How could we translate "人曾为僧，人弗能为佛" into English

topwaybest

Sometimes in translation we encounter some untranslatable expressions, for example, Chinese expression \"人曾为僧，人弗能为佛；女卑为婢，女又可为奴\". Such expressions often bring me real troubles. How could you deal with such expressions when you meet them in translation? How could we translate them into real fluent English?

好翻译

Actually, this phrase "人曾为僧，人弗能为佛" is still translatable in some people's eyes.
I prefer Professor Xu Yuanchong's translation:
A Buddhist cannot bud into a Buddha.
A maiden may be made a house maid.
In the above translation, the meaning and form are tranferred into English to a large extent.

Translatable or untranslatable? It's a matter of degree.

For more information about the translation of this phrase, you may refer to the following post:
http://www.bilinguist.com/data/hy00/messages/4003.html

topwaybest

Thank your for your response, 好翻译，my old friend. : ) I've read the post you recommended, but find it helpless. Yes, Mr. Qian and Mr. Xu have provided their renditions. With due respect for their knowledge and spirit, I have to say that their renditions are, regrettably, far from perfect or even acceptable translations. Why? Because they failed to convey adequately the meaning of the original, not to mention the beauty of meaning, pronunciation and form. For example, in the original the Chinese charactor "人" combines with "曾" to form a third one "僧", and "人" with "弗" to form the "佛"; etc. Could we lable a rendition that has missed too much information in both meaning and form Acceptable and Perfect?

好翻译

hehe, it's a great pleasure for me to meet you here too.

Hope others will participate in the discussion. It's interesting.

topwaybest

引用第3楼好翻译于2009-04-16 00:59发表的 :
hehe, it's a great pleasure for me to meet you here too.

Hope others will participate in the discussion. It's interesting.

Great pleasure to meet you here, too.

Also, I hope that more and more friends would come here to participate in the discussion, in all sorts of discussions about translation.

coolfool

Please count a fool here in.

As for the phrase, I'm at my wits' end. I believe perfect translation, if at all, is something you may bump into but can't seek out. Perhaps it'll, on a whim, come to you itself somehow somewhere sometime. What's more, to throw a sprat may catch a whale in progress. Who knows?

Rgds,

sandyli88

《翻译批评散论》上有马红军先生的译文。。。