Japanese/Chinese translation?
DfYn
words on this Japanese print into English for me? It looks like Chinese to
me but I don't really know -
DfYn
news:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
Sorry, meant to post to two newsgroups and messed up. No experience with
cross-posting. Your help with the translation will be much appreciated.
Bart Mathias
> DfYn <D...@false.address.com> wrote in
> news:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
>
>> I wonder if there is anyone here who will be kind enough to translate
>> the words on this Japanese print into English for me? It looks like
>> Chinese to me but I don't really know -
>>
>> http://www.axqb37.dsl.pipex.com/utamaro.jpg
It is indeed Chinese. A five(?!)-line poem. Sometimes I can translate
those, but the characters are a bit fuzzy in my Iceweasel browser, so
I'm not even positive about the words--something like
Buddha say law ? teacher
Wide law not-yet world ?
Living ? law you sell
Five foot shape sing anguish
Troubles ergo Boddhi -satva psyche
Some of those are probably wrong, but maybe it could be put to music.
The "Utamaro brush" to the left of the ladies is easy, but I can't make
out any of the three stamps.
Bart Mathias
japan...@gmail.com
> DfYn <D...@false.address.com> wrote innews:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
Hi,
My humble guess:
佛 説 法 祖 師
弘 法 □ 丗 泉
生 売 法 汝 買
五 尺 形 躰 煩
悩 却 菩 提 心
佛ハ説フ法ハコレ祖ノ師ナリ。
法ヲ□丗泉ニ弘ムルハ
生キテハ法ヲ売り汝(之ヲ)買フコトナリ。
五尺ノ形躰ハスナハチ煩悩ナルモ菩提心ニ却ヘルヘシ。
Buddha once said that the law is an original guru.
To spread the law into the world, that is same as
One live to sell the law and you buy it.
Our body has earthly desires but you can get back
to bodhi-mind.
NB; This is not a poem. if that is a poem, 泉and 煩
must go to rhyme in Chinese. 泉 is /quan/ and 煩 is
/fan/.
Odysseus
Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
> > DfYn <D...@false.address.com> wrote in
> > news:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
<snip>
> >> http://www.axqb37.dsl.pipex.com/utamaro.jpg
>
> It is indeed Chinese. A five(?!)-line poem. Sometimes I can translate
> those, but the characters are a bit fuzzy in my Iceweasel browser, so
> I'm not even positive about the words [...]
It is indeed a terrible image as far as the calligraphy is concerned,
low in resolution and showing strong compression artifacts. In case it
helps any, this is what I could make of it in a couple minutes of
Photoshopping:
<http://www.geocities.com/odysseus1479/sci-lang_poem.png>
Are five-line poems unusual in Chinese? Or just on Japanese prints?
--
Odysseus
Kouji Ueshiba
news:36970215-f299-40ec...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> My humble guess:
>
> 佛 説 法 祖 師
> 弘 法 □ 丗 泉
> 生 売 法 汝 買
> 五 尺 形 躰 煩
> 悩 却 菩 提 心
「口」ー＞「末」
「丗」ー＞「世」、「口丗」ー＞「末世」
「泉」ー＞「衆」、
「売」ー＞「？」
「買」ー＞「売」
「却」ー＞「即」
あるいは、次のように読むのが妥当か？
仏・説・法 （仏は法を説き）
祖師・弘・法 （祖師は法を弘（広）む）
末世・衆生・？法 （末世の衆生（＝人々）は法を？す（る））（しかし）
汝・売・五尺・形躰
（汝（＝あなたがた、この絵の女性たち）はこの絵で形躰（＝体・姿）を
売る。それは）
煩悩・即・菩提・心
（その美しい姿で見る人を悩ます、つまり、煩悩を抱かせることにより、
即ち（即座に）、菩提に入れるようにしようというのが、この女性たちの
「心」＝「意図、内心」ではないのか？）（色即是空、空即是色の意味？）
(「客」あるいは「その姿を嘆賞する人」の抱（いだ）く「煩悩」)
（「心」はこの女性たちの「心」＝「意図、内心」か？）
Bart wrote :
> "Utamaro brush" to the left of the ladies is easy, but I can't make
> out any of the three stamps.
Probably 喜（七を三つ書いた字）多（？）川 under "Utamaro brush".
上 柴 公 二
Kouji Ueshiba
news:gad35u$gjp$1...@aioe.org...
