Attention, let poetry light up life
According to the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ye Tingfang, a translator, an expert in German literature and an expert in Kafka studies, died in Beijing at the age of 85 due to illness at 6 a.m. on September 27.
Ye Tingfang was born in 1936 in Xiakou Township, Quxian County, Zhejiang Province, the third child of a peasant family.
He lost his mother at the age of 7, lost his left arm due to a fall at the age of 9, and under difficult conditions of study, he was admitted to the Spanish Department of Peking University, and under the influence of famous teachers such as Feng Zhi, Zhu Guangqian, and He Qifang, he began his career in German literature research.
In 1961, he graduated from the Department of Western Languages and Literatures of Peking University, majoring in German, under the tutelage of Feng Zhi. After staying as a teaching assistant, he entered the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1964 and successively served as the editor of the magazine "World Literature" of the Institute of Foreign Literature, and the director and researcher of the Nordic Literature Office of the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In 1977, Ye Tingfang accidentally read a copy of "Kafka's Selected Works" in a used bookstore, "his soul was greatly shaken", and wrote an article on Kafka under a pseudonym in the magazine "World Literature", which caused a huge response in the literary and artistic circles.
Ye Tingfang edited and participated in the translation of the Complete Works of Kafka. He has translated "Selected Comedies of Dürrenmatt", "The Old Woman Returns Home", "Kafka Literary Brief", "Kafka Letter Diary", "Kafka Essay Collection", etc., and has authored more than 30 works such as "Explorer of Modern Art", "Kafka, father of modern literature", "The Awakening of Modern Aesthetic Consciousness", "Strangers Who Fell into the World", "Modern Prototypes of Sisyphus" and so on.
His translation and research have had an important impact on the development of Chinese literature and even on the aesthetic orientation of literature and art.
The Complete Works of Kafka, by Franz Kafka [Austria], edited by Ye Tingfang, translated by Hong Tianfu et al., Central Compilation Publishing House
needle
speech
record
Observations of sin, suffering, hope, and the true path
Translated by Franz Kafka by Ye Tingfang and Li Qi
More than a hundred proverbs translated here were selected by Kafka himself from his notes during his lifetime, and he transcribed and numbered them, but did not add the title. The subtitle here was originally added by M. Brod, Kafka's close friend, the arranger and compiler of Kafka's posthumous manuscript. The paragraph that begins with the "*" is crossed out by Kafka, but not removed from it.
1. The real road is on a rope, it is not taut at a high place, but close to the ground. It is not so much for people to walk as it is for tripping people.
2. All human error is nothing more than impatience, of interrupting the step-by-step process too hastily, of encircling specious things with specious piles.
3. Mankind has two main sins from which all other sins emanate: impatience and carelessness. They were banished from heaven for lack of patience; they could not go back because of carelessness. Perhaps there is only one main sin: lack of patience. They are expelled because of a lack of patience; they cannot go back because of a lack of patience.
4. The shadow of many of the dead licks the tide of the Styx all day long, because it flows from us and still contains the salty taste of our ocean. The river was disgusted by this, so it churned and turned backwards, rushing the dead back into their lives. But they were overjoyed, singing songs of thanksgiving and touching the river of anger.
5. From a certain point there is no way back. This is achievable.
6. The critical moments of human development are continuous. So it makes sense for revolutionary spiritual movements that regard everything that has gone before as nothing, because nothing has happened yet.
7. One of the most effective means of seduction of "evil" is challenge.
8. It is like a struggle with women that ends in bed.
9.A. is blind, and he thinks that he is far beyond others in "goodness", because he, as an object that has always been seductive, feels that he is facing an increasing number of temptations from all hitherto unknown directions.
10. The correct explanation is that when a devil comes upon him, countless little devils pour in to serve the great devil.
11/12 The difference in perception can be seen in an apple: the little boy's idea is that he must straighten his neck so that he can see the apple on the table; the parent's idea is that he picks up the apple and gives it to the tablemate at will.
