Repository path: workshop/translations/kongyiji/R08-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

〈孔乙己〉 — six segments, R08 (resistancy)

• Source: as ../R06-v1/translation.md. Same six segments, 1,201 characters.
• Regime: R08 v1.0 (frozen 2026-07-28) — an R06 with Venuti's ten-rule foreignizing set consulted at every choice, a coverage code on every logged decision, and an INT flag where an interpretation of the source's meaning decided what no rule decided (R08 §5a).
• Translator: the lead agent, as a labeled subject. Cost $0; never ledgered.
• Date: 2026-08-07 (S129). Written after R06 and R07 were committed and frozen, from the Chinese.
• Contamination: none, measured, common-mode across all arms — ../contamination.md.
• Priming: none.

S1

The wine-shop layout of Lu Zhen is unlike other places': all of them, fronting the street, one carpenter's-square-shaped great counter, inside the counter hot water made ready, so that wine may be warmed at any hour. The men who do work, at the sides of noon and of dusk, work let out, will every time spend four wen of copper cash, buy a bowl of wine — this is a matter of twenty years and more ago; now every bowl must rise to ten wen, — leaning outside the counter they stand, hot, hotly they drink it off and rest; if willing to spend one wen more, then one may buy a saucer of salt-boiled bamboo shoots, or else huixiang beans, to make a wine-companion of; if put out to ten wen and more, then can buy one dish of flesh-food, but these customers, mostly the short-clothes company, for the most part have no such openhandedness. Only those wearing long gowns, only they pace in to the room next the shop-front, call for wine call for dishes, slowly sit and drink.

S2

Kong Yiji is the only man who stands to drink and wears a long gown. His frame very tall and large; a blue-white face-colour, among the wrinkles often some wound-marks caught; one whole tangle-bushed flower-white beard. Though what he wears is a long gown, still it is filthy and torn, seeming ten years and more unmended, unwashed also. In speaking to people, always a mouthful of zhi hu zhe ye, making one half-understand and not-understand. Because his surname was Kong, others therefore out of the red-tracing sheet's shang da ren Kong yi ji — out of that half-understood not-understood saying — took down for him a by-name, and called it Kong Yiji.

S3

Kong Yiji no sooner arrives at the shop, all the wine-drinking men then look at him and laugh, some cry out: "Kong Yiji, on your face you have added a new scar again!" He does not answer, says towards the counter: "Warm two bowls of wine, want one saucer of huixiang beans." Then he ranges out nine wen of great cash. They then on purpose bawl in a high voice: "You have certainly been stealing other people's things again!" Kong Yiji, opening his eyes wide, says: "How can you out of empty air so foul a man's clean-and-white …" "What clean-and-white? The day before yesterday with my own eyes I saw you steal the He family's books, hung up and beaten." Kong Yiji then flushed red in the face, on his forehead the blue veins strand by strand start out, and he disputes: "To abstract a book cannot be accounted stealing … To abstract a book! … The affair of a reading-man, can it be accounted stealing?" Straight upon it come the hard-to-understand words, something of the superior man is firm in poverty, something of the zhe hu sort, drawing the whole crowd into uproarious laughter; within the shop and without, it was filled with a cheerful air.

S4

Kong Yiji having drunk half a bowl of wine, the flushed red of his face-colour gradually returns to its origin, the bystanders then ask again, "Kong Yiji, do you truly know characters?" Kong Yiji looks at the man who asks him, showing forth an air of not-deigning-to-dispute. They then go on and say: "How is it you cannot fish up so much as half a xiucai?" Kong Yiji at once shows forth a dejected, unquiet manner, over his face is cast a layer of ash-colour, in his mouth he says some words; but this time it is all of the zhi hu zhe ye sort, not one bit understood. At this time, the crowd also all break into uproarious laughter: within the shop and without, it was filled with a cheerful air.

S5

Kong Yiji knowing of himself that he cannot chat with them, then can only speak towards children. Once he said to me, "Have you read books?" I nodded my head a little. He said, "Have read books, … then I will examine you an examination. The hui character of huixiang beans, how is it written?" I thought, a man like a beggar, is he even matched to examine me? Then I turned my face about, took no further heed. Kong Yiji waited a long while, then very earnestly said: "Cannot write it? … I will teach it to you, remember it! These characters ought to be remembered. Later on when you are a shopkeeper, in writing accounts you will use them." I thought privately that I and the shopkeeper are still very distant in grade, and moreover our shopkeeper never puts huixiang beans into the accounts; finding it both laughable and past patience, I answered him lazily: "Who wants your teaching — is it not the 回 of coming-and-going 回, under a grass-head?" Kong Yiji showed forth an extremely delighted look, and with the long nails of two fingers knocking on the counter, nodded and said: "Right so, right so! … The 回 character has four manners of writing, do you know it?" I was past patience the more, and thrusting out my lips went off far.

