"Faith", "Virtue", or "German Life"
From reader Dirk:
Hello, The man in the attached picture is Gunter, a pretty good soccer player (so they say) and an ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine. Here in Belgium, he's being nominated as Golden Stud of the Year by a popular magazine called HUMO. According to the interview, he claims the tattoo on the chest stands for "faith". As a regular reader of your blog, I immediately thought: yeaaaah right. What do you think?
First of all, the two characters are done correctly. The top character 德 means "virtue" or "ethic", and the both character 命 means "life" or "destiny".
But, 德 is also used phonetically to translate "German" 德國的 or "Germany" 德國.
Therefore this tattoo could also be mistakenly read as "German Life".
posted by tian at
11:19 PM
9 Comments:
...or as a transliteration of "dumbing."
I guess I can see the relationship - "faith" leading to a "virtuous life," or something. I'd still give it a thumbs-down.
〈左傳．桓公六年〉
名有五：
有信，有義，有象，有假，有類。
以名生為信，以德命為義，以類命為象，取於物為假，取於父為類。
If it's in the Zuo Zhuan than I think we can accept it's authenticity, don't you Brendan?
@ Adam... And now for the Hanzi impaired among us?
The above passage was taken from the Zuo Zhuan, a record of historical events that occurred during the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese History. This particular passage deals with the issue of names, and specifies that names are of 5 types, one of which is that of righetous behaviour, which is dependent upon 德命, or "faith".
How can 德命 be translated as faith? If we consider the four virtues (德) as defined by the Confucian tradition (仁禮義智) than observing and adhering to these virtues, or potentcies,(the act of receiving the 命, or command of 德) can be seen as a testimony of belief in these values, or an act of faith. Thus, the expression 以德命為義 can be translated "faith as righteousness" or "(those things which) act in accordance with virtue are righteous (in name)".
In the third form of nameing enumerated by the passage, the similar term 類命 can be translated as characteristic; 以類命為象 would then be "characteristics (that which accepts what is determined by its kind) defines its shape (hence its name)".
The most famous of this kind of term is 天命, which is usually translated in its function as a political term (the mandate of heaven, as given to the emperor) but in texts such as 中庸 (Zhong Yong), 天命 is understood as that which heaven bestows upon humanity and which humanity tries to adhere to to best fulfill his or her potential.
In general, Chinese words (詞) do not have a single meaning, they have a range of meanings that can vary depending upon the context, this is especially true of Classical Chinese, what I've tried attempted is to show that the term in question, 德命, can in fact be rendered as faith. I personally feel that the choice of this tattoo is one of the best I've seen, and the person in the photograph can be as proud of it as he surely is of what he has stuffed in his sock.
Adam: you magnificent bastard.
My classical Chinese is not up to snuff, but in the phrase, "以名生為信，以德命為義," wouldn't "名生" be faith moreso than "德命"?
Something like, "faith by title, righteousness by virtue"...?
I don't think that 德命 means just virtue, if the author of the Zuo Zhuan wanted to refer to just virtue, he probably would have just used 德 or 道德, by using the phrase 德命 the 德 is no longer a static force or value, but something which is dependent upon being accepted and embraced by the doer, there is a limited agency given to a person. Just as 天命 does not solely mean a pre-ordained fate, but the ability to maneuver within the circumstances that heaven has decreed, so does 德命 mean more than just virtue, there is something which has to be exercised for virtue to be attained. What is it that binds people to 德命? I think that which is required by virtue and dependent upon is could be considered a matter of faith; virtue by itself does not lead to being righteous, acting in accordance with what virtue requires, which I think would be acting in the belief, having faith in virtue, is what the author was describing as being righteous.
I very well could be wrong, I'm just trying to make a case for 德命 having a meaning that is somewhat akin to that which the person who got the tattoo believes it has, I see what you mean about 以名生為信 probably dealing more with fate, I'll have to check an English translation (or a Classical-Modern Chinese translation) of the Zuo Zhuan in order to confirm.
Good intepretation Adam.
I will admit that there is a chance that in classical Chinese and religious texts there are mentions of 德命, found on websites like this http://home.kimo.com.tw/weiwuwei.tw/Confucis.htm which contains the following:
中國哲學講【命】，有五種含義。天命，運命，生命，德命，慧命.
However, in colloquial Chinese, I too have trouble connection 德命 to faith.
-K
hey,
Your site is pretty awesome. Although I don't entirely agree with cultural exclusiveness, I do agree that it's funny as hell when people get stupid shit tattooed on to their bodies.
Having said that:
I would never misread this one as German life. I've never read in any text 德国生活 written as 德命。I think it's meaning has been lost a little bit in modern literature, but I don't think that it's been corrupted to the point where it's first asscociated with Germany and then the traditional meaning.
Yeah, my name 孔德磊 can be written/butchered by most foreigners, because of the German definition, but among other Chinese, there's no confusion.
Which makes me think of a different thing: Now that Chinese education is growing leaps and bounds in the united states, should we expect the language to start coping with the speech patterns of Chinese as a second language?
孔德磊，
上海延安中学
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home