13. The first sign that awareness begins to arise is the desire to die. This life seems intolerable, while the other is unattainable, and people are no longer ashamed of wanting to die; people hate the old cells and ask to be transferred to a new one. There people will begin to learn to hate this new cell. This thought contained a little residual belief: during the escort, the master would occasionally come in through the passage, look at the prisoner, and say, "Don't shut this man up any longer, let him come to me." ”
14. * If you are walking over a plain, if you have good intentions to walk, but you are walking backwards, then this is a desperate thing; but if you are climbing a cliff, it is as steep as if you never looked up, then the regression can only be caused by geographical forms, then you do not despair.
15. Like an autumn road: before it can be swept away, it is covered with dry leaves.
16. A cage is looking for a bird.
17. This place I have never been here before: breathing is different, and there is a star shining next to the sun, more dazzling than the sun.
18. If there had been the possibility at that time that the Tower of Babylon should be built, but not climbed, then perhaps it would have been allowed.
19. * Don't believe in evil, you may as well keep it a secret before it.
20 The leopard broke into the monastery and drank the altar of sacrifice; this happened again and again, and the people were finally able to make plans in advance, and this became part of the religious rites.
21. Hold the stone as tightly as this hand does. But he held the stone tightly, just to throw it farther away. But even if it's a long way, there's still a way to go.
22. You are homework and you can't see the students.
23. True enemies there are endless courage to enter into your body.
24. Understand this happiness: The ground on which you stand is no larger than the coverage of your feet.
25. How can one be happy with this world unless you flee into it?
26. * There are countless hiding places, and there is only one place that can save you, but there are as many possibilities of being rescued as there are hiding places.
* There is indeed one goal, but there is no path; we are called the patheteers, but we hesitate.
27 What seems to be negative is becoming our obligation, and the positive things are already entrusted to us.
28 Once it accepts the devil, it no longer requires people to believe in it.
29. The hidden thoughts that you have when you accept the devil yourself are not yours, but the hidden thoughts of the devil.
* The beast snatched the whip from its master's hand to whip itself, intending to become its master, but it did not know that it was only a fantasy, produced by a new knot in the master's whip.
30. Goodness is in a sense a manifestation of despair.
31. Self-control is not what I pursue. Self-control means finding anywhere in the infinite radiation of my spiritual being to carry out activities. If I had to draw a few circles around me, there would be no better way: stare at this huge combination with wide eyes and do nothing. Watching the opposite strengthens me, and I go home with this enhanced power.
32. The crows claim that a single crow alone is enough to destroy the sky. There is no doubt about it, but it proves nothing to the sky, for the sky means: the raven's powerlessness.
33. * The martyrs did not underestimate the flesh, they let the flesh rise on the cross. In this respect they are in agreement with their enemies.
34. His exhaustion was the kind of exhaustion that of a gladiator after a sword fight, and his job was to whitewash a corner of the petty official's studio.
35 There is no possession, only existence, only a existence that pursues the last breath, the pursuit of suffocation.
36. In the past I could not understand why my questions were not answered; today I cannot understand how I could believe that I could ask them. But I didn't believe anything at all, I just asked questions.
37. His reply to this assertion, which he may have but does not exist, is merely trembling and heartbeating.
38. Some people are surprised that he has walked so easily on the eternal path, but in fact he is speeding down.
39.a. You can't pay in installments against demons – but people keep trying to do it. It is conceivable that Alexander the Great, despite the great exploits of his youth, the excellent army he had trained, and the adaptability he felt to cope with the changes of the world, had stopped in front of Hellespont (the old name of the Dardania Strait, Hellespont), and could never pass, and this was neither out of fear, nor out of hesitation, nor out of weakness of will, but because of the stagnation of the earth.
39.b. There is no end to the road, there is no reduction, there is no increase, but everyone measures it with their own childlike size. It is true that you still have to finish the road of this yardstick, and it will make you unforgettable.
40. It is only our concept of time that makes us call the Final Judgment in this way, which is in fact a state of emergency law.
41. The abnormal relations of the world seem to appear comfortingly as merely quantitative ones.
42. Hang your head full of disgust and hatred to your chest.
43. The hounds are still playing in the courtyard, but the prey cannot escape them, even though it is speeding through the woods.
44. For the sake of the world, you ridiculously put on a harness for yourself.
45. The more the horse sets, the faster it will run—that is, it will not pull the stake out of the foundation (which is impossible), but it will tear the belt off, so it will become a cheerful gallop without burden.
