tian xin 于 1999/11/24 01:53:41 发表在 汉英
Story of Bahlul
Bahlul wanted to contact certain notables of Persia for reasons of his own. The only way to do this was to go to the prince's party that was attended by these notables. Unfortunately Bahlul was bald-headed, and in those days no one without hair was allowed to attend a party given by the prince. The prince himself had lost all his hair, and to see others without hair reminded him of it and prevented him from enjoying the party. Since the prince was very sensitive on this point, no one bald was allowed to come to the party. So when bald Bahlul went to the party in his shabby clothes, he was thrown out. The party lasted for three days, however; and on the second day Bahluh borrowed some fine clothes and a wig, disguised himself, and again went to the party.
During the party no one recognized Bahlul, and in his fine clothes he made a great impression upon all the notables. He made himself so agreeable that even the prince offered him a warm welcome and invited him to sit near him. No sooner was Bahlul seated than he winked at the prince. The prince did not understand the meaning of his winking but vaguely felt that such a gesture from an illustrious man like him must mean something important. Thinking that it immediately required a suitable response, he also winked. Those who were the nearby saw this exchange of winking and felt impelled to imitate them. They also winked at each other, and soon the winking spread throughout the crowd so that for five minutes the party saw nothing but winking.
Then Bahlul cried, "Stop! O you wise men. Why do you wink?" And the notables replied, "We are winking because you great men were winking. we only imitate you." Then immediately Bahlul took off his wig and said, "We two are both bald. Imitate us." The notables then went away, and on the third day they all came with shaved heads. Then Bahlul turned to the prince and said, "We two are permanently bald; these men will have to shave their heads daily in order to remain bald." Thus through his tactful handling and sense of humor, he secured access to those whom he wanted to help.
巴鲁的故事
巴鲁因特殊原因想接触波斯的一些名人显贵。而唯一的途径是参加这些名人汇聚的王子宴会。不幸的是，巴鲁是光头，而当时无论是谁，只要没头发，就不被允许参加王子的宴会。王子的头发也全谢了，看到其他人没头发会让他想到这一事实，无法充分享受宴会的乐趣。由于王子对这点非常敏感，凡是光头，都被拒之门外。因此，当巴鲁衣衫褴褛来参加宴会时，被立刻轰了出去。宴会要持续三日，第二天，巴鲁向人借了华贵的衣裳和假发，化装再次赴宴。
在宴会上，谁都没有认出巴鲁，他身着盛装，给所有名人留下深刻印象。他举止如此优雅，连王子本人都对他表示热烈欢迎，并请他坐在自己身旁。巴鲁刚一坐下就对王子眨一下眼睛。王子并不明白他眨眼的意思，但隐约感到它来自如此杰出的人，一定包含着某种重要信息，觉得应该立刻给予适当的回应，因此也回眨了一下眼。在坐的人看到这两位大人眨眼交流，觉得有必要加以效仿，也互相眨眼。很快所有客人都开始眨眼，有五分钟的光景，整个宴会厅都沉浸于眨眼运动。
突然，巴鲁叫到，“停下来，啊，你们这些智者。你们干吗都眨眼睛？”贵人们答道，“我们眨眼是因为你们大人物眨眼。我们只是模仿你们而已。”这时，只见巴鲁摘下假发，说道，“我们俩儿都是光头。效仿我们吧。”宴会散了，可第三天那些名人显贵都剃了光头来赴宴。这时，巴鲁转向王子，说，“我们两个是天赐的光头，而这些人得每天剃光头发，才能保光。”他就这样通过机智的处理和幽默感，接触到那些他想帮助的人。
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继“狗蛋”和“秋萍”之后，好久没开荤了，谢谢甜心！
作者：古月 - 1999/11/24 10:50:02
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这个故事既诙谐幽默，又寓意深长。显赫加自信可以让荒诞升华为荣耀；光环效应(halo effect)能够指鹿为马、颠倒美丑。切中时弊，入木三分啊！
渔夫、水前、浅草、鹤子等等最近在忙什么？怎么好久没见他们的智慧之光？
古月
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Source of "The Story of Bahlul": Discourses
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/25 01:14:12
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Discourses
by Meher Baba
Sheriar Press, 1987
The others two stories "The story of the Muskdeer" and "Impressions of Superstition" were translated from the same book.