>
> Probably 喜（七を三つ書いた字）多（？）川 under "Utamaro brush".
not 「多」 but probably 「た」の異体字（「ゝ」を二つ重ねたような
形の「た」の字。その元の形は「多」）
上 柴 公 二
Richard Herring
Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu> writes
>DfYn wrote:
>> DfYn <D...@false.address.com> wrote in
>> news:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
>>> I wonder if there is anyone here who will be kind enough to
>>>translate
>>> the words on this Japanese print into English for me? It looks like
>>> Chinese to me but I don't really know -
>>>
>>> http://www.axqb37.dsl.pipex.com/utamaro.jpg
>
>It is indeed Chinese. A five(?!)-line poem. Sometimes I can translate
>those, but the characters are a bit fuzzy in my Iceweasel browser, so
>I'm not even positive about the words--something like
>
>Buddha say law ? teacher
>Wide law not-yet world ?
>Living ? law you sell
>Five foot shape sing anguish
>Troubles ergo Boddhi -satva psyche
>
>Some of those are probably wrong, but maybe it could be put to music.
I don't know about the Chinese, but there's an echo (at 5/6 scale ;-)
somewhere in there of the famous saying of the Buddha "In this six-foot
long body, I declare the world, the origin of the world, the end of the
world, and the path to the end of the world."
>
>The "Utamaro brush" to the left of the ladies is easy, but I can't make
>out any of the three stamps.
>
>Bart Mathias
--
Richard Herring
DfYn
news:36970215-f299-40ec...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
Thank you very much guys. I'm not sure if I understand the Buddhist
philosophical aspect of it, but this is greatly appreciated.
Bart Mathias
> In article <aZCdnU-aWPuuLFTV...@hawaiiantel.net>,
> Bart Mathias <mat...@hawaii.edu> wrote:
>
>>> DfYn <D...@false.address.com> wrote in
>>> news:EtudnUtljLJF6FTV...@pipex.net:
>
> <snip>
>
>>>> http://www.axqb37.dsl.pipex.com/utamaro.jpg
>> It is indeed Chinese. A five(?!)-line poem. Sometimes I can translate
>> those, but the characters are a bit fuzzy in my Iceweasel browser, so
>> I'm not even positive about the words [...]
>
> It is indeed a terrible image as far as the calligraphy is concerned,
> low in resolution and showing strong compression artifacts. In case it
> helps any, this is what I could make of it in a couple minutes of
> Photoshopping:
>
> <http://www.geocities.com/odysseus1479/sci-lang_poem.png>
That just about equals the original image. I *might* have gotten the
last character of the second line, but having seen Ueshiba's rendering
makes that too-easy second guessing.
> Are five-line poems unusual in Chinese? Or just on Japanese prints?
I don't recall every seeing any in all my years (two?) of studying
classical Chinese back in the '60s. What would the rhyme scheme be? I
wondered if maybe the last two lines might rhyme, but the last character
of the fifth line ends with an [n], not [m], which saves worrying about
the vowel mismatch. I should have noticed that the last character in the
fifth line and the first of the sixth go together to form a commone
word/phrase, and realized it couldn't possibly be a poem after all.
As it turns out, it is just a neatly rectangled thirty-word essay. Since
DfYn apparently doesn't read Japanese, I'll try to suggest the sense
Ueshiba gets from it in English, hoping I understand him correctly:
The Buddha lectures on the Law, and the ancestral(?) teachers spread the
Law. The throngs at the end of the world will (do something) [character
for the verb that goes here not yet recognized--it looks like an
abbreviation of the last character of the same line, but I didn't read
it that way simply because the writer wasn't abbreviating] to the Law.
You (the women in the picture) sell your five-foot forms, the anguish
over which comes to be Boddhisatva-mindedness.
Ueshiba speculates that (I think) their plight moves them to consider
the Buddhist path.
Bart Mathias
John Swindle
wrote:
Thanks to you and Ueshiba. I don't know Japanese at all, but now the
Chinese starts to come a little clearer.
The Buddha spoke the Dharma; the Patriarchs spread the Dharma; in
[this] latter age the many beings sell (?) the Dharma. You sell the
five-foot body. Vexation is just bodhicitta.
I do think we're seeing two different versions of the same character
for "to sell." I have no objection to "Law" and
"bodhisattva-mindedness" but just chose to use "Dharma" and
"bodhicitta."