46. The word "sein" has two meanings in German: "existence" and "his".
47 They can choose whether to become kings or messengers to kings. By the nature of children, they are all to be messengers. So the world is full of messengers, they hurry through the world, they shout at each other, and since there is no king, they are delivering messages that have lost their meaning. They would love to end this pathetic life, but they dare not do so because of the constraints of their professional vows.
48. Believing in progress means not believing that progress has happened. This is not actually believing.
49.A. is a master player, and the sky is his testimony.
50. * Man cannot live without a continuous belief in something indestructible, and neither this indestructible thing nor this belief may be lurking for a long time. One of the expressions of this latent is to believe in a God of your own.
51. * It is necessary for the serpent to mediate; demons can seduce people, but they cannot become human.
52. * In your struggle with the world, you will assist the world.
53. Do not deceive anyone, nor deceive the world – conceal its victory.
54 Nothing but a spiritual world exists. What we call the perceptual world is nothing but evil in the spiritual world, and what we call the evil one is but a momentary necessity in our eternal development.
* With the strongest light can make the world disintegrate. In front of the weak eyes, the world will become strong; in front of the weaker eyes it will grow fists; in front of the weaker eyes it will become angry and crush those who dare to look at it.
55. It's all a hoax: to seek a minimum of deception, to stay in the degree of universality, or to seek a maximum. In the first case, people want to deceive the good by making it too easy to obtain the good; deceive the evil by offering too unfavorable conditions for the struggle. In the second case, because people do not pursue goodness even in earthly life, because they tend to choose to deceive the good. In the third case, people deceive the good by avoiding the good as far away as possible, and deceive the evil by hoping to make it inactive by raising it to its limits. In this case, it is preferable to the second case, for in any case the good is always to be deceived, but in this case the evil is not deceived, at least as it seems.
56. There are problems that we cannot avoid unless we are born unconstrained by them.
57. Language can only be used implicitly except in the perceptual world, and has never been used even in relation to it, almost comparatively, because it (adapted to the perceptual world) is only associated with possession and its relations.
58. * People lie as little as possible, simply because people lie as little as possible, not because there are as few opportunities to lie as possible.
59.* The first step of the staircase, which has not been deeply sunken by footsteps, is, in itself, just a monotonous patchwork of wood.
60 He who abandons the world must love all men, for he does not even want their world, and he begins to perceive what the essence of the real man is, which is nothing more than being loved, provided that man and his essence are commensurate with each other.
61. * If anyone loves others in this world, it is neither more unjust nor more legitimate than loving oneself in this world. There is only one question left: whether the first point can be done.
62 The fact that there is only one spiritual world and no others robs us of hope and gives us certainty.
63 Our art is a dazzled presence illuminated by reality: the light that shines on the face of the retreating monster is real, and nothing else is real.
64/65 Expulsion from heaven is eternal in its main part; expulsion from heaven is a foregone conclusion, and life on earth is inevitable. Nevertheless, the eternity of the process (or, as the saying goes, the eternal repetition of the process) makes us not only expect the possibility of remaining in heaven all the time, but in fact there always, whether we know it here or not.
66 He is a free and secure citizen of the earth, because although he is chained to a chain, the length of the chain allows him to freely enter and leave the space of the earth, but the length of the chain is limited after all, and he is not allowed to cross the boundaries of the earth. Likewise, he was a free, secure citizen of the sky, for he was chained to a chain that resembled the air. If he wants to go to the earth, the chain in the sky will tighten his neck; if he wants to go to the sky, the one on the earth will strangle him. Nevertheless, he had all the possibilities, and he felt it; yes, he refused to even attribute the whole situation to a mistake made the first time he was bound.
67. He chases the truth like a beginner skater, and he skates everywhere, including where skating is forbidden.
68. What could be more joyful than believing in a family god!
69. Theoretically there is the possibility of a perfect happiness: believing in the indestructibility of the mind, but not pursuing it.
70/71. Indestructibility is one; every human being is it, and at the same time it is shared by all, so that there is an incomparable and inseparable connection between human beings.
