Into the River of History:An Account of My Translation Work with the Grand Scribe’s Records(Shiji)

William H.NIENHAUSER,Jr.

University of Wisconsin

Abstract:In the beginning was the text.1 Both titles appear in Wang Chong’s 王充Lunheng 论衡 as well as other early works.Actually,I should have written“in the beginning were the texts”,since Sima Qian makes it clear he left both an original version of the Shiji and a copy. And the text was called Taishigong ji 太史公记 or Taishigong shu 太史公书.There are various understandings of Taishigong 太史公,but any translated title shows that the shi 史 in Shiji is short for official title not for “history” or even “historian”.Thus,translations such as Records of History,Historical Records,Records of the Scribe,or even Records of the Historian are inaccurate.While our rendering of the Grand Scribe’s Records may still be open to discussion,the precondition of that discussion is to recognize the “Shi” as both an abbreviation and address for Taishigong.I have often been asked to describe the Shiji in a few words.Some of my attempts include “a national narrative of early China” or “a combination of the Old Testament and Herodotus”.But they both fall short of Wang Chong’s 王充 (27-97) metaphoric depiction,“those books written in the Han Dynasty were numerous:Sima Qian is the Yellow River and Yang Xiong the Han River,the remainder are the Jing and Wei rivers” 汉作书者多，司马子长、杨子云，河、汉也，其余泾、渭也.2 In the “An Shu” 案书 Chapter of the Lunheng. Although I am not a good swimmer,in what follows,I shall try to explain how I swam in Sima Qian’s river.

Keywords:Sima Qian; Shiji; translation; Chinese; history

1.Early studies

My earliest contact with China and its people came when I readThirty Seconds over Tokyo,one of the Landmark Books,as a child.The descriptions of how Chinese ordinary people aided the pilots who parachuted out of their planes in Shandong after this famous first air raid on the Japanese capital were fascinating.After a semester at Fenn College (now Cleveland State University) studying engineering,I realized I did not want to become an engineer,much to the dismay of my father (but not my professors).After talking to U.S.Army recruiters (I had just turned 18 at the time),they convinced me that I should become a spy.So I enlisted in January 1962,and spent two months in basic infantry training.Towards the end of that period,I took an examination that qualified me for the Army Language School in Monterey,California.My hope was to study Russian,but the army advisors told me to put down Chinese as my first choice and Russian as my second,then change back to Russian when I arrived at the school.In my naïveté,I followed their advice.Upon arrival,I found that the U.S.Army does not entertain such changes,so along with eight other enlisted men I found myself studying Chinese.We had six hours of class every day,five days a week,and a great deal of homework.For each class hour,a different native Chinese teacher appeared.After only a few weeks I realized that these teachers had an involvement with their students beyond anything I had experienced.Gradually,I became convinced that selecting Chinese as my choice was preordained.And,of course,I did not become a spy.My fellow classmates at the Army Languages School all had college experience and their influence and guidance helped me to decide to leave the army at the end of my three-year enlistment and enroll at Indiana University.

I knew little about the Chinese program at Indiana,only that Bloomington was not too far from my home in northeastern Ohio,and that the university would give me twenty-six credits for the work I had done at the Army Language School.I began class in the spring of 1965 and took Y.J.Chih’s (1917-2016)fourth-year Chinese class which focused on reading modern political documents and Chinese newspapers.By the spring of 1966,after summer school in 1965,I got my BAsumma cum laude,and began graduate study,intending to work on one of the late-Qing novelists (Wu Woyao 吴沃尧 was my first choice).Over the next few years,I finished eight semesters of Japanese,and all the offered courses on Chinese literature and history.Although my advisors were Irving Yucheng Lo 罗郁正 (1922-2005) for the MA and Wu-chi Liu 柳无忌 (1907-2002) for the PhD,Friedrich Bischoff was also a tremendous influence.It was from him that I became interested in thefugenre.I wrote my MA thesis on the “Meiren” 美人 and “Changmen”长门fuattributed to Sima Xiangru 司马相如 (179-117 BC).After two years of graduate school in Bloomington,I was skeptical about going on with my studies.Professor Bischoff suggested going to Germany where there was no tuition,and I would be able to think more about my future.I had an NDEA Title IV three-year fellowship at the time,so my wife and I decided to follow Bischoff’s advice.Admitted to the University of Bonn,I studied there for a year under Peter Olbricht,learning about Tang texts(especially Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元,773-819) and German academic life.Then,I returned to Bloomington to resume study at Indiana University in the fall of 1969.Following up on my earlier research,I began to read more about Han Dynasty literature,eventually writing my dissertation on “Literary and Historical Aspects of theXijing zaji西京杂记 (Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital)” which I finished in the fall of 1972.At the same time,I worked with Professor Liu and fellow students on a biographical study of Liu Zongyuan for theTwayne World Author Series(published in 1973).In Liu Zongyuan’s writings,especially the allegorical biographies,I recognized the strong influence of Sima Qian’s style and structure.I began looking for a teaching position in 1971,but found none.Then,after teaching German at Indiana University as Visiting Assistant Professor for a year,I came to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1973 where I have been teaching ever since.