S6

There were several times, the neighbours' children hearing the laughter came also to chase the liveliness, and hemmed Kong Yiji in. He then gave them huixiang beans to eat, one man one bean. The children having eaten the beans, still do not scatter, their eyes all gazing at the saucer. Kong Yiji took fright, spread out his five fingers and covered the saucer over, bent down and said: "Not many left, I already have not many." Straightening up he looked once more at the beans, and himself shaking his head said: "Not many, not many! Many, forsooth? Not many, verily." Thereupon this flock of children all in the laughter walked scattering away.

Translator's log

Written as the draft was written (R08 §4). Coverage codes as R07 §5: D decided by a numbered rule, P permitted (rules bear, none chooses), S silent (no rule bears). INT marks a decision made on an interpretation of what the source means rather than by any rule (R08 §5a).

Rules, for reference: R1 reproduce discontinuity · R2 follow clause order and period length · R3 archaism licensed · R4 keep polysemy open · R5 do not supply what the source withholds · R6 calque the figure · R7 retain source-culture particulars unassimilated, without gloss · R8 mix registers where the source does · R9 stop short of parodic or incomprehensible · R10 abusive fidelity licensed.

Coverage tally, frozen

D-rate 79.1% (34/43); S-rate 11.6%; INT flagged on 16.3%. Parsed mechanically by ../analysis/parse_log.py --r08. (INT is an additional flag, not a fourth code; it overlaps D and P and is not part of the 43.)

The comparison with R07's tally is the coverage finding and it is a near-tie: 79.1% against 79.5%, on the same passage and the same translator, with R08 carrying five silent sites and R07 none. Venuti's claim that foreignizing "cannot be calculated before the translation process is begun" (ch. 6 p. 296) does not show up here as a lower decision rate; it shows up as the INT flag, which the fluency rules have no analogue of.

S1 — D 6, P 1, S 1, INT 1

1. 魯鎭 / 曲尺形 / 文 / 茴香豆 — D (R7) for all four, taken as one decision because one rule made it four times: Lu Zhen, carpenter's-square-shaped, wen, huixiang beans. R7 says retain unassimilated and without gloss, so wen goes unglossed and the reader must infer a coin from four wen of copper cash.
2. 短衣幫 / 長衫 — D (R6, R7). The short-clothes company; those wearing long gowns. R6 calques 幫 as company.
3. 傍午傍晚散了工 — D (R2, R5). At the sides of noon and of dusk, work let out — the source's clause order and its verbless topic-comment kept, the connective English wants withheld by R5.
4. 熱熱的喝了休息 — D (R2, R8). Hot, hotly they drink it off and rest. The reduplication is kept as a reduplication.
5. 做下酒物了 — D (R6). To make a wine-companion of — 下酒物 calqued rather than rendered to go with the wine.
6. 葷菜 — D (R6). Flesh-food. 葷 is the Buddhist-derived category of non-vegetarian food; a meat dish loses the category.
7. 闊綽 — P (R6, R8). Openhandedness against such breadth. R6 and R8 both bear, neither chooses.
8. 只有…纔 — S, and INT. English has no particle answering to 纔. Only those wearing long gowns, only they pace in doubles the only, which no rule licenses and no rule forbids; it was chosen because the sentence's point is the exclusion, which is an interpretation.

S2 — D 6, S 1, INT 1

1. 之乎者也 — D (R7). zhi hu zhe ye, unglossed. R7's easiest application in the passage and the one that costs the reader most.
2. 描紅紙上的『上大人孔乙己』 — D (R7). The red-tracing sheet's shang da ren Kong yi ji, unglossed. R7 forbids the gloss that would make it legible.
3. 靑白臉色 — D (R6). A blue-white face-colour. 靑 is calqued as blue, which is one of its readings and not the one meant here, and R4 (keep polysemy open) makes that a licensed result rather than an error — recorded so, and it is the arm's most arguable line.
4. 一部亂蓬蓬的花白的鬍子 — D (R6). One whole tangle-bushed flower-white beard: 一部 calqued as one whole, 亂蓬蓬 and 花白 both calqued.
5. 半懂不懂 — D (R6, R1). Half-understand and not-understand, twice, hyphenated as a compound the way the Chinese is a compound.
6. 他身材很高大 — D (R5). His frame very tall and large — no copula supplied.
7. 似乎十多年沒有補，也沒有洗 — S, and INT. No rule bears on whether 似乎 governs both clauses. Read as governing both.

