Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Manuel Dias and his Chinese Translation of Contemptus Mundi

From: XIAO Qinghe, Thomas <qinghexiao@gmail.com>
Date: 2011/8/10
Subject: [ChineseCS] 李奭學:<瘳心之藥,靈病之神劑--陽瑪諾譯《輕世金書》初探>(2011)
To: ChineseCS <ChineseCS@googlegroups.com>


瘳心之藥,靈病之神劑--陽瑪諾譯《輕世金書》初探
Spiritual Exercises: Emmanuel Diaz's Chinese Translation of the Contemptus mundi in Ming China

李奭學 編譯論叢 4:1 2011.03頁1-38

本文所論為明末耶穌會士陽瑪諾中譯的《輕世金書》。此書譯於一六四○年,原作為德國奧斯定會士耿稗思的《遵主聖範》,乃歐洲中世紀晚期的散文偉構,亦是時靈修文學的代表作:耿氏娓娓細談在聖體的領受中,靈魂如何可與天主結合為一。本文分由四方面深入陽瑪諾的中譯,首先從譯本的版本問題下手,討論陽瑪諾在翻譯上的著作權。其次探討陽譯的底本問題。《輕世金書》一題,出自文藝復興時代格蘭那達的路易士的西班牙文譯本的書題,而此一書題再加上章數問題,使得歷來的研究者多認為陽譯所據即為格蘭那達的本子。本文則透過文本比對,認為縱然如此,陽瑪諾應該也參考過耿俾思的拉丁原文。本文第三部分研究陽瑪諾和耿俾思兩人的閱讀理論,指出明末以來盛行的「實學」一詞中的「實」字,在耶穌會方面,多指天主的「真實」或「真理」(Truth)而言。陽瑪諾為反映《遵主聖範》的經典與真理性,在譯體上選擇《尚書》中的謨誥體,而如此做的結果反倒讓《輕世金書》的文字變得晦澀不已。因此,從明清之際迄清末,為《輕世金書》作注者不少,我們迄今所知至少有四種。就天主教在華的譯史而言,這種情形相當罕見。本文最後所論,即為今天尚存的注本的特色。
This paper looks at the translation of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ into Chinese by Emmanuel Diaz, a late Ming Jesuit. The Imitation of Christ is a medieval European tour-de-force of prose that illuminates the spiritual path of union with Christ through the Eucharist. I approach the translated text of the work, titled Qingshi jinshu, from four perspectives. First I explore the textual history of the translated text and the decisive role Diaz played as the translator. Second, I investigate the source text of Diaz’s translation, which has long been identified as Luis de Granada’s Spanish rendition of the Imitation of Christ, entitled Contemptus mundi. My research shows that even if Diaz based his translation on Granada’s version, he also consulted the Latin original of à Kempis. The third section of the paper addresses both à Kempis’s and Diaz’s theories of reading expressed in the Chinese translation; both authors emphasize the textual search for divine Truth. Matching the terse style of à Kempis’s Latin original, Diaz's Chinese translation employs an archaic style similar to that of the Shangshu or the Book of Documents. The fourth and final section of this paper examines several annotated editions of the Qingshi jinshu, which circulated prior to the Republican era, in order to showcase the significance of Diaz’s efforts.