2.First years of teaching and the beginning of the project

I came to the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of Wisconsin with the support of Joseph S.M.Lau 刘绍铭,who was also moving to Madison to accept a position in that department.Throughout my first decade of teaching,Professor Lau was a mentor and close friend.I was afforded the opportunity to teach graduate classes from the very beginning and learned as much from my students as they did from me.My interest in narrative—particularly the relationships between literary and historical—texts continued,abated by study in narrative theory guided by Arthur Kunst of the Department of Comparative Literature.In 1975 I received the first (of what would be many) fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship to study Tang narrative under Professor Liu Mau-tsai 刘茂才 at the University of Hamburg.Hamburg gave me the opportunity to read extensively about Chinese narrative.Having been fascinated as a child by biographies in the Landmark Book series,I began to read Tang biographies,something that had begun under Professor Olbricht nearly a decade earlier.Under Professor Liu Mao-tsai’s guidance,I published my first article,“An Allegorical Reading of Han Yu’s ‘Mao Ying Zhuan’ 毛颍传 (Biography of Fur Point)” (Nienhauser,1976).This reflected my earlier interests in the relationship between historical and fictional texts.Han Yu 韩愈 (768-824) and Liu Zongyuan’s “pseudo-biographies” (e.g.,“Mao Ying zhuan” and “Bushezhe zhuan” 捕蛇者传 [An Account of the Snake Catcher]) in turn led me to examine the thirty-fivezhuan传included in the early Song anthologyWenyuan yinghua文苑英华.As I read otherguwen古文 (ancient-style prose) pieces by Han Yu’s followers,I became convinced that thefugu复古 (return to antiquity) writings of the 9th century were tied to larger social and intellectual changes.Intrigued by the mix of fictional and historical narratives in this corpus,I took a structuralist approach to these texts and published my second article in theJournal of Asian Studies(1977).Aware by then that Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan were following the form of a typicalliezhuan列传 in theGrand Scribe’s Records,I did not yet explore this indebtedness.Rather I spent the last years of the 1970s finishing a book on the late Tang poet,Pi Rixiu 皮日休 (ca.838-883[published asP’i Jih-hsiuin theTwayne World Author Seriesin 1979]).The poetic sections of this book evolved from the several years I spent in what came to be called the “Sunflower Poetry-Reading Group”led by Irving Lo.Some of my early attempts at translating (Pi’s poems and those of others) appeared in 1975 inSunflower Splendor,edited by Professors Liu and Lo.More to the point of my interest in Sima Qian,however,were the twozhuan传 (accounts) Pi wrote in imitation of Han Yu,“Zhaonü zhuan” 赵女传 and “He Wu zhuan” 何武传.The former is an account of a “virtuous woman” (lienü烈女),and the latter a story of a man who was slandered and unjustly punished.Although both works were intended to be historical,Pi appended a moralizing postface to each piece in which was clearly a nod to Sima Qian.In 1979 I received an ACLS Study Grant to read more on social and economic history of the Tang Dynasty,mentored by Kang Chao of the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin.The following year I published some results of my research as “Some Preliminary Remarks on Fiction,the Classical Tradition and Society in Late Ninth-century China” (Nienhauser,1980).

In 1981 I undertook a project that would occupy me for the first few years of the 1980s:editing theIndiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literaturesupported by a large research grant from the Endowment for the Humanities.This,and serving as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature for two years,took most of my time.Although I wrote the essay on “Prose” for theCompanion,only a paragraph in that essay was devoted to theShiji.The entries for theShijiand Sima Qian I entrusted to Stephen Durrant,whom I knew was well versed in these topics.My translation interests were limited to thezhuanin theWenyuan yinghua.Intent to read otherzhuanand to explore further theShiji,while honing my reading ability in classical texts,I accepted an offer in the spring of 1983 to teach in the Department of Foreign Languages at Taiwan University,supported by a Science Council grant.But my main research interests remained in the Tang.The following summer I returned to Germany again as a Humboldt Fellow,this time to Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.There,the two famous professors,Herbert Franke and Wolfgang Bauer,had both done considerable work on theShiji.Discussions with both enhanced my interest in that text.From 1985 to 1987 I was in China’s Taiwan,supported by an Inter-University Stanford Center fellowship.I read Liu Zongyuan with one of their most famous tutors,Mrs.Liang 梁太太.I also became friends with the head of the Foreign Languages program at Taida 台大,Wang Chiu-kuei王秋桂,and this was to impact greatly on my renewed interest in translating theShiji.I had been working on the relationships between the Ancient-Style Movement 古文运动 and Tang tales and struggling with the language of Tangchuanqi传奇.I would usually go to Chiugui’s house about 11 p.m.since he liked to work late.We would talk about the texts I was working on.After perhaps half a dozen visits,he told me that the “Wenjianhui 文建会” (“Council on Cultural Planning and Development”) had a large sum of money earmarked for four major translation projects by Western sinologists and urged me to propose theShijias one of the topics.Chiu-kuei argued that the 1959 Zhonghua edition of theShijicontained too many errors and suggested that I should also do a new critical edition of the text,but I was savvy enough to realize that was (and is) beyond my capabilities.As a result,possibly with Chiu-kuei’s continued help behind the scenes,I received one of the four grants (Stephen Owen and Göran Malmqvist were two of the other recipients) for$125,900,to translate those chapters of theShiji(thirty in all) which had not been rendered into English by Burton Watson and the Yangs,Yang Xianyi 杨宪益 and Gladys Yang 戴乃迭.