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Thanks!
作者：古月 - 1999/11/25 01:34:14
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另类Contagion Effect--An artificial one: a tale from the "World Tales"
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/24 14:36:06
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早上看见甜心的故事就琢磨着把这个故事也贴上。下课回来又见古月君的问候，
高评实在愧不敢当，不过真的很感谢惦记着。主要是在对付功课，要不是感恩节
放假，还不敢这么“撒欢儿”呢。
False Witnesses
The cunning Owlglass went to a fair where all kinds of things were being sold, to see what he could get for nothing. He laid his plans to see whether he could trap a peasant. After looking around for a time, he espied a countryman buying a nice piece of green cloth. "This," he decided, "will do for me, I shall get hold of the cloth..."
"Good morning" he said to the farmer, "and where did you buy that fine bolt of blue cloth."
"It isn't blue, it is green."
"What nonsense" said Owlglass, "you must be blind: anyone can see that it is the deepest and surest blue."
The argument went on, with the peasant getting more and more annoyed, until they decided that the first person to come along should be asked to judge the colour. "What is more," said the peasant, "if this cloth is blue, then I'll forfeit it, and you can have it yourself, for nothing!"
Now Owlglass had a friend, a rogue priest, with whom he had already arranged the trick. At a signal, the priest came out of where he was hiding, looking like the first passer-by.
"Hey, there!" shouted the villain, "Sir Priest, will you pronounce upon the colour of this cloth, to settle an argument?"
"Indeed I will my son," said the priest, "it is undoubtedly blue, as anyone can see."
"Now give me the cloth, you ignorant oaf!" cried Owlglass.
"Not likely"--the peasant was cunning--"for how do I know that you have not arranged all this with the priest, to steal my cloth?"
"Very well," said the crook, "let us wait until the next man approaches."
Sure enough, within a minute or two, another figure strode past, and was called in to judge. He, too, was a confederate of the first two confidence men--and he insisted that the cloth was blue.
So Owlglass won his wager, the cloth was handed over, and the three crooks divided the spoils.
*A note by the collector, Idries Shah: "The earliest English version (of this tale) is that of 1518, and it is found in Hebrew, Persian, German, Spanish, Syriac, and Latin as well. The essential idea, however, has been traced back nearly fifteen centuries, but it may have been first composed more than 2000 years ago. This version is from the 15th-century German adventures of the Saxon rogue."
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This tale lends a ready English version for 指鹿为马: calling the green cloth blue:-)
作者：古月 - 1999/11/24 18:40:55
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谢谢！
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/25 01:37:06
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有意思的是，“指鹿为马”中是一个皇帝两个大臣，“指绿为蓝”却是三个均分赃物的骗子，
是不是也算得上“金字塔式”与“圆桌式”之别的一个例子了？
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Yeah, it's the absolute power vs the majority tyranny
作者：古月 - 1999/11/25 01:49:52
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青出于蓝却被指为蓝；三人市虎乃无独有偶！
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/25 01:03:22
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My heart jumped with delight when I saw: a tale from "World Tales". Is it the hardcover edition with beautiful illustrations in it?
The story of "False Witnesses" carries more levels of meanings than it apparently does as a moral fable about the innocent being cheated by the cunningly greedy. One has to bear in mind that Idries Shah was a Sufi teacher himself and was aware of the wisdom in traditional materials which many would dismiss as childish and over-simple moral tales.
On a deeper level, it tackles the very basic question of Reality and Illusion. In Islamic symbolism, "green" is the sacred colour of Mahomed, therefore the colour of divine reality, as against "blue" which is the colour of the other. The peasant may be regarded as the pure being who has the priceless treasure in his hands, but is told by the worldly and those who see through dark glasses that his heavenly green is the abstract blue. Note the false witnesses: Owlglass-the scholar:-), priest-the church, plus the common rogue.
