Goete Quotes in Japanese

[BJ Beauchamp]

Hi All,

My apologies about clogging up the list with this request, but I'm having difficulty

tracking down an established translation of a particular quote. 

I'm translating something for a client and Goete is quoted in the text. 

「 ひそかに清く自己を保存せよ。自分の周りは荒れるにまかせよ」

I've tried everything to try and track this back to him, but I can't seem to find any such

established English translation or German source for that matter. It appears to be cited

across many pages who have translations of his quotes, but this one never appears 

elsewhere.

Hope someone can be of assistance.

Regards,

BJ Beauchamp

--

--
BJ Beauchamp
University at Buffalo
Bachelors of Arts, Applied Linguistics & Japanese
---
I'm a soldier and that means
I am both defendant and judge
I stand at both ends of the fire

I'm a soldier つまり私は
被告人であり裁判官
火の両端に私は立つ
---

[Wolfgang Bechstein]

BJ Beauchamp wrote:

> My apologies about clogging up the list with this request, but I'm having
> difficulty
> tracking down an established translation of a particular quote.
>
> I'm translating something for a client and Goete is quoted in the text.
> 「 ひそかに清く自己を保存せよ。自分の周りは荒れるにまかせよ」
>
> I've tried everything to try and track this back to him, but I can't seem
> to find any such
> established English translation or German source for that matter. It
> appears to be cited
> across many pages who have translations of his quotes, but this one never
> appears
> elsewhere.
>
> Hope someone can be of assistance.

The Japanese seems to one of those quotes that acquire a life of their own and become more famous in translation than in the original language. It is actually only the first two lines of a four-line aphorism from Goethe's "Zahme Xenien". Here is the full German text:

http://www.aphorismen.de/zitat/90267

I found an English translation at this site (which seems to be replete with scanning/typing errors):

https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofquot00dalbuoft/dictionaryofquot00dalbuoft_djvu.txt

Let purity of soul be thine,
Nor heed the storms of life's rough sea ;
The more thy human merits shine.
The more like to the gods thou'lt be.

As you can see, the original (and this translation) are in rhyme, and only make full sense in the complete four-line form. The Japanese just takes the underlying idea and sort of runs with it. Good luck with handling that in whatever you're dealing with.

Wolfgang Bechstein
(pls note, it's Goethe with an h)

[BJ Beauchamp]

Much appreciated, sir!

Oddly enough, I did run across a quote from クセーニエン in my searches, but I completely disregarded the entry since it was quoting another portion of it entirely. And yes, I realized I spelled his name wrong after I sent the email to the list... an error in haste on my part (which is becoming all too common lately). 

Thanks again for your much needed assistance!

[Herman]

On 28/10/15 12:18, Wolfgang Bechstein wrote:
> BJ Beauchamp wrote:
>
>> My apologies about clogging up the list with this request, but I'm
>> having difficulty tracking down an established translation of a
>> particular quote.
>>
>> I'm translating something for a client and Goete is quoted in the
>> text. 「 ひそかに清く自己を保存せよ。自分の周りは荒れるにまかせよ」


>

> http://www.aphorismen.de/zitat/90267
>
> I found an English translation at this site (which seems to be
> replete with scanning/typing errors):
>
> https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofquot00dalbuoft/dictionaryofquot00dalbuoft_djvu.txt
>
> Let purity of soul be thine, Nor heed the storms of life's rough sea
> ; The more thy human merits shine. The more like to the gods thou'lt
> be.
>
> As you can see, the original (and this translation) are in rhyme, and
> only make full sense in the complete four-line form. The Japanese
> just takes the underlying idea and sort of runs with it. Good luck
> with handling that in whatever you're dealing with.

Halte dich nur im stillen rein,
Und laß es um dich wettern;

A literal translation would be:

Keep yourself pure only in silence/secret
And let it thunder around you

Thus, the Japanese lines are more or less a literal translation of the
German original, whereas the above English rendition takes substantial
poetic license.

Another published English version reads

Keep yourself in silence pure
And let it rage abroad

https://books.google.com/books?id=D3u9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=Halte+dich+nur+im+stillen+rein+pure&source=bl&ots=txcunrssTv&sig=aDiMKjWHXteqj9_TusYdrBOcBuA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAmoVChMI5Yqp3PzlyAIVFJ2ICh1hDQ6a#v=onepage&q=Halte%20dich%20nur%20im%20stillen%20rein%20pure&f=false


Herman Kahn

[Wolfgang Bechstein]

Seems I was barking up the wrong Goethe tree, as it were.

Better follow Herman's as usual excellent advice.

Wolfgang

[Wolfgang Bechstein]

I wrote my second message in haste, on my way out the door, without looking at the source once more, and I was under the impression that Herman had found a different two-liner that exactly corresponded to the Japanese.

I now see that the source is in fact the same (the first two lines of a four-line couplet), and I still think that the full meaning only emerges in the complete four-line form. In this regard, I personally prefer the (admittedly somewhat archaic-sounding) English rendering that I quoted.

Wolfgang
(not that it matters terribly much)

[timl...@aol.com]

Me too, so much so that I copied it and pasted it alongside a copy of the German and a note of the source poem.

FWIW
Tim

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