3.The project itself

With this generous support,I assembled a team that included Professor Tsai-fa Cheng 郑再发,Zongli Lü吕宗力,and Robert Reynolds,the latter pair both graduate students in our department.Tsai-fa Cheng was well versed in classical Chinese texts; Zongli Lü had been a member of the Qin-Han Research unit at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Robert Reynolds had received his BA from Taiwan University.We compiled a glossary so that our rendering of terms would be consistent (Reynold’s idea).With a team in hand,attention was turned to determine our intended audience and set up a style and format.I realized that Burton Watson’s style would be difficult to match,especially for a team of translators.For several weeks I poured over translations of Greek histories by French,German,and English scholars.In every case,the popular translations with little scholarly apparatus were juxtaposed on library shelves to heavily annotated renditions—especially those in German.It became obvious that a very literal translation,with textual and contextual notes,might suit the composite nature of our team and the needs of the sinological community,something that could stand up to Watson’s work by complementing it.

The idea of appending a translator’s note to each chapter was one that I had toyed with in class and which may well have been influenced by the style of Japanese translations of Chinese literature.This focus on narrative translation was a complete turnaround,since I had begun to translate Chinese poetry as a graduate student at Indiana University in the mid-1960s.I joined a group organized by Professor Irving Yu-cheng Lo to translate Tang poetry.The monthly sessions at Professor Lo’s home were raucous evenings that involved a great deal of wine and excited discussion.Our translations were modeled on those of the senior student in the group,Jerome “Sandy” Seaton,and aimed at free,poetic versions.But in working on theShijiI found that the stuffier “scholarly style” ourShijigroup had opted for worked well.We began by simply translatingShijichapters from the 1959 Zhonghua edition.We divided the work initially:Zongli,Robert and I met on the drafts of theliezhuan列传 (arranged traditions or in our translation “memoirs”),many of which were done in draft by my project assistant,Chao Ming Chan 陈照明,or by Robert.Tsaifa and I did thebenji本纪 (basic annals),working mainly from Lao Gan’s 劳干 (1907-2003)Shiji jinzhu史记今注; Tsai-fa drafted the translations and I revised and added footnotes.I worked five mornings a week,four with Zongli and Robert,and Friday morning with Tsai-fa,going over each draft line-by-line.Soon we understood that would have to consult Wang Liqi’s 王利器 (1912-1998)baihuatranslation,Shiji zhuyi史记注译,Takigawa Kametarō’s 泷川龟太郎 (1865-1946) text and notes,Shiki kaichūkoshō史记会注考证,and Wang Shumin’s 王叔岷 (1914-2008) commentary,Shiji jiaozheng史记校证.1Takigawa was published originally in Tokyo in 1934 and reprinted by Shanghai Guji in 1986; and Wang Shumin’s study was published by the “Academia Sinica” in 1982.We also consulted the Bona 百纳 and Jingyou 景祐 editions,two texts not seen by the Zhonghua editors in 1959.Later publications appeared including theQuanzhu quanyiShiji全注全译史记 edited by Wu Shuping 吴树平,and Han Zhaoqi’s 韩兆琦Shiji jianzheng史记笺证 which became additional important sources.After a few months of working on these translations,I decided that this could become a project to work on for the near future.I wrote to John Gallman,the Director of Indiana University Press,who had published myIndiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literaturein 1986,proposing a complete translation of theShiji.In August 1991,John gave me a contract to publish an English rendering of the entireShijiin seven volumes which I envisioned would be completed by August 1996.In this I did not have the same luck as Burton Watson who,when he proposed hisRecords of the Grand Historianproject to Professor Francis Cleaves of Harvard,explaining that he thought it would take three years to complete,was told by Cleaves that he should have said “Thirtyyears!” (Waston,1995).Although now I understand what Cleaves meant,in 1991 I was naively optimistic.I made up my mind not to cut my hair until the job was done,purchased baseball hats that readShijiin Chinese for all the members of the group,and hung photos of Chavannes,Haenisch,and Gu Jiekang 顾颉刚 (1893-1980) in my study.Although I still have one of the hats,I have cut my hair on occasion since then.