If we forget about the cultural implication of the colour and apply the story to our own life, it is as if we are born with the heart of a naked babe, pure and colorless, possessing the treasure of love and happiness already, yet, our parents come along, then the teachers, the media, the Party, and various ideologies, telling us their interpretations of the colour of our being, but sometimes with the best of intentions, till we are so convinced of what we are given that we start to believe green is blue and give up the concept of green altogether.
People's reading of the story can be either focused on the greed of the rogues, the gullibility of the peasant, or on the need to follow their own perceptions, and the need to accept the opinion of the society we belong to. There is no one right interpretation.
Stories like this one do not just give a range of meanings but teach us to have flexibility in our outlook and to see that reality has multiple implications. This is very much in line with the postmodern view of hermeneutics, and does what modern secular criticism has only recently become aware of. However, postmodernism is founded on complete scepticism whereas such stories make us aware of the richness of being and reality, preventing us from fixating on dogmatism, making us aware of our own subjective responses.
Thank you for sharing the story!
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原来有这么多文章！
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/25 01:51:04
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I noticed Idries Shah's close relationship with Sufism by the list of his works, but didn't think too much about the connection between that and this tale. What a marvelous analysis! Thank you so much.
You can imagine how disappointed I was! I actually borrowed a copy of the illustrated version from the library and thought the illustrations very funny and entertaining. But that version is out of print! Now it's text only :(
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曾经沧海难为水
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/25 13:26:50
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A couple of times I thought of giving a copy of "World Tales" as a birthday present to friends' kids, but couldn't come to terms with the fact that the illustrations were gone!
It seems I have to be realistic and at least get a copy for myself again, like Mrs Shakespeare with "the second best bed":(
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Many many thanks!
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/25 12:00:16
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I read your analysis again, and I just like it so much!
When I saw "Owlglass-the scholar:-)", I had a big :-) too. I have long noticed a very funny and quite ironic phenomenon, that is, the people whom scholars are most interested in doing research on (Rumi, for example) are exactly those who had least interest in and lowest opinion of scholarship and scholars. This observation does say something, doesn't it :-)
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The so-called scholars make simple things complicated by their so-called scholarship, but Rumi's poetry is a feast of the heart!
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/25 13:10:53
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Chairman Mao is the best case in point.
作者：插一脚 - 1999/11/25 14:32:05
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Can you find anybody else who had less interest in and lower opinion of scholarship and scholars than Chairman Mao, "whom scholars are most interested in doing research on"? And Mao's poetry is a super feast of the soul (to paraphrase tian xin's observation).
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YOU MUST BE KIDDING!
作者：Chairman Gou - 1999/11/25 17:03:10
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大凡有文学鉴赏能力的，不带政治偏见。
作者：插一脚 - 1999/11/25 18:25:44
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越是有文采的越能见文采。请看下面一段评价毛诗的文字。
此外，大文豪胡适也曾公开承认毛泽东的散文是中国一流的。
此君也，人可怪杰，论人格，晚生
是不敢恭维的。不过论到诗书文字，怪杰却不失为千古一绝，诗词造诣，不失可与
李苏交相辉映，其借月抒情之作，调寄蝶恋花一首，辞意绝佳，可入旷世，杨
柳嫦娥，吴刚玉兔，至下厥妙笔生花处，有“万里长空且为忠魂舞”绝句，虽未便
教人读后泪飞如雨，但感人犹甚，今古纵横，达此意境的，便不是空前，大概也是
绝后了。
摘自渔夫的“凉秋谈文”
全文可在此处读到：http://www2.fhy.net/On-line/1999/fhy9910b.html#【百草园】
链接：枫华园9910b【百草园】
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他确有一种神奇的魅力
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/25 20:38:51
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气魄、想象力、浪漫情怀、理想主义、超人的意志，即使你对他有多少不满，你还是会忍不住喜欢
他，甚至被他感召。虽然我们现在似乎可以“安全地”把文学与政治分开来思考了，但我十分怀疑
如果有他那样的人物再次出现在眼前时，多少人真能够“理智”地去辨析和取舍。因为毕竟，他是
一个浑然一体的存在，他是超凡的。
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深有同感！但涉及政治取舍，咱不想在此多谈而已。谢知音！
作者：插一脚 - 1999/11/25 21:53:23
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Resumed discussion with Tian Xin :-): 红楼梦、Meher Baba和World Tales
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/25 01:36:00
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It's regretful that our last conversation has had to be suspended for a while. However, I thought about it a lot. You see, I was indeed distracted :-) -But happily. Exams are important only to a certain extent.
