Shih Chi Research Articles

Reconsider How Did Chinese Historian Represent Hsiung-nu in Light of Han Histories

In this paper, through a comparative study of some fragments about Hsiung-nu in Shih Chi and Han Histories, we can conclude that Ban Gu rewrote Shih Chi by changing words, moving sentences, and deleting them to reflect his thoughts and the purpose of writing history. The analysis of these changes in this paper focuses on the details. From the details of Ban Gu's rewriting of Shih Chi, we can find that Sima Qian had a view on ethnic equality, while Ban Gu had a derogatory view of Hsiung-nu.

A corpus-based study of the translation of modal verbs in the three versions of Shih chi.

Modality plays an important part in verbal communication, as it can reveal the speaker's views and perspectives. The modal verb, as an essential component of the modality system, has been a hot research topic and a challenge in academic circles in recent years. Analyzing the modal verbs in a text may indicate the context produced by the translator in the translation and the identity difference between the translator and the reader. In this study, three representative English translations of Shih chi are selected for comparative analysis with the original text. With the help of corpus techniques, the paper investigates the differences in the use of modal verbs by various translators, the distribution of quantitative changes and their influence on translations, as well as the historical and cultural backgrounds and identities of the translators that led to these differences. It is found that owing to the different professional identities of the translators and historical and cultural contexts in which they live, the choice of modal verbs and the shifts of modality values in the three translations are distinct, leading to different translation styles.

On the Translation Strategies of Culture-loaded Words Based on Thick Translation: A Case Analysis of The Grand Scribes Records (Selected Chapters)

Culture-loaded words (hereinafter referred to briefly as CLWs), as their names imply, are expressions that mostly present the uniqueness of culture. The translation of CLWs has always been one of the core issues in translation, and the dilemma of translation adequacy and readers’ acceptability has also bothered translators for centuries. Thick translation theory, stressing that translation is not so much a literal work than a process of cultural transmission, attaches great importance to cultural differences. Under such theory, this study takes CLWs in Nienhauser’s translation of Shih Chi: Po-Chi as a study object, attempting to find out how thick translation can be realized with respect to translating CLWs. Generally speaking, literal translation, sense-for-sense translation, a combination of different strategies, translation with footnote and transliteration are widely adopted in Nienhauser’s translation. When it comes to specific kind of CLWs, even a certain kind of translation strategy is likely to be realized by many different methods. This variation can be explained by three elements: the translator’s subjectivity, the degree of cultural difference and the degree of contextual default. The translator’s subjectivity is the dominant factor for it determines translation purpose; the other two factors affect the way “thick” CLWs are translated, with the purpose of providing an understandable cultural explanation for targeted readers.

Another Installment of a Crucial Translation

Another Installment of a Crucial Translation Grant Hardy (bio) Ssu-ma Ch’ien. The Grand Scribe’s Record. Volume 9, The Memoirs of Han China, pt. 2. Edited by William H. Nienhauser Jr. Translated by J. Michael Farmer, Enno Giele, Christiane Haupt, Li He, Elisabeth Hsu, William H. Nienhauser Jr., Marc Nürnberger, and Ying Qin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. lxiv, 425 pp. Hardcover $59.95, ISBN 978-0-2533-5590-4. Although the Shih chi or Shiji (Grand scribe’s records), written about 90 b.c.e., is one of the fundamental texts of Chinese civilization, it still awaits a full rendering into English. (I will defer to Nienhauser and employ Wade-Giles transcription in this review, but I wish that he had used pinyin.) This volume is the sixth in William Nienhauser’s ongoing translation project. It is a monumental undertaking, for which Nienhauser has enlisted the assistance of an international consortium of scholars. Once again, those efforts have paid off handsomely. The only comparable endeavor was Burton Watson’s 1961 two-volume translation of exactly half of the Shih chi’s 130 chapters (with another dozen or so chapters published later), and now Nienhauser’s team has bested that number with a total of 74 chapters translated. Yet the two projects are quite dissimilar. Watson presented Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s words with very few explanatory footnotes, and the effect was not only to introduce this groundbreaking Chinese historian to Western audiences, but also to make him sound a bit like the Penguin editions of Herodotus or Thucydides. Nienhauser, by contrast, offers fully annotated translations where the footnotes often take up half the page or more. It seem to me that this latter strategy is a better fit for Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s work since the structure and style of the Shih chi suggests that it was not meant to be read linearly. To understand Ssu-ma’s meaning — which can sometimes be a puzzle — it is necessary constantly to compare what he has written in one chapter with how the same event or character is depicted in other chapters of the Shih chi. So the footnotes in Nienhauser’s volume refer not only to geographical identifications, cultural explanations, historical details, chronology, and textual variants, but they also include references to parallel accounts elsewhere in the Shih chi, with specific notations of alternative narratives or omitted details. For instance, on page 387, we read the story from Shih chi chapter 112 of how Chu-fu Yen drove the King of Ch’i to commit suicide; at the bottom of the page is a footnote outlining the quite different version of the tale as it was related in chapter 52. Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s innovative historiographical form does not present a single version of the past; rather, it invites readers to consider events and figures from multiple angles, in different contexts. To read the Shih chi’s five overlapping sections of annals, chronological tables, treatises, hereditary houses (lineage [End Page 159] histories), and memoirs is to be drawn into a conversation among the book’s constituent parts. Nienhauser and his fellow translators guide us through some of the intratextual dialogue, but their annotations also bring us into three additional conversations. The first is with the Han shu — the second book in the Chinese Standard Histories, written about two centuries after the Shih chi. The Han shu covers much of the same history as its predecessor, often in much the same language, and the subtle differences between the two texts can sometimes be revealing. The footnotes in the Shih chi offer a continuous comparison between parallel accounts in the two histories, and on pages 306–308, there is some useful material to add to the debate on whether certain passages in the Han shu were actually written first and then copied back into the Shih chi (see also p. 344 n. 212). Similarly, the footnotes bring us into the 2,000-year Chinese commentarial tradition. From the Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty, the Shih chi was the focus of tremendous scholarly attention, and Nienhauser and his collaborators help us follow the twists and turns of...