Our system of meeting in separate groups remained in place through that summer of 1991 and the following one (1992).By that time we had completed our review of almost all the chapters of the first volumes.A glossary that Robert Reynolds constructed was initially our guide:Robert seemed to have memorized the list and often saved us time through his facility at recalling how we had translated this or that term weeks earlier.The glossary also served several purposes beyond making our styles more consistent.Since we felt that one of Sima Qian’s stylistic devices was to repeat a single term often in a particular passage (such aszhi ren知人,in “Cike liezhuan” 刺客列传,for example),our glossary helped us to reproduce this reiteration in our translations.Moreover,we wanted to avoid the kind of conflation that can be seen in the King James Bible where “no fewer than fourteen different Hebrew words [have been rendered by …] the single term ‘prince’ ” (Hunt,2011).Thus we distinguished betweengong攻 “to attack”,yu zhan与战 “to give battle to”,fa伐 “to lead a punitive expedition against”,ji击 “to assault,strike at”;and alsoju qing zhi居顷之 “after a short time had passed” vis-à-visjiu zhi久之 “after a short time”,qing zhi顷之 “some time later”,andji er既而“after some time”.Later we also developed a stylesheet that we still use today (for a detailed account of one session of our group,see the “A Note on Procedures” section below).

My own early work was enabled in 1991 by a Center for Chinese Studies fellowship from the “Central Library” in Taipei,that allowed me to compare variousShijieditions at “Academia Sinicia”.On my return to Madison late that summer,we added the footnotes,the majority falling to Robert and me.By the end of 1992 (the date we had promised the “Wenjianhui” we would complete our work),we had translated and annotated most of the thirty chapters.One or two chapters towards our deadline were largely based on Burton Watson.We then sent out chapters to be read by a number of colleagues including David Knechtges,Stephen Durrant,C.S.Goodrich,Allyn Rickett,Xu Zhuoyun 许倬云,Jens Petersen,Robert Henricks,A.F.P.Hulsewé,and Victor Mair.Finally,the first two volumes of our translation,The Grand Scribe’sRecords,Volume 1:The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China,andThe Grand Scribe’s Records,andVolume 7:The Memoirs of Pre-Han China,appeared from Indiana University Press in 1994.But by that time the initial group of translators had dissolved,the graduate students finishing their degrees,and Tsai-fa Cheng turning to his own research.

I had already begun to work on other chapters and spent the summer of 1993 at Beijing Normal University consulting with Han Zhaoqi 韩兆琦 (on a Committee on Scholarly Communication with China grant).During that sojourn,Lü Zongli introduced me to Wu Shuping who in turn took me to meet Wang Liqi 王利器 and Qian Zhongshu 钱锺书 (1910-1998).Supported by Fulbright-Hayes and ACLS fellowships,both held in China’s Taiwan,from 1994 to 1996,I worked on translating the basic annals of Han Gaozu 汉高祖 and Lü Hou 吕后.Du Zhengsheng 杜正胜 made it possible for me to visit“Academia Sinica” in the summer of 1996 and work in the library there.I was also fortunate to be able to visit and consult Wang Shumin 王叔岷 who answered a number of questions I had concerning hisShijicommentaries.At the end of the summer I took part in the large conference celebrating the 2140th anniversary of Sima Qian’s birth held in Xi’an,where I met many of the well-knownShijischolars from China and Japan.On my return in the fall of 1996,I began to teach seminars on theShijiand engaged all the graduate students who signed up for them to help with the translation.We focused on the remaining fivebenjiand began to work through theshijia世家 (hereditary houses).Although many graduate students worked on the project—we would often divide up chapters and each student would present his section in class—the group from the late 1990s that stands out in my mind were Su Zhi,Chen Zhi 陈致(who did the base translation of “Wu Taibo shijia” 吴太伯世家),Shang Cheng 尚琤,Cao Weiguo 曹卫国 (who translated “Xiao Wen Di benji” 孝文帝本纪,“Lu Zhougong shijia” 鲁周公世家,and the “Chu shijia” 楚世家),Huang Hongyu 黄红宇 (who rendered the “Yan Shaogong shijia” 晏召公世家),Bruce Knickerbocker (who translated the “Qi Taigong shijia” 齐太公世家),and Scott W.Galer (who did the“Xiao Jing Di benji” 孝景帝本纪).We also went over draft translations every Saturday morning in my home over cake and coffee or tea.

The fall of 1996 also brought an invitation from Michael Puett at Harvard to attend that October a workshop in Cambridge,Massachutts,titled “Approaches to Understanding Sima Qian’sShiji”.To be frank,I was overawed by the scholars who would attend and wavered about going myself.Moreover,I was writing a rather critical review of Stephen Owen’sThe End of the Chinese Middle Agesfor theHarvard Journal of Asiatic Studiesand felt anxious about encountering Owen with whom I had always had a good relationship.So I took myself instead to Paris,and with the help of the gracious Jacques Gernet,viewed the library left by Édouard Chavannes (1865-1918) now housed in the Société Asiatique.Chavannes’s library occupied one entire shelf (about twelve feet long and nine feet high) and contained many early editions of theShijiincluding several printings of theShijipinglin史记评林.I was also able to examine the unpublished manuscripts,partial translations of almost all theShijichapters left by Chavannes and collected in the archives of the Musée Guimet (where my rudimentary French let me down completely).1For details of my findings,see my “A Note on Édouard Chavannes’s Unpublished Translations of the Shih chi” in Hermann & Schwermann (2007).

