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the Force Powers Codex
It occurred to me that "learn to read ancient Chinese Seal Script" is actually not probably a reasonable amount of research to do for a Star Wars fic, so here, have what will probably be the epilogue to the fic if I ever actually finish writing it:
Three Translations of the
As preserved in the Temple on Ach-To
a) As translated into Standard by Rey, Finn and C-3PO with assistance from certain Masters of the line of Yoda:
b) As translated by R2-D2 and BB8 into Astromech Binary and then into Standard with help from Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, with no help whatsoever but many objections from C-3PO:
c) As translated by a certain other presence in the Force, with the unwilling agreement of others that it is probably the most accurate overall:
Notes on the translations:
I know next to nothing about Classical Chinese, and almost nothing about Daoism beyond what's in the Codex and the 莊子 because every time I have tried to read English commentaries of the text I get really frustrated by how bad the authors are at accepting ambiguity in a text that's all about that. But it's really amazing that I can sit down for a couple of days with Google Books and Wiktionary and get farther on figuring out how all the different English translations of this text fit together than my father could in the 1990s with most of a year’s work and a tall stack of library books and a lot of after-dinner discussion.
1. "Force" is, in a version of this language that pre-dates Star Wars, not a great translation of 道, but in a world where more people can quote Yoda than can quote Shakespeare, it's probably as good as any. Also Stephen Mitchell says it's okay, and Mitchell was the first translation my father used, so there. "Power" is a fairly terrible translation of 德 but it's a term a lot of translators have used historically and it's also one a lot of Star Wars merch has used. 道德经 was not in its original form something we'd technically call a codex, but the copy on Ach-To clearly was, and “codex” in its modern colloquial meaning is not a bad match for 经 .
2. 欲以 does not seem to get translated as "to try" in many versions of the first chapter of the Force Power Codex, but it seems to get translated that way in other places in ancient texts (including sometimes elsewhere in this one), and in SW context it seems as close in possible meaning as anything.
3. 玄 is usually translated more like "mystery" or "secret" but some (usually those working most closely from the original) go with "dark", and that does seem to be a valid translation based on other texts of the period I found - many of these characters seem to suffer from the fact that their meaning has changed to something more complicated because they're used in this text (something in the way the word "occult" in English also started out meaning "dark".)
4. There is in fact an explanation for every translation choice here, but explanation is not the same as justification. There is no justification. We'll just call it a loose colloquial paraphrase and not bother Threepio anymore, okay?
5. Also I have a bad feeling about this.
Three Translations of the
First Chapter of
Force Powers Codex1
of the Old Master
As preserved in the Temple on Ach-To
a) As translated into Standard by Rey, Finn and C-3PO with assistance from certain Masters of the line of Yoda:
The Force forced is not a reliable Force
A name named is not a reliable name
Before the universe was nameless
Names birth numberable things
So try not2
And see reliable wonder
Try
And see reliable limits
These two go out the same but there
Is another name the same is called the dark3
Dark and dark
That also is a gate to many wonders
b) As translated by R2-D2 and BB8 into Astromech Binary and then into Standard with help from Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, with no help whatsoever but many objections from C-3PO:
The shit Jedi do always has to be fuckin’ Extra4
And the shit we’re talking about is fuckin’ hard to talk about in words
If you’d left the universe in maths it would make more sense
If you don’t want to fuck with it, excellent
If you do want to fuck with it, don’t be Extra
Jedi talk about binaries like they're some great mystery
But fuck mystery, try using your logic circuits instead
c) As translated by a certain other presence in the Force, with the unwilling agreement of others that it is probably the most accurate overall:
That’s not how the Force works!5
Notes on the translations:
I know next to nothing about Classical Chinese, and almost nothing about Daoism beyond what's in the Codex and the 莊子 because every time I have tried to read English commentaries of the text I get really frustrated by how bad the authors are at accepting ambiguity in a text that's all about that. But it's really amazing that I can sit down for a couple of days with Google Books and Wiktionary and get farther on figuring out how all the different English translations of this text fit together than my father could in the 1990s with most of a year’s work and a tall stack of library books and a lot of after-dinner discussion.
1. "Force" is, in a version of this language that pre-dates Star Wars, not a great translation of 道, but in a world where more people can quote Yoda than can quote Shakespeare, it's probably as good as any. Also Stephen Mitchell says it's okay, and Mitchell was the first translation my father used, so there. "Power" is a fairly terrible translation of 德 but it's a term a lot of translators have used historically and it's also one a lot of Star Wars merch has used. 道德经 was not in its original form something we'd technically call a codex, but the copy on Ach-To clearly was, and “codex” in its modern colloquial meaning is not a bad match for 经 .
2. 欲以 does not seem to get translated as "to try" in many versions of the first chapter of the Force Power Codex, but it seems to get translated that way in other places in ancient texts (including sometimes elsewhere in this one), and in SW context it seems as close in possible meaning as anything.
3. 玄 is usually translated more like "mystery" or "secret" but some (usually those working most closely from the original) go with "dark", and that does seem to be a valid translation based on other texts of the period I found - many of these characters seem to suffer from the fact that their meaning has changed to something more complicated because they're used in this text (something in the way the word "occult" in English also started out meaning "dark".)
4. There is in fact an explanation for every translation choice here, but explanation is not the same as justification. There is no justification. We'll just call it a loose colloquial paraphrase and not bother Threepio anymore, okay?
5. Also I have a bad feeling about this.
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Unless you mean R2's version. That one's a bad rendering. :D (I used, like, modern Cantonese slang and multi-language puns to make that one work.)
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