A NOTE ON A TEXTUAL PROBLEM IN THE SHIH CHI AND SOME SPECULATIONS CONCERNING THE COMPILATION OF THE HEREDITARY HOUSES

1 This paper was originally presented at the Conference on the Study of Publishing Culture in East Asia, Uesugi Museum, Yonezawa,Japan on 20 October 2001. I want to thank the participants of that conference, and especially Professor Isobe Akira f_il. of Sendai University, for their kindness. My gratitude also to Michael Lackner, Hans van Ess, the anonymous reader for T'oung Pao, Weiguo Cao, and the other members of the Shih chi Group at the University of Wisconsin for a number of valuable suggestions. 2 The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, Bart D. Erhman and Michael W. Holmes, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), p. 239. 3 In addition to the author's reading of some seventy chapters in conjunction with the on-going project to translate the Shih chi (cf. The Grand Scribe's Records [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994]), a careful search of both the electronic version of the Shih chi and the Shih chi so-yin 0.BdH I (Li Hsiao-kuang Ag7 and Li Po ~t, eds., Peking: Chung-kuo kuang-po tien-shih ch'u-pan-she rPtg ±1?&jt~ti±, 1989) has been made. Of the seventeen instances of this textual problem that have been found two occur in pre-Han basic annals and the remaining fifteen are all in the shih-chia.

Problems concerning the Authenticity of Shih chi 123 Reconsidered

The Shih chi [The Grand Scribe's Records] by Ssu-ma Ch'ien 1,% (c. 145 B.C.-c. 86 B.C.) and his father, Ssu-ma T'an W -,A (d. 110 B.C.) is one of the masterpieces of Chinese history and literature. It has long been known as a model not only for traditional Chinese historiography but for the Chinese narrative tradition as well;' as such, it has drawn attention from both literary and historiographical critics. In China, studies of the Shih chi, particularly literary studies, are second in number only to work on the Hung-lou meng $iTE4f [The Story of the Stone].2 Nor has the Shih chi been neglected in Taiwan.3 Western students of Chinese culture have long been attracted to the Shih chi as well.4 Though most studies concern the author, textual problems and historiography, studies of the Shih chi as literature are gradually increasing.5 Yet the unsolved textual problems of the Shih chi still perplex literary critics. Joseph R. Allen in An Introductory Study of Narrative Structure in the Shi ji summarizes several studies of the authorship and the authenticity of the Shih chi, then remarks: For convenience I shall

The Shih Chi and I

The Shih Chi and I

The Idea of Authority in the Shih chi (Records of the Historian)

The Idea of Authority in the Shih chi (Records of the Historian)

Di Cosmo, Nicola, Ph.D., Indiana University, 1991. - Inner Asia in Chinese History: An Analysis of the Hsiung-nu in the ‘Shih Chi.’ AAC9212290.