During the 1996-1997 academic year,David Pankenier joined the group working on the remaining basic annals,translating the “Wudi benji” 武帝本纪.In the summer of 1997,supported by a Humboldt Foundation renewal fellowship,I worked at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin examining the manuscripts that Erich Haenisch (1880-1966),who translated someShijichapters during his tenure as Professor of Sinology in Munich,had left unpublished.Haenisch’s plan was to translate into German those chapters not contained in Chavannes’s five volumes.2See his Der Herr von Sin-ling,Reden aus dem Chang-kuo ts’e und Biographien aus dem Shi-k (Haenisch,1965).In the materials I found in the Haenisch Nachlass in Berlin,it is clear that Haenisch was hoping to fill in the gaps in Chavannes’s work with his own translations and those of his students (like Wolfgang Bauer,whose dissertation was a translation of “Liu Hou liezhuan” 留侯列传).Haensich left handwritten versions of chapters 48,49,68,69,75 and 79 together with a suggested list of translations of chapters to include 50 and 70-74,and 76-78.In late August 1997,Pankenier joined Scott Cook,David Honey,Chen Zhi,and Lü Zongli at the first Workshop on Early Chinese History and Historiography held on the University of Wisconsin campus.Each visiting scholar presented a paper and then led the discussion of a draft of ourbenjitranslations.With the suggestions from the Workshop,and the added comments from Rafe de Crespigny,Michael Loewe,John Page,and Michael Puett,we finalized chapters 8-12 which were published asThe Grand Scribe’s Records,Volume 2:The Basic Annals of Han Chinain 2002.

The following year with the help of Lü Zongli,I was invited by Wang Yundu 王云度 to go to Xuzhou Normal University 徐州师范大学 and to visit Pei 沛 and Feng 丰 counties to see sites related in popular lore to Liu Bang’s (刘邦) birth and youth.I also acquired a complete set ofLiu Bang yanjiu刘邦研究 (through 1993).From the fall of 1999 through February 2000,I was at Kyoto University as a research professor for the fall semester,and a Japan Foundation fellow for the last two months.My host,Kawai Kōzō 川合康三,made it possible for me to read and copy sections of several editions of theShijinot available elsewhere.He also introduced me to Fujita Katsuhisa 藤田胜久 of Ehime University,who provided me with Japanese materials on theShijiand continued to advise us for over a decade.Late in 1999 I visited Tohoku University and was able to review their collection of materials and photos related to Takigawa Kametarō 泷川龟太郎.1This trip was the basis of my “Takigawa Kametarō and His Contributions to the Study of the Shiji,” in Views from Within,Views from Beyond:Approaches to the Shiki,ji as an Early Work of Historiography (Ess et al.,2016).

4.Working with a German Shiji group

Two years later,I was putting together a new group of graduate students at the University of Wisconsin.Cao Weiguo was still in Madison and he was joined the following year by Wang Jing 王静,Zhao Hua 赵化,David Herrmann,Meghan Cai,Shang Cheng,and others.But the translation was lagging.So that same year,2001,having benefited from a number of renewals of my Humboldt Fellowship,I spent the summer of 2001 at Erlangen University working with Michael Lackner trying to develop aShiji-translation group in Germany.Professor Lackner offered to recommend me for the Humboldt Forschungspreis,and referred me to Hans van Ess,who was the new professor at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and a scholar already known for his work on theShiji.I received the Forschungspreis in 2002 and spent spring semester in Erlangen again,meeting every week with scholars there in addition to Professor Reinhard Emmerich who often came down from Münster and Professor van Ess who drove up with three of his graduate students from Munich every Friday.From 2002 on,I visited Germany twice a year through June 2019,moving my base from Erlangen to Munich.During the next few years,supported by DAAD and Humboldt funds,I joined Hans van Ess’s German group to work on both the pre-Qin hereditary houses and the next twenty-four memoirs.The Madison group also contributed a number of chapters to the resultingGrand Scribe’s Recordsvolumes 5.1 (2006),8 (2008),and 9 (2010).

During these years I also hosted a number of international workshops at the University of Wisconsin modeled on the first such gathering in 1997.Participants included Katsuhisa Fujita 藤田胜久,David Schaberg,Grant Hardy,Enno Giele,and many others.In 2013,Chen Zhi hosted a workshop at Hong Kong Baptist University,and the following year in summer,Prof.Bernhard Fuehrer of SOAS-London brought us together in his country home in the countryside of the Dordogne River Valley in France.Many of the chapters discussed at these gatherings appeared in v.11 (2019).From 2011 to 2019,I spent a month in every spring at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich working with Hans van Ess’s group:Jakob Pöllath,Marc Nürnberger,Andreas Siegl,Clara Luhn,Maddalena Barenghi,Sebastian Eicher,and Katrin Lesse-Messing and others,supported alternately by Humboldt and Center for Advanced Studies-LMU grants.