72. * The various perceptions of the same person, though distinct, have the same object, and they have to go back to the different subjectivities in the same person's mind.
73. He ate the scraps of food thrown from his own table, so that although his stomach was fuller than anyone's, he delayed eating what was on the table. So there was no more residual food to be thrown down.
74 If what should be destroyed in heaven is destructible, then this is not critical; but if it is indestructible, then we are living in a false belief.
75. * Test yourself with humans. It makes skeptics suspicious and credulous believers believe.
76. Have this feeling: "I don't anchor here" – I immediately feel the tide around me undulating, buoyancy increasing sharply!
* A mutation. The answer to the question is forward-looking, cautious, hopeful, voyeuristic, desperately exploring the inaccessible face of the question, following it on the path of the most absurd, that is, the only way to avoid the answer.
77.Interaction with others induces self-observation.
78 The spirit is free only when it is no longer a support.
79. Sexual love obscures holy love; it cannot do this alone, but it can do so because it itself unconsciously contains elements of holy love.
80. Truth is indivisible, so it cannot know itself, and whoever wants to know it must be a lie.
81. No one can demand what is ultimately harmful to him. If there is such a appearance in any person, which may always be present, it can be explained that someone demands something in a person, and that this object, while beneficial to that person, is seriously harmful to the second person involved in judging the matter. If that person is on the side of the second person from the beginning, not until the judgment, then the first person may disappear, and so the demand disappears.
82 Why should we complain about original sin; not because of it we have been cast out of heaven, but because we have not eaten the fruit of the tree of life.
83 We are sinful not only because we eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but also because we do not eat the fruit of the tree of life. What is guilty is the situation in which we live, which has nothing to do with sin.
84. We were created to live in Heaven, and Heaven exists for our enjoyment, and now that our mission has changed, has the mission of Heaven changed with it? No one can say.
85. Evil is the emanating of a person's consciousness in a certain transitional state. Its appearance is not the perceptual world, but the evil of the perceptual world, which in our eyes appears as the perceptual world.
86 Our ability to know good and evil has been essentially the same since original sin; nevertheless, we are looking for our special strengths here. But it is on the other side of this understanding that real differences begin to appear. This appearance of similarity arises for the following reasons: no one is satisfied with this knowledge alone, and it is necessary to strive to put this knowledge into practice. But he has not acquired the power in this regard, so he must destroy himself, even at the risk that he may not even be able to obtain the necessary strength after destroying himself, but there is no other way for him but to make this last attempt (this is also the true meaning of the death threat contained in the act of eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge; perhaps this is also the original meaning of natural death). He was afraid in the face of such an attempt; he preferred to return to his knowledge of good and evil (the concept of "original sin" can be traced back to this fear), but what has already happened cannot be reversed, but can only be mixed. For this purpose arises all kinds of motives, the whole world is filled with them, and even the whole visible world may be only a motive for people who want a moment of peace. This is an attempt to falsify the facts of knowledge, an attempt to make knowledge an end.
87 A faith is like an axe for beheading, so heavy and so light.
88 Death before us is like a painting of Alexander's Battle hanging on the wall of a classroom, to be dimmed or simply destroyed by our actions in this lifetime.
89.A person's free will is manifested in three ways:
First, he is free when he is willing to live this life. Now of course he can't go back, because he is no longer the one who was willing to live this life. And in this regard, he lives in a way that is not the way to carry out his original will.
Second, he is free when he can choose the way and path of his life.
Third, his freedom is manifested in the fact that he, as such a person (who he will one day become again), has a will to follow this path of life in any case and to restore himself in this way. Admittedly, he was taking a path that was optional but so vast that there was not a small place in his life that had not been covered by his footprints.
This is the triplet of free will, but it is also (at the same time) a singularity, and fundamentally monolithic, so that there is not a single gap that can accommodate a will, whether free or unfree.
90. * Two possibilities: to make yourself infinitesimal or to be so small. The second is the completion, i.e., inaction; the first is the beginning, the action.
91. * To avoid misunderstandings in wording: what needs to be destroyed by action must be firmly grasped before it is destroyed; what is shattered on its own is being crushed, but it cannot be destroyed.