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The Interpretive Function of Shih Chi 14, "The Table by Years of the Twelve Feudal Lords"

for the narrative portions of Ssu-ma's history, they may also have an independent, interpretive function. This is the case with Shih chi 14, The Table by Years of the Twelve Feudal Lords. An analysis of this chapter and its sources demonstrates that Ssu-ma organized this table to communicate his own judgments of historical significance. Through his selection of events, Ssu-ma highlights major points of the Shih chi narratives, corrects and supplements the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Tso chuan, and provides a synopsis of the Spring and Autumn Era which is somewhat independent of the rest of the Shih chi (particularly with respect to portents). In addition, Ssu-ma's emphasis on political change can serve as a counter-example to characterizations of the annals genre in the West-

Form and Narrative in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi

Form and Narrative in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi

A striking discrepancy between the Shih chi and the Han shu

A striking discrepancy between the Shih chi and the Han shu

Founding Fathers and Yet Forgotten Men: a Closer Look At the Tables of the Nobility in the Shih Chi and the Han Shu

Founding Fathers and Yet Forgotten Men: a Closer Look At the Tables of the Nobility in the Shih Chi and the Han Shu

Nan-Tzu, or Why Heaven Did Not Crush Confucius

The Tso chuan, Shih chi, Lieh nu chuan, and various other texts contain brief references to Nan-tzu, the favorite concubine or wife of Duke Ling of Wei. Traditional historiography suggests that Nan-tzu, who was visited by Confucius on one occasion, had incestuous relations with Sung Chao (or Sung Tzu-chao), and that she was in general a lady of dubious morality. This view was particularly advanced in the Lieh nu chuan. Analysis of the details reveals, however, that there are many contradictory points in the sources and that the historical Nan-tzu may have been a woman of somewhat different character. It is further indicated that some of the absurdities in the primary material may stem from traditional Chinese prejudices toward women, commonly found even in our time.

The David Middleton Reed Collection of Chinese Studies

A special area-studies library can develop in one of three ways. It can be comprehensive, amassing everything published in the field; it can be selective, narrowing its scope to one small part of the subject at hand; or, it can be both comprehensive and selective, gathering key works that touch on a broad range of topics. The David Middleton Reed Collection of Chinese studies at The University of Iowa has chosen the last course, striving to acquire important materials that support research throughout the broad spectrum of sinology. The Reed collection was begun in 1977 when Harold L. and Virginia Middleton Reed donated a library of 538 volumes owned by their late son, David Middleton Reed, a budding scholar of Chinese philosophy at Stanford University. Since that time they have supported the growth of the collection with yearly monetary contributions matched by funds from the General Electric Company. The core of David Reed’s library is the Jen shou pen erh shih wu shih (The 25 official histories of China) (T’ai-pei: Erh shih wu shih pien k’an kuan, 1955-1958. 466 volumes).1 Each of these standard histories covers one dynasty of pre-Ch’ing China. It begins with the Shih chi (Record of history) compiled by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, the great scholar of Han China whose cyclical theory of history set the tone for later historiography throughout East Asia. It ends with the Ming shih (History of the Ming dynasty). The number of official histories has varied as new ones were added. By the late eighteenth century there were altogether 22 recognized works, but the retrieval of the earlier T’ang and Five Dynasties chronicles brought the total to 24, which became 25 after imperial recognition of the Yuan shih (History of the Yuan dynasty). These vast works, ordered by the emperor of the time, tended to be more and more standardized as

Poetry and the Legend of Confucius's Exile

AMONG THE MANY STORIES AND TALES which constitute the legends of Confucius's life, the most wellknown and dramatic involve the Master's suffering and hardships during his exile from Lu t. According to the account set forth in the Tso chuan AtE and Shih chi tPd, Confucius departed, or perhaps was banished, from his homeland in 497 B.C., after a failed attempt, supported by him, to dismantle the defensive walls around the cities controlled by the powerful Chi A, Meng I, and Shu ,~ families.' Along with a small group of followers, he wandered for thirteen years, travelling through AI, Ch'en A, Ts'ai M and other states which lay to the west and southwest of Lu.2 Tales of his trials, usually introduced with such conventional phrases as, When the Master was in Wei or When Confucius was in danger somewhere between the states of Ch'en and Ts'ai . . . , are found

Syma Tsyan, Istoricheskie Zapiski (Shi Tsi) [Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Historical Records (Shih Chi)]. Translated from Chinese, with introduction and commentaries, by R. V. Viatkin. Moscow: Nauka Publishing House, 1984. (Department of History, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.: Written Records of the Orient, XXXII, 3. Vol. 3.) 943 pp. Notes, Bibliography, Five Indices. Rubles 5.80. 5,000 copies.