5.A note on procedures

Over the years between working in Munich and in Madison we refined our methods of revising translation drafts.As an example,an account of the session on 26 March 2011 should serve.That day our group in Madison included thirteen young scholars:one American,one Russian,eleven Chinese,all graduate students in East Asian Languages at the University of Wisconsin.We reviewed a first-draft translation of“Xunli liezhuan” 循吏列传 (“Memoir of the Officials Who Follow Reason”,Chapter 119 in theShiji) that I had prepared.The chapter had been divided as usual into sections (the introduction,the five biographies,and the historian’s comment at the end),and two students had been assigned to review each section.The procedure was for one member to read the translation (not the translator who is usually busy making notes),pausing after each sentence.If there are no comments for that sentence,it is considered acceptable and the reader moves on to the next sentence.Whenever there is a question or comment,a discussion often ensues.This is not unlike the procedure followed by the King James Bible translators.1“They [the KJB translators] met together,and one read the translation,the rest holding in their hands some Bible of the learned tongues,or French,Spanish,Italian,etc.; if they found any fault they spoke; if not,he read on” (Hunt,2011).What follows is a rough account (from memory) of how our meeting went.

The draft version of the first paragraph,Sima Qian’s preface,reads:

His Honor the Grand Scribe says,“Laws and orders are that by which one guides the people; punishments and penalties are that by which one prohibits villainy.2Compare the opening lines of “Kuli liezhuan” (酷吏列传，“The Memoir of the Harsh Officials”) (Sima,1959,p.3131),which begins with a citation of Confucius from the Analects (Lun yu 论语,2.3)—Confucius said,“导之以政，齐之以刑，民免而无耻。导之以德，齐之以礼，有耻且格。If you guide them with the reins of government and keep them in order with [corporal] punishments,the people will try to avoid [them] but will have no sense of shame.If you guide them with virtue and keep them in order by means of propriety,then [they] will have shame and be correct” (Translation from Grand Scribe’s Records,Nienhauser,1992).A few lines later in the same chapter Sima Qian himself comments,“法令者治之具，而非制治清浊之源也。Laws and orders are only the tools of government,but not the source to regulate whether the government is pure or polluted.” Indeed,this chapter is intended to be read in tandem with that of the harsh officials.Although the civil and military [laws and rules] are not complete,the reason good people will fearfully cultivate themselves is that those in official positions have not yet acted disorderly.As long as [officials] accept the duties of their positions and follow reasonable methods,they can still affect good government.What need is there for threats and severity?” (Sima,1959,p.3099)

We quickly removed the definite article “the” before villainy and then got into a discussion about what “wen文” and “wu武” referred to in “wen wu bu bei文武不备”.Thebaihuatranslation by Wu Shuping and Lü Zongli (Sima & Wu et al.,1995) reads,“Suiran wen de bu bei,wugong bu yang.虽然文德不备，武功不扬.” One student suggested that the “wen” referred to the laws and orders,and “wu” to the“punishments and penalties” from the preceding sentence.A suggestion we all accepted and subsequently noticed was the reading proposed by Takigawa Kametarō in his commentary (Sima,1959,p.2).The “bei,”we agreed,meant something like “wan bei完备” (complete).Although Wu and Lü glossedxun li循理de lias “fa li法理” (jurisprudence,or legal principles),we felt that “reasonable method” or even “reason” best brought out the anecdotes included in this chapter.We also pondered the lack of any commentary by theSanjia zhu三家注.Did this mean that the passage was clear to all three of the traditional commentators,or perhaps that it had been added to the text by someone other than Sima Qian? Left to speculate about that,the passage wound up as follows:

His Honor the Grand Scribe says,“Laws and orders are that by which one guides the people; punishments and penalties are that by which one prohibits the villainy.Although the civil and military [laws and rules] are not complete,the reason good people will fearfully cultivate themselves is that those in official positions have not yet acted disorderly.As long as [officials] accept the duties of their positions and follow reasonable methods,they can still affect good government.What need is there for threats and severity?”

太史公曰：法令所以导民也，刑罚所以禁奸也。文武不备，良民惧然身修者，官未曾乱也。奉职循理，亦可以为治，何必威严哉？（Sima,1959,p.3099）

My draft of Chapter 119 continues:

Sun Shu Ao 孙叔敖 was an as yet unemployed scholar of Ch’u.Prime Minister Yü Ch’iu 虞丘 recommended him to King Chuang 庄 of Ch’u (r.613—591) to replace himself.Three months after he had been made Prime Minister of Ch’u,he promulgated teachings so that the common people were guided [properly],those above and those below were in harmony,society prospered and the customs were marvelous,the administration [of the people] was eased and prohibitions [on them] stopped,among the petty officials none were villainous,and bandits and robbers did not rise up.In autumn and winter he exhorted the people to go into the mountains to gather [bamboo and wood],in the spring and summer to make use of the waters [to transport the bamboo and wood],so that everyone was able to obtain that which was easy for them and the people all delighted in their lives.

