulously. But if you just want a "pony" to help you better understand the Chinese original, stick with Graham—more transparent, and more reliable.