Syma Tsyan, Istoricheskie Zapiski (Shi Tsi) [Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Historical Records (Shih Chi)]. Translated from Chinese, with introduction and commentaries, by R. V. Viatkin. Moscow: Nauka Publishing House, 1984. (Department of History, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.: Written Records of the Orient, XXXII, 3. Vol. 3.) 943 pp. Notes, Bibliography, Five Indices. Rubles 5.80. 5,000 copies.

Sure Guidance for One's Own Time: Pan Ku and the Tsan to Han Shu 94

One of the characteristic forms of the Shih Chi taken over by Pan Ku in his Han Shu is the short passage of critical appraisal appended to each chapter. Both Pan Ku and Ssu-ma Ch'ien felt free to use these passages to express their personal opinions--sometimes directly and sometimes with subtle indirection—not only on the facts presented in the preceding chapter but also on pressing issues of their own day. Students of the Han Shu refer to these passages as tsan, after the phrase with which they are introduced in that work, tsan yüeh (“In appraisal we say”). These tsan vary in length from a few lines to several pages.One of the most highly developed of all Pan Ku's tsan is that appended to Han Shu 94, the “Memoir on the Hsiung-nu.” It is a substantial, well-written essay and at over one thousand characters in length, by far the longest in the entire Han Shu. It reveals much about Pan Ku's historical method and also provides us with the key to his attitude toward barbarian management in his own day. Without the understanding provided by the tsan, it is not possible to appreciate fully the implications of the form and organization of the “Memoir on the Hsiung-nu” itself.

Notes On the Nomenclature of Winds and Directions in the Early Han

The Huai-nan-tzu M M (hereafter HNT), an eclectic Taoist work presented to the court of Han Wu-ti around I39 B.C., is an important source of information concerning Warring States and Han conceptions of the size, shape, and operations of the cosmos. The doctrines incorporated in HNT represent one of the final steps in the development of Chinese cosmology anterior to Tung Chungshu's K Tff grand synthesis of natural and social philosophy, political theory, and public policy that established the ruling ideology of Confucian government for the remainder of the Han and beyond. In HNT, as would no longer be the case a few decades after HNT was written, natural philosophy could be presented as a set of issues largely independent of political theory and public policy. Nevertheless, in HNT and certain related texts, one can in some cases see the beginnings of an integration of those two sets of issues. One such case is found in the names of the eight winds and eight directions, their symbolic connotations, their correlations with the seasons, and the definition of social and political activities appropriate to each. This article will discuss some problems of the nomenclature of winds and directions encountered in HNT and certain other closely associated texts. The names of the eight winds seem not to have been fully standardized at the time that the Huai-nan-tzu was written. The names for the winds given in HNT 4:2a do not agree with the names given in 3:4a and in 4: i6a, nor do they agree with the names given in Li-shih ch'un-ch'iu g .EMkWA (hereafter LSCC) I3: 2b, in a passage that was closely copied in the opening pages of HNT 4 1). That the names were at that time in the process of becoming standardized can be seen in the fact that the (identical) names of the winds in HNT 3:4a and 4: i6a are also the names given in Shih chi 9 E 25 and in the chapter on the eight winds (Chapter 24)

Ju-tzu Hsi and the Genealogy of the House of Wei

Our knowledge of the genealogy of the feudal houses of the Chou period is based primarily on the Shih Chi “Hereditary Houses” and secondarily on frequent quotations in medieval commentaries of the Shih Pen, a systematic genealogical treatise which, before it was lost in the T'ang, found favor among such historians as Tu Yü (222-284) and Ssu-ma Cheng (fl. 719-736) and classicists like K'ung Ying-ta (574-648). In the “Hereditary House of Wei,” the Shih Chi presents a genealogy at some variance with the genealogy quoted from the Shih Pen in Ssu-ma Cheng's commentary to the Shih Chi and K'ung Ying-ta's “sub-commentaries” to the Tso Chuan and Li Chi. A central point of disagreement concerns Marquis Wen , who is described as the son or grandson of Viscount Huan . This conflict of genealogy is coupled with a serious discrepancy concerning the length and date of the reign of Marquis Wen between the Shih Chi and the reconstructed Chu-shu Chi-nien. I believe that a careful examination of the chronological difficulty will contribute to a resolution of the genealogical conflict and thus prepare the way for a more general solution of points of conflict between the Shih Chi and Shih Pen versions of the genealogy of the House of Wei.