S3 — D 8, P 1, S 1, INT 2

1. 竊書不能算偸 — D (R3, R8), and INT. To abstract a book cannot be accounted stealing. R3 licenses the archaism and R8 requires the register mixture to stand unlevelled; abstract (in the sense of to abstract funds) is the learned English verb for taking that is not steal. INT because no rule says which learned verb, and the choice rests on a reading of what Kong Yiji thinks he is doing.
2. 讀書人 — D (R6). A reading-man, calqued. Scholar is the domestic equivalent R6 forbids.
3. 君子固窮 — D (R6, R7). The superior man is firm in poverty — the standard English calque of 君子, and 固 calqued as firm. Left unattributed and unglossed, as R7 requires, so an English reader sees a strange sentence and not a quotation.
4. 者乎 — D (R7). The zhe hu sort, unglossed.
5. 憑空汚人淸白 — D (R6). Out of empty air so foul a man's clean-and-white — 淸白 calqued as an adjective standing for a noun, which is what it is in Chinese and is not English.
6. 弔着打 — D (R5). Hung up and beaten, no subject supplied.
7. 條條綻出 — D (R6). Strand by strand start out.
8. 快活的空氣 — D (R4). A cheerful air — the one place the calque and the idiom coincide, and R4 keeps both readings of 空氣 open because English air does.
9. 一到店…便都 — P (R2). No sooner arrives at the shop, all … then against a tighter the moment. R2 bears; either satisfies it.
10. Tense — S, and INT. Chinese marks no tense here and the passage is habitual. The rendering slides between present and past within a sentence (flushed red … and he disputes) because the source's aspect does; no rule licenses this and R9 was the only check applied.

S4 — D 5, P 1, INT 1

1. 秀才 — D (R7). Half a xiucai, unglossed, and the half kept.
2. 撈不到 — D (R6). Cannot fish up. 撈 is to dredge or scoop from water.
3. 顯出…神氣 — D (R6). Shows forth an air of not-deigning-to-dispute — 不屑置辯 kept as a single hyphenated block, since it is a single four-character block in Chinese.
4. 嘴裏說些話 — D (R5, R6). In his mouth he says some words.
5. 臉上籠上了一層灰色 — D (R6). Over his face is cast a layer of ash-colour.
6. 當眞認識字麽 — P (R6), and INT. Do you truly know characters? against recognise characters. 認識字 is the ordinary word for literacy; the calque makes it strange, and whether that strangeness is in the source is an interpretation. Recorded as one.

S5 — D 5, P 1, S 1, INT 1

1. 茴 / 回 printed as characters — D (R7), and this is R7 taken to its limit: the graphs themselves are the source-culture particular, so they stand in the English. The hui character of huixiang beans romanises the sound, and the 回 of coming-and-going 回, under a grass-head prints the graph. The scene is legible in this arm and in no other, and it is legible by putting Chinese script into an English sentence.
2. 草頭 — D (R6). A grass-head, calqued, unglossed — the radical ⺿.
3. 考你一考 — D (R6). Examine you an examination — the verb-object-verb reduplication calqued.
4. 也配考我麽 — D (R6). Is he even matched to examine me? 配 calqued as matched.
5. 等級還很遠 — D (R6). Still very distant in grade.
6. 努着嘴走遠 — P (R6). Thrusting out my lips went off far against went off with lips thrust out.
7. 讀過書麽 / 讀過書 — S, and INT. Have you read books? … Have read books — the echo without a subject is R5, but whether Kong Yiji's echo is a question or a musing is not decided by any rule and was read as a musing.

S6 — D 4, S 1, INT 1

1. 多乎哉？不多也 — D (R3, R7, R8). Many, forsooth? Not many, verily. R3 licenses forsooth and verily as the English archaic particles nearest to 乎 and 也; R8 requires the register jump from the vernacular not many, not many to stand; R7 keeps it unglossed and unattributed. This is the arm's answer to the passage's hardest site, and it is the only one of the three arms in which the doubling exists at all.
2. 一人一顆 — D (R6, R5). One man one bean — both measure-phrases, no verb.
3. 趕熱鬧 — D (R6). Chase the liveliness.
4. 着了慌 — D (R3). Took fright.
5. 走散了 — S, and INT. Walked scattering away — 走散 is a resultative compound; which half is the verb and which the result is a reading.

The one thing this arm found that the rules did not contain

internal-judgment-only: R7 says retain source-culture particulars unassimilated, without gloss, and in S5 that rule — applied literally, to the graphs — is the only thing in the three arms that makes the scene mean what it means. R08 is supposed to be the arm that costs comprehension. At exactly one site it is the arm that buys it, and it buys it by refusing to translate.