I like the way you put the great literary works, "secular scriptures". Indeed, one can learn so much about life through
them. When one is young, reading them mostly helps him learn how to make judgment and gradually establish his own values. Sooner or later, however, this value system based on such judgment is almost doomed to crash. The experience can exactly be described by your comments on Antony and Cleopatra (I never read this play myself, just have an idea of the story line)-one is left to face "the aching absence of final meaning or certainty of values." It's truly a painful experience. But as one looks back, this lost of certainty of values is on the other hand worth a celebration, because it opens the possibility of lifting his mind from judgment to understanding, a higher and more wondrous plane of viewing life. I think that is what you meant by "a vantage point of view", which can apply both to literature and life. In the case of literature, when one identifies himself with a certain role and claims his likes and dislikes, he is actually confined to the position of "the created", while with a vantage view, he would be more on the same level with "the creator"-the author. In real life, I guess this is how one can possibly approach the absolute existence or ultimate truth, and the possibility (if there is any) lies in the fact that man is endowed with a soul, which is one of the faces of the ultimate truth itself. If great literary works have before helped one learn how to judge, how much more it can help in one's learning how to understand! "One learn to love not because of misunderstanding, but with acceptance of human vulnerablity and hopelessness." (I like and agree with this point so much!) Quite similarly I think, one learns to judge with understanding instead of criticism.
In contrast to literature, philosophical or theological works are another kind. They are so intense due to enriched with
"concentrate spiritual nutrients" that it's hard to "have" them so much and often as one would do with works like "Dream
of the Red Chamber". However, from time to time, they are much needed so that one's perception of life can be crystalized, just like a core is needed for the material crystalization. Meher Baba's "Discourses" seems to be one of these works (unfortunately I've only been able to go over part of it quite briefly). Along this line, I thought of Rumi's works, which I would say are half literary, half theological. Although I've been attracted to them for some time, I found it rather difficult to get a penetrating understanding.
Now come back to the topic in the very beginning of our conversation-fairy tales :-). I read some of the shorter stories in the "World Tales". Personally, I think some widely spread stories (e.g., "The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant" and "The Three Imposters") have such vitality not because they contain something hard to understand but largely because we constantly find their new applications as we learn more about life. However, some other stories do need more analysis in order to be fully appreciated. For instance, from different stories ("The Riddles", "Tom Tit Tot" and "The Wonderful Lamp"), we can discern the same element, i.e., the evil one lets out the secret of how to destroy itself, which does eventually lead to its own destruction. What message if any does this element convey? I found it quite interesting and puzzling. Also, I wondered sometimes which stories you like more than the other stories :-)
As you may have noticed, I didn't pay attention at all to political correctness :-) And, please pardon me for any wrong
expressions.
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会当凌绝顶，一览众山小
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/25 12:59:12
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You remind me of myself a few years ago when struggling with Shakespeare and meaning of life. It is indeed difficult to rise above the creation of the author while one is emotionally entangled with the characters, to say nothing of transcending the perspective of the creator (author) himself. For sometimes writers themselves are grappling with those questions and lack a unified view. That's why it is so important to read books like the Discourses in order to have a vantage point of view. Books like the Discourses are written by people who know what they are talking about, from direct experience and gnostic knowledge. They crystallize, clarify, and uplift whereas literature opens the heart, involves, and often confuses:-) I hope you'll not only have a deeper understanding of Hongloumeng but also find Taoist and Buddhist classics easier to understand after reading the Discourses.
