This article is transferred from: A Guide to Investing in Greece
Zhou Zuoren's enthusiasm for Greek mythology is well known. He translated two Greek myths during his lifetime, the first being the Englishman W. Rouss. H． D． Rouse' Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece. The book was published in 1934 and was introduced in the Ta Kung Pao of February 3, 1935. For a long time, however, Zhou Zuoren did not translate its mind, because it was a children's book written in English, not a book dedicated to Greek mythology. Until 1947, Zhou Zuoren felt that it was after all the best of its kind written by the British and Americans, and he also loved his people and his writings, so he spent two months translating it into a Chinese, and handed it to a publishing house through the introduction of a friend, but it was soon burned. It was retranslated in 1949 and published in 1950 by the Cultural Life Press under the title "Greek Gods and Heroes". In 1958, it was retitled "Greek Myths and Stories", which was published by Tianjin People's Publishing House. Recently, the Hainan Publishing House republished in 1998 under the title of "Greek Gods and Heroes" without any publication instructions, which was a republishment of the cultural life edition. The book is easy to read, and at the back of the book is a few essays by Zhou Zuoren on Greek mythology, which can be referred to. Among them, a translation of "In the Greek Islands" not only depicts the folk customs of today's Greece with a mythological atmosphere, but also the writing is fresh and swaying, especially emotional.
The second is Apollodorus's Bioliotheke, which is highly regarded by Zhou Zuoren because it is one of the only two remaining original books of Greek mythology. In Greek Mythology II, Zhou Zuoren quotes the Englishman F. A． Wright) "History of Late Greek Literature" introduces the book "Library": "From a stylistic point of view, we can probably conclude that it is a work from the first century of the Western calendar. Before 1885 all we had were three of these seven volumes, but in that year someone got an abridged version of the book from the Library of Vadergang (i.e., the Vatican) in Rome and temporarily filled in the defect. In fact, Zhou Zuoren was also inspired by Wright to translate this book in 1934, using the original Version of the Loeb Classics Series, with Dr. Frazer (now translated as Frazer) "excellent" translation. According to Zhou Zuoren's Introduction to Greek Mythology, written in 1944, between 1937 and 1938, he translated the book for the Cultural Foundation Compilation Committee, "In addition to this article, dr. Fleijo's Comparative Study of Greek Mythology and Ms. Hallison's Treatise on Greek Mythology, each with more than 50,000 words, was annotated into one, two or two chapters, totaling about 30,000 words." Later, because the compilation was moved to Hong Kong, the translation was dropped out, and the translated manuscript was also taken away by the compilation and its whereabouts were unknown. In 1944, Zhou Zuoren had the intention of continuing the old translation, so he first serialized the translated original text and some of the annotations in the "Magazine of Art and Literature" under the title of "Greek Mythology", and wrote the above "introduction" for it. However, only three consecutive issues (10th to 12th issues) were terminated, and Zhou's plan to continue the translation was not launched. After liberation, Ye Shengtao and others of the General Administration of Publishing hoped that Zhou Shi would be able to translate some Greek works. Therefore, in 1950-1951, after Zhou shi finished translating Aesop's Fables, he re-translated the Greek Mythology, and the original text and annotations had been translated, but the circumstances of delivery and publication were very unclear. "Zhitang Remembrance Record : My Work (III)" says: "The translation of this Greek myth was handed over to the enlightened upon completion", but the "Zhitang Remembrance Record : The Southward Migration of Peking University" says that this translation "was handed over to the People's Literature Publishing House, but because of the paper relationship, it has not yet been published." In any case, the book was finally not published during Zhou's lifetime.
In fact, Zhou Zuoren attached great importance to his work of translating Ah Shi's "Greek Mythology". He said in the Introduction to Greek Mythology: "Many of the things I have written before have never been cherished in the slightest, but if I were to point out one thing myself and think that it was worth doing and could be used as my own victory, then I can only say that it is the work of translating and commenting on this myth." On April 26, 1965, Zhou Zuoren wrote a will, and later added the following words: "But the translation of the myth of Apodorus, which has not been published for more than ten years, is also a fantasy." It can also be seen that Zhou Shi's persistence and great regret are in his heart.
Now, the Chinese Foreign Translation and Publishing Company has launched a "Bitter Rain Zhai Translation Series", which includes a translation of Zhou Zuoren's "Greek Mythology". The publication of this book has been more than thirty years since Zhou's abandonment, and it has been nearly half a century since the completion of this translation, and as for Zhou's first translation of this book and even his initial wish, it is even more absurd, which may also be regarded as one of the many personnel affairs in the Chinese cultural circles in this century. In this sense, we have great admiration for the Chinese translation company that published this book and The Consul General, Mr. Shinan.