92 The earliest idol worship must have been the fear of things, but associated with this is the fear of the inevitability of things, and the party associated with the latter is the fear of responsibility for things. This responsibility seems so great that one does not dare to surrender it to any inhuman force, for even through the intermediary of a creature man cannot be sufficiently reduced, and mere interaction with a creature will leave many proofs of responsibility. So people make each thing responsible for itself; not only that, but they also make these things relatively responsible to people.
93. * Last Psychology!
94. The two tasks at the beginning of life: to constantly narrow your circle and to check again and again if you are hiding somewhere outside your circle.
95. * Sometimes evil is held in the hand like a tool, consciously or unconsciously, without objection, to the side, ifever people want to do so.
96 The joy of birth is not life itself, but the fear we have before we ascend to a higher state of life; the pain of birth is not life itself, but the self-torture caused by that fear.
97 Only here is suffering. Those who suffer here will not rise up from this suffering elsewhere, but in this world what is called the passion, in another world (immutable, merely free from its opposite) is bliss.
98. * The infinitely vast and full imagination of the universe is the result of pushing the mixture of arduous creation and free self-contemplation to the extreme.
99. The eternal justification of the transient justification of our earthly lives is far more depressing than the conviction of our present guilty situation. The power to endure the former belief is pure and completely embraces the latter, and only this power is the measure of faith.
* Some estimate that in addition to the original big deception, there is a unique little deception aimed at them in the first thing, which is like when a love play is performed on stage, and the actress, in addition to a fake smile on her lover, has a particularly hidden smile reserved for a completely specific audience in the last row of seats. This can be described as "thinking about wrong".
100 There may be knowledge of the devil, but faith in the devil does not, for there is nothing more devilish than the devil.
101. Sin always comes openly and is immediately seized by the senses. This comes down to the fact that it has many roots, but these roots are not necessary to be pulled out.
102 We also have to endure all the sufferings around us. We all do not share a body, but we share a process of growth that leads us through all kinds of pain, in one form or another. Just as a child grows up going through all the stages of life, until he becomes a white-haired old man, until he dies (and this stage fundamentally seems to be inaccessible to the previous stage, whether with need or fear), we also grow up experiencing all the sufferings of the world (which is no less relation to human beings than to ourselves). There is no place for justice in this relationship, but there is no room for suffering to be spoken of in terms of fear or credit.
103. You can avoid the suffering of this world, and you have the full freedom to do so, which is also in line with your nature, but perhaps it is this avoidance that is the only suffering you can avoid.
104. Original text none.
105. The temptations of this world and the assurance that this world is only a transitional symbol are actually the same thing. This makes sense, because only then can the world tempt us, and it is also true. But the worst part is that when we are really tempted, we forget the assurance, and find that good leads us to evil, and the woman's gaze lures us to her bed.
106.Humility gives everyone, including those who are lonely and desperate, the strongest interpersonal relationships, and immediate effect, provided, of course, that humility must be thorough and lasting. Humility is possible because it is a true language of prayer, and at the same time worship and the strongest connection. Relationships are prayer relationships, and relationships with oneself are aggressive relationships. Draw the strength to forge ahead from prayer.
* Do you know anything other than cheating? Once the deception is gone, you can't look over there, or you'll become dumb.
107. Everyone is very friendly to A. It is as if people carefully guard a good pool table, and even a good billiards player is not allowed to touch it, until the great billiards player arrives, and he carefully examines the table and cannot tolerate any damage caused before his arrival. Then, when he started hitting the ball himself, he vented in the most unscrupulous way.
108."Then he went back to his work as if nothing had happened. It is a phrase that we are familiar with, and I cannot remember how many old novels it has appeared, though it may not have appeared in any of them.
109. "It cannot be said that we lack faith. The simple fact of our lives alone is inexhaustible in terms of the values of its faith. "Is there a value of faith in this?" People can't live without. "It is precisely in this 'intuplibility' that there is the mad power of faith; in this negation this power acquires an image."
* You don't have to get out of the house. Just sit at your table and listen. You don't even have to listen, just wait. It is better not even to wait, to remain completely quiet and lonely. The world will voluntarily appear before you, nothing else, it will float before you like a drunkard.