Chinese and English – Affinities in Thought and Expression 中英契合
Compiled by Yu Fong-ying (’61)
Years ago, I acquired a little dictionary called Corresponding English & Chinese Proverbs & Phrases 英漢俚諺合璧 authored by John D. Chinnery, Professor of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh, and Cui Mingqiu (Beijing: New World Press, 1984). It contains some 600 English proverbs and phrases and their Chinese equivalents, which are not translations yet correspond in thought and content to a remarkable degree. Some examples are “As poor as a church mouse” and 一貧如洗, “Actions speak louder than words” and 事實勝於雄辯, and “Business is business” and 公事公辦. The correspondences are explained as follows: “Although proverbs are national in form, there is a universality about their content. Just as there is a similarity about many of the problems which people must face in different parts of the world, so it follows that proverbs which embody the answers to these problems must also correspond in different languages. Both Chinese and English are especially rich in proverbs, and many of these correspond in meaning. Sometimes this correspondence is very close, in other cases it is not so close, but still close enough to make comparison interesting and rewarding.”
I thought I could collect similar correspondences, not of proverbs and phrases, but from essays and poems. The following is a sample of such pairs of expressions. They are correspondences or near-correspondences that show an affinity of mind and expression. They are not translations of one another, but a meeting of minds across cultures. They are listed in no particular order. There must be many more such equivalences.
人生處一世，去若朝露晞。年在桑榆間，影響不能追。 (曹植:<<贈白馬王彪>>)
We die / As your hours do, and dry/ Away, / Like to the summer's rain; / Or as the pearls of/ morning's dew, / Ne'er to be found again. (‘To Daffodil’ by Robert Herrick)
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閒花野草, 自榮自落。 (紀曉嵐<<閱微草堂筆記>> 灤陽消夏錄五, 說輪迴)
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,/ And waste its sweetness on the desert air. (‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray)
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流水不腐, 户樞不蠹, 動也。 (呂不韋等《呂氏春秋--盡數》)
A rolling stone gathers no moss. (Proverb)
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己所不欲, 勿施於人。 (孔子<<論語>> 顏淵篇)
Do unto others as you would have them do to you. (‘St. Matthew’ 7:12: The Miles Coverdale Bible, 1535)
Do as you would be done by. (more colloquial form)
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社會大亂之前, 必有三前兆: 一、無論何事, 均黑白不分. 二、善良的人, 越來越謙虛容氣; 無用之人, 越來越猖狂胡為. 三、問題到了嚴重的程度之後, 凡事皆被合理化, 一切均被默認, 不痛不癢, 莫名其妙地虛應一番。 (曾國藩)
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. (‘The Second Coming’ by W. B. Yeats)
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人不可貌相，海水不可斗量。 (明冯梦龙《醒世恒言--卖油郎独占花魁》)
子曰：“以貌取人，失之子羽。” 《史记 --·仲尼弟子列传》
Do not judge a book by its cover. (Proverb)
There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face. (‘Macbeth’ by Shakespeare)
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打劫紅毛鬼, 進貢法蘭西。 (廣州方言俗語)
To rob Peter to pay Paul. (Proverb)
(此對張君提供, 謹謝。)
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棒打落水狗。 (魯迅《坟--论“费厄波赖”应该缓行》)
宜將剩勇追窮寇, 不可沽名學霸王。 (毛澤東《人民解放军占领南京》)
The best time to kick your opponent is when he is down. (Familiar saying)
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莫等閒, 白了少年頭, 空悲切。 (岳飛 <<滿江紅>>)
Youth’s a stuff will not endure. (‘Twelfth Night’ by Shakespeare)
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壽則多辱。 (《莊子外篇 --天地第十二》)
There are so few who can grow old with a good grace. (‘The Spectator’, no. 263, by Richard Steele)
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士為知己者死。 (劉向《戰國策·趙策一》)
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (‘St. John’ 15:13, King James Version)
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人算不如天算。 (諺語)
謀事在人, 成事在天。 (四字成語)
Man proposes; God disposes. (Proverb)
The best-laid schemes of mice and men go often awry. (“To a Mouse’ by Robert Burns)
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天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨，餓其體膚，空乏其身，行拂亂其所為，所以動心忍性，增益其所不能。 (孟子)
Adversity is a good schoolmaster. (Proverb)
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善有善報, 惡有惡報。 《缨络经·有行无行品》
All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings! (‘King Lear’ by Shakespeare)
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嗟乎草木無情, 有時飄零, 人為動物, 唯物之靈, 百憂感其心, 萬事勞其形, 有動於中, 必搖其精 … 宜其渥然丹者為槁木, 黝然黑者為星星, 奈何以非金石之質, 欲與草木而争榮, 念誰為之戕賊, 亦何恨乎秋聲。 (歐陽修<<秋聲賦>>)
Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before,
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there:
Let them go to the fire with never a look behind.
That world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.
They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendor,
And magical scenes to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth care for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain spring. (‘The Burning of the Leaves’ by Laurence Binyon)
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