However, the publisher seems to be only satisfied with making this translation public, and has not carefully raked the situation of the translation, the process of the weekly translation, and the problems in it, so it has left some small regrets. For example, Mr. Shi'an's "On the Translation of The Greek Myth of the Week" appended to the end of the book describes the process of the weekly translation: "In the nearly twenty years since then, he has translated this book three times, and from 1937 to 1938 was the first time... The translation was later lost by the Cultural Fund Compilation Society; in 1944, it was published for the second time in the Magazine of Arts and Literature, and only a small part of it was discontinued; in 1951 it was the third time, that is, the book we see now..." However, Zhou Zuoren actually only translated it twice, see above, and Zhou Zuoren himself only said that the translation was twice when he talked about the translation of his Greek Mythology on various occasions, and others are not cited, and it is at the beginning of this edition of Greek Mythology. It contains an introduction written by Zhou Zuoren in 1958, which clearly states: "This book has been translated twice, the first time in 1938 and the second time in 1950, which is the second translation. Mr. Shinan mistakenly believed that Zhou Zuoren's first translation was twice, believing that the first translation had been taken away by the Cultural Foundation Compilation Committee, so zhou's publication in the Art Magazine in 1944 was another retranslation. This is not the case, in Zhou Zuoren's "Introduction to Greek Mythology" written in 1944, it is repeatedly said that the original text has been translated, and the annotations are still 17 chapters away, and they must complete it themselves. The process and purpose of its serialization in the "Art and Literature Magazine" is: "Now first copy out the first chapter of the original text in sections, each with annotations, publish it, after a transcription, the annotations have been reviewed clearly before and after, and you can continue to do it," here twice using the word "copy", it can be seen that Zhou Shi still had a translation in hand at that time, so he went on to say that "my wish is to complete the annotations within a year", instead of retranslating them all. From these texts, I deduce that the translation procedure should be as follows: Zhou Shi first translated the original text of Ash, and then translated the relevant discourses of Dr. Fleiro and Ms. Hallison, which is the bottom draft; and then inserted these expositions into the chapters of the original text as annotations, and after re-trancribing, they are the official draft, and only two chapters are originally allocated, and they are taken away by the compilation. But the manuscript should still be in Zhou's hand, so when it was published in 1944, he "copied out the original text in paragraphs" and matched the corresponding annotations at the same time, so that "after the transcription", it could be "reviewed clearly" in order to "continue to do it". It is difficult to say how much this speculation differs from the actual situation, but in short, Zhou Zuoren has only translated Greek Mythology twice, which is beyond doubt. Mr. Shinan said that Zhou Zuoren had translated three times, which was too rash.
In addition, there are a few minor issues that need to be clarified. First, the Introduction to Greek Mythology says: "Greek Mythology, the original work of Apolodoros, is now translated from the original text, and all the more than 100,000 words are divided into nineteen chapters. The text also said that the original text of the nineteen chapters had been translated, and the annotations had only been made in two chapters, and that "the remaining seventeen chapters of the commentary must be done." However, this edition of Greek Mythology is first divided into volumes, chapters under the volume, and sections under the chapters, and there is no trace of the whole book divided into nineteen chapters, only the "Outline" compiled by Wagner attached to the book is the four volumes of the original book divided into chapters according to the nature of the plot, but he is divided into sixteen chapters, and Zhou Zuoren's base is Fleiro's annotated version, which only transcribes Wagner's "Outline". Zhou Zuoren's "nineteen chapters" statement, if it is not wagner's "sixteen chapters" error, what is the basis for it, it is not known. Second, Zhou Zuoren's Greek Mythology II (1934) and Introduction to Greek Mythology (1944) both quote a passage from Wright's History of Late Greek Literature that introduces Ashi's Library, which says: "In book II, in chapter FOURTEEN, we meet the kings of Athens, including Decius, and then to the Belopes lineage. From the current edition of the Zhou translation of Greek Mythology, it can be seen that the original first volume consisted of nine chapters, the original second volume consisted of eight chapters, the original third volume consisted of sixteen chapters, and the abridged version consisted of seven chapters. The second volume has only eight chapters, where is the fourteenth chapter? Only the fourteenth chapter in the third volume does refer to the fourteenth chapter of the third volume and the following chapters, so there is no doubt that "book two" should be mistaken for "book three". The original publication of Zhou's text was like this, or it was a mistake of Zhou's writing, and various Zhou's anthologies are still wrong, and it is not a harsh rebuke to the editor of this book. Third, although Ah Shi's lineage cannot be examined in detail, Western scholars generally believe that he is a person of the first century AD, and Zhou Zuoren often refers to Wright and Fu Lairuo as the lord of this, so Zhou Zuoren also thinks so in the previous article, and the opening statement of the Introduction to Greek Mythology is clear: "The author's life and deeds are untestable, and scholars from the stylistic examination determine that it is a work from the first century of the Western calendar, and in China is the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it can be said that it is the era of Yangzi Yunban Mengjian." The introduction to this edition of Greek Mythology, written in 1958 by Zhou Zuoren, states that Ash was a man of the "first century BC," four hundred years later than his predecessor Pherekydes in the fifth century B.C., which is a clear memory error. Mr. Shinan did not add any explanation to the introduction to the beginning of this edition, or was limited to insufficient information, and there was no blame, but for such an obvious mistake, as the general person, it is still necessary to read and explain it carefully. Even, Mr. Shi'an "was originally a person who loved to read", and was convinced that the publication of this book "will also be the same as that of readers under the heavens" (Zhi'an's "General Introduction to the Translation Series of Bitter Rain"), so it may be said that it is indispensable to give more explanation to the zhou's translation and give more attention and explanation to the above-mentioned problems, not to mention that this is not difficult, but it takes more effort, and it is not necessary to "learn a little longer, at least to learn Greek and Japanese foreign languages" (Zhi'an's "About Zhou Translation" Greek Mythology") was done.
