Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Ideogram of the Pierced Heart

When Jonathan said he couldn't "get that slash to pierce the letter o" in my name, it immediately reminded me of Ezra Pound's various translations of the Book of Odes (Shi Jing). Specifically, Song 152 (Book I, 14). Pound's translation in The Classic Anthology reads:

Our lord, a unit of equity
hath heart of such constancy

For comparison, James Legge translated it as follows:

He is uniformly correct in his deportment,
His heart is as if it were tied to what is correct.

But in Pound's translation of the Ta Hsio (The Great Digest), where it is quoted, he renders it:

He practices equity without its making him feel
That a javelin were being thrust into his heart.

As one might pierce the letters of one's name?

I am posting this because if someone can send me a rough sketch of the ideograms Pound renders as "without its making him feel/that a javelin were being thrust into his heart" it would help me greatly. I don't have Chinese characters installed. I would need some sort of image file, or pdf.

tb dot lpf at cbs dot dk

Much appreciated.

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