孙叔敖者，楚之处士也。虞丘相进之于楚庄王，以自代也。三月为楚相，施教导民，上下和合，世俗盛美，政缓禁止，吏无奸邪，盗贼不起。秋冬则劝民山采，春夏以水，各得其所便，民皆乐其生。（Sima,1959,p.3099）

A second student read this passage.She pointed out the anecdote cited in the “Zhengyi 正义”commentary and asked if I wanted to include it.I explained that like Qu Yuan 屈原,whom David Hawkes called “a target figure”,many anecdotes had been attached to Sun Shu Ao.I had decided to address these other tales involving him in the Translator’s Note rather than in footnotes.This second student read several lines with no comments until we got to “those above and those below”,which someone pointed out was the same expression (“shang xia上下”) that I translated in Zi Chan’s 子产 biography later in this chapter as “superiors and subordinates”.We normally try to replicate in our translations similar expressions in the original text,especially if they occur in the same chapter.So “those above and those below” became “superiors and subordinates” here as well.The very next line brought us into contact with that slippery term “su俗” in the expression“shisu sheng mei”.Wu and Lü (Sima & Wu et al.,1959,p.3121) translate this line as “minjian fengsu chunhou meihao民间风俗淳厚美好,” which seems to add too much to “sheng mei” (“sheng mei”simply as “meishan美善” excellent) (Luo,1986,7:1427).After some discussion we came up with “current behavior and customs rose up to an excellent [level]”.The following sentence was also problematic.It reads“zheng huan jinzhi”.My translation was “the administration was eased and prohibitions on them stopped”,but it did not make sense to any of us (myself included).Burton Watson,one of the students in our group pointed out,“though the government was lenient,it was able to prevent evil” (Sima & Watson,1993).Wu and Lü (Sima & Wu et al.,1959,p.3121) understood these four graphs as meaning “zhengling kuanhe,fa jin yanming.政令宽和，法禁严明,Administrative orders were lenient and legal proscriptions strict and impartial”.While Watson’s “evil” for “zhi止” seemed a stretch,Wu and Lü’s rendition was possible.TheHanyu da cidian汉语大词典 (7:920b—921a) (Luo,1986) gives several glosses for “jinzhi”:(1) “to cause a cessation of something by means of administrative orders” (fromGuan Zi管子),(2) “to restrict the free movement of an impeached official” (Han shu汉书),(3) “to stop or prevent” (Mo Zi墨子),and (4) “to make prohibitions simpler”,referring to our passage.The only textual basis I could find for this reading was that of the Japanese scholar Arii Shinsai 有井进斋 (1830-1889),who wrote “the governing of those who follow[reasonable methods],their administration was easy-going,their punishments were simplified.” (“Qi zheng pingyi,qi xing jianyue.其政平易，其刑简约.” [Sima & Li,1992]) We moved on with this passage still in question and the original translation still in place.

The following lines “Qiu dong ze quan min shan cai,chun xia yi shui,ge de qi suo bian,min jie le qi sheng” literally say only that “in the fall and winter he urged the people to gather in the mountains,in the spring and summer to make use of the waters,so that each was able to obtain that which was easy for them and the people all delighted in their lives.” This passage has teased commentators.A note by Xu Guang徐广 (352-425),cited in theJijie集解 reads “cheng duo shui shi,er chu cai zhu.乘多水时，而出材竹,”“they took advantage of the time when the waters were numerous and exported timber and bamboo,” and it was the basis for our translation.This is supported (slightly) by a variant “xia下” found in a number of editions (cf.Takigawa,119.3) after “spring and summer”:“chunqiu xia yi shui春秋下以水,” “In the spring and summer they sent down [what they had gathered in the mountains] by means of the waterways.” Yet this variant,we agreed,could simply be the result of a scribal emendation based on Xu Guang’s note.One student noted that Takigawa (119.3) notes the modern scholar Li Li’s 李笠 (1894-1962) argument that these are contrasting expressions and should be understood as “in the fall and winter he urged the people to gather [wood] in the mountains,in the spring and summer to make use of the waters [to fish]” (Li &Chen,1924).Although this seems to be just another guess at the meaning of these lines,it does tally nicely with what follows:“so that each was able to obtain that which was easy for them.” As we finished up our discussion of this section a student cited Watson’s understanding of this line as “thus everyone obtained the benefits of his surroundings”,apparently reading “suo所” as “place” or by extension “surroundings”,which seemed to all of us to be an error.

For the following paragraph (beginning “King Chuang considered that the coins were too light”),there was no discussion until we got to “The Prime Minister said,‘That’s the end of it!’ ” “Xiang yue‘ba’相曰 ‘罢’.”

King Chuang considered that the coins were too light and had the small ones changed for larger ones.The families of the hundredcognomensfound this inconvenient and they all left their occupations.The Master of the Market spoke of this to the Prime Minister:“The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.” The Prime Minister said,“How long a time has it been like this?” The master of the market said,“For three months’ time.” The Prime Minister said,“That’s the end of it! I will now rescind the order.” Five days later,when he went to the morning court session,the Prime Minister spoke of this to the King:“On a recent day the coins were changed because they were considered too light.Now the Master of the Market came to me and said that ‘The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.’ I request that the order after all be restored as it was of old.” The king allowed this,issued the order,and after three days the market was again as of old.

