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Re: VN on Butterflies (fwd)
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From: "Jerry Friedman, Northern N. M. Community College"
<jfriedman@nnm.cc.nm.us>
At 12:50 PM 4/24/99 -0700, you wrote:
>From Sunday's NYT Book Review:
>
>
> Invitation to a Transformation
>
> There was a Chinese philosopher who all his life
>pondered the problem
> whether he was a Chinese philosopher dreaming that he was
>a butterfly
> or a butterfly dreaming that she was a philosopher. . . .
>
Maybe everybody knows what the philosopher really said, but this
passage is cited inaccurately so often that I can't resist. It's the
end of Chapter 2 of the Zhuang-zi or Chuang-Tsu (or other
transliterations), the writings of the Taoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou
(369?-286? B.C.)--"zi" or "tsu" means "master". Zhuang-zi's spirit
was far too free for him to ponder something all his life--or for us
to accept a word he wrote as literally true. Here's Patricia Ebrey's
translation:
'Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a f1uttering butterfly
What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou.
Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know
whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed
he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some
distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.'
From Patricia Ebrey, _Chinese Civilization : A Sourcebook_, 2d ed. (New
York: Free Press, 1993), pp. 28-31.
Here's Lin Yutang's, with a couple of paragraphs before it for
context and an image or two that would find a resonance in Nabokov. The
phrases in paentheses are apparently Lin's glosses.
'The Penumbra said to the Umbra, "At one moment you move: at another you
are at rest. At one moment you sit down: at another you get up. Why this
instability of purpose?"
'"Perhaps I depend," replied the Umbra, "upon something which causes me
to do as I do; and perhaps that something depends in turn upon something else
which causes it to do as it does. Or perhaps my dependence is like (the
unconscious movements) of a snake's scales or of a cicada's wings. How can
I tell why I do one thing, or why I do not do another?"
'Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering
hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious
only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked,
and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I
am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction.
The transition is called the transformation of material things.'
(Some information above from _Sources of Chinese Tradition_, Vol. I, compiled
by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-Tsit Chan, and Burton Watson. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1960.)
<jfriedman@nnm.cc.nm.us>
At 12:50 PM 4/24/99 -0700, you wrote:
>From Sunday's NYT Book Review:
>
>
> Invitation to a Transformation
>
> There was a Chinese philosopher who all his life
>pondered the problem
> whether he was a Chinese philosopher dreaming that he was
>a butterfly
> or a butterfly dreaming that she was a philosopher. . . .
>
Maybe everybody knows what the philosopher really said, but this
passage is cited inaccurately so often that I can't resist. It's the
end of Chapter 2 of the Zhuang-zi or Chuang-Tsu (or other
transliterations), the writings of the Taoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou
(369?-286? B.C.)--"zi" or "tsu" means "master". Zhuang-zi's spirit
was far too free for him to ponder something all his life--or for us
to accept a word he wrote as literally true. Here's Patricia Ebrey's
translation:
'Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a f1uttering butterfly
What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou.
Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know
whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed
he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some
distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.'
From Patricia Ebrey, _Chinese Civilization : A Sourcebook_, 2d ed. (New
York: Free Press, 1993), pp. 28-31.
Here's Lin Yutang's, with a couple of paragraphs before it for
context and an image or two that would find a resonance in Nabokov. The
phrases in paentheses are apparently Lin's glosses.
'The Penumbra said to the Umbra, "At one moment you move: at another you
are at rest. At one moment you sit down: at another you get up. Why this
instability of purpose?"
'"Perhaps I depend," replied the Umbra, "upon something which causes me
to do as I do; and perhaps that something depends in turn upon something else
which causes it to do as it does. Or perhaps my dependence is like (the
unconscious movements) of a snake's scales or of a cicada's wings. How can
I tell why I do one thing, or why I do not do another?"
'Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering
hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious
only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked,
and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I
am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction.
The transition is called the transformation of material things.'
(Some information above from _Sources of Chinese Tradition_, Vol. I, compiled
by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-Tsit Chan, and Burton Watson. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1960.)