I'm glad you like Rumi, too. He was a spiritually enlightened being who taught through poetry. Coleman Barks' translation is very good, which helped make Rumi the best seller poet in the States last year:
Why should I seek? I am the same one as
he. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
Apparently this is all IT is about :-) But, alas, we who are stuck in the red dust, have to seek and find "thou are that." If you like Rumi, you will like Hafiz. His poetry is simply divine!
My favorite story from "World Tales"? Well, that has to be "Mushkil Gusha", followed by "Anpu and Bata", "The Food of Paradise", "The Three Caskets", the American Indian Cinderella, and something about Time Stands Still—it is a long time since I read them and I gave the copy I was given by an English professor to somebody else. I like all of them but never thought much of "False Witnesses" till you posted it yesterday. Hope to read more of them again at CE, so that I'll be forced to rack my brain for a review:-)
Thanks!
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Thought you had the book with you! Ok, I'll tell another story soon :-)
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/26 01:55:55
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I'm glad it's Coleman Barks' translation of Rumi that you prefer because that is what I picked among a few different translations. "The Essential Rumi", isn't it? I've even thought about learning Persian just for reading Rumi! Thanks for recommending Hafiz. Poor me! Only one poem by him I have ever read. But it's just as you said, divinely beautiful!
"Apparently this is all IT is about :-) But, alas, we who are stuck in the red dust, have to seek and find 'thou are that.'" This reminded me of the tale "The Happiest Man in the World": "A man once heard that he could meet the Happiest Man in the world, and obtain his shirt. It took him nearly all his life to find him. And then he noticed that the Happiest Man did not own a shirt." Of course, this is only a two-liner version of the tale :-)
I can't wait to read your review of another tale. Till then, all the best!
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The subject tonight is poetry :)
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/26 14:14:23
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Yeah, it is "The Essential Rumi" I had in mind. I've just got hold of another jewel of Rumi poetry:
Say I am You--translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks
It is a real treasure.
Interestingly, Hafiz's "The Gift" is the best seller in the States this year, the translator is Daniel Ladinsky who also did "I Heard God Laughing" and "The Subject Tonight Is Love" amongst others, all my favorites.
I happen to know someone who actually heard a Rumi lover reciting "Mathnawi" in Persian. It was in India when that took place, and he told me he was in heaven and wanted to learn Persian himself for the sheer reason that you have-reading Rumi and Hafiz in the original. There you are, simpletons think alike:-)
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Come to the orchard in Spring / There is light and wine, and sweethearts :-)
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/27 03:12:11
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Again, the violet bows to the lily.
Again, the rose is tearing off her gown!
The green ones have come from the other world,
tipsy like the breeze up to some new foolishness.
Again, near the top of the mountain
the anemone's sweet features appear.
The hyacinth speaks formally to the jasmine,
"Peace be with you." "And peace to you, lad!
Come walk with me in this meadow."
Again, there are sufis everywhere!
The bud is shy, but the wind removes
her veil suddenly, "My friend!"
The Friend is here like water in the stream,
like a lotus on the water.
The narcissus winks at the wisteria,
"Whenever you say."
And the clove to the willow, "You are the one
I hope for." The willow replies, "Consider
these chambers of mine yours. Welcome!"
The apple, "Orange, why the frown?"
"So that those who mean harm
will not see my beauty."
The ringdove comes asking, "Where,
where is the Friend?"
With one note the nightingale
indicates the rose.
Again, the season of Spring has come
and a spring-source rises under everything,
a moon sliding from the shadows.
Many things must be left unsaid, because it's late,
but whatever conversation we haven't had
tonight, we'll have tomorrow.
(copying a Rumi's song with admiration and friendly love, toward you who is far away yet close.)
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in the pomegranate flowers :-)
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/27 04:29:53
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:-)))
作者：He Zi - 1999/11/27 10:20:21
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