庄王以为币轻，更以小为大，百姓不便，皆去其业。市令言之相曰：“市乱，民莫安其处，次行不定。”相曰：“如此几何顷乎？”市令曰：“三月顷。”相曰：“罢，吾今令之复矣。”后五日，朝，相言之王曰：“前日更币，以为轻。今市令来言曰‘市乱，民莫安其处，次行之不定’。臣请遂令复如故。”王许之，下令三日而市复如故。（Sima,1959,p.3100）

As several students noted,this did not sound like idiomatic English.We revised it to “Say no more!” Watson(p.374) and Aoki Gorō 青木五郎 (119.466) (Sima,2007) believe it has more the idea of “You are dismissed.”or “You may go back now.” Wu and Lü (Sima,1959,p.3121) have “no need to be flustered about this”,“bubihuangzhang不必慌张” (from the basic meaning of “ba” as “to dismiss”,it would seem).Then we looked up usages of “yue ba曰罢” in theShiji(using theSikudatabase) and found it occurred only one other time,in Chen Ping’s 陈平 biography (Sima,1959,p.2053).The text there reads “Ping deng qi ren ju jin,ci shi.Wang yue:‘Ba,jiu she yi.’平等七人俱进，赐食。王曰：‘罢，就舍矣。’ ” Watson translates “After Chen Ping and six other guests at the interview had come forward and received gifts of food,1Probably “conferred a meal” is closer to the original.the king [of Han,Liu Bang] announced,‘You may return to your lodgings now.’ ” But it seems that more literally the king’s statement was “You are dismissed and may return to your lodgings.” Thus we ended up with “The Prime Minister said,‘You are dismissed.’ ” At this point we stopped for the day and came back to finish the chapter the following week.

6.The final push

In the spring of 2012,I was appointed Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University and organized aShijiReading Group attended by Michael Puett,Qu Jingyi 曲景毅,Li Jia 李佳,Chiu Ming Chang,So Jeong Park,Winne Song,and Yan Shoucheng.Volume 10 was published in 2016 as the result of cooperative work in Munich,Madison,and Singapore.I felt certain that this would be the last volume and that I would retire at the age of 70 in the spring of 2014.However,I found the attachment to Sima Qian too strong,and with Hans van Ess’s encouragement,I decided to continue both teaching and the translation work.

In 2016,I also privately published (available on Amazon) a translation of Jean Levi’s novel,Le fils du ciel et son annaliste—asThe Emperor and His Annalist—a fascinating novel about Emperor Wu of the Han and Sima Qian.That year also marked the first of four annual workshops (2016,2017,2018,2019)at Nanjing University,each focusing on a different chapter of theShiji.Beginning with a small group of twelve in 2016,the 2019 workshop involved over thirty participants from several universities in the Nanjing area as well as participants from Hangzhou and Hong Kong.Our procedure was to first read a few pages of my translation and annotation to familiarize students with the secondary materials we used as well as our rather literal translation style.Then the students,organized in groups of three or four,prepared their own translations and annotation of the rest of the chapter.In 2019 they even published a booklet containing the final versions of their work on “Chen She shijia” 陈涉世家 (“The Hereditary House of Chen She”).These workshops were initially arranged through my former student,Chen Zhi of Hong Kong Baptist University and his former fellow student,Xu Xingwu 徐兴无,now Dean of the School of Letters at Nanjing University.Dean Xu’s largesse and overall support made these gatherings a success.I am also grateful to the Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin who provided me with full research support in the spring of 2018 and the fall of 2019.

As a result of the Nanjing workshops,Nanjing University Press decided to re-publish all the volumes of our translation.They began in 2018 with volumes 1 and 2.Since volumes 1 and 7 were the first published (1994),I decided to try to revise the chapters before republishing.Throughout the spring of 2018 I worked with a talented group of post-docs and dissertation fellows from China,Sun Bao 孙宝,Zhang Zongpin 张宗品,Lü Xinfu 吕新福,Yu Jianping 余建平,and Deng Lin 邓琳,as well as my own students,Cai Yixuan 蔡译萱,Masha Kobzeva,Josiah Stork,and Su Zheyu 苏哲宇,along with Wang Ji 王吉,to revise most of the text of volume 1.Helping us in this effort was the Elling O.Eide Center which sponsored a workshop that brought together many of the German translators with those from Madison along with former University of Wisconsin students Cao Weiguo 曹卫国,Huang Hongyu 黄宏宇,and Lü Zongli 吕宗力,for a long weekend in November 2018 during which we read chapters slated for Volume 6,the Han-Dynasty Hereditary Houses,which will be published in late 2020.

At present I am editing the twenty-eight chapters in Volume 7 which have been revised by twentytwo current and former University of Wisconsin students and members of the Van Ess Group.Many of these chapters will be reviewed in a second workshop at the Eide Center in November 2019.In 2020 I plan to complete work on the remainingPre-Han Hereditary Housesthat have been in draft form for nearly a decade.And with that,wade ashore and leave Sima Qian to others.