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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
I don't think I disagree here.
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Score!
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
. . . but the sanitized translations need to be complemented by something more substantial.
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Enter special agent Goldsbury!
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
I spent some very pleasant years in the Department of Classics at Harvard University, where we came to grasps with the 'ethics' of translation. (One of my exam questions was to translate Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into the style of Greek used by Pericles in his Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War.) There was a rigour there (in the Classics Department, not in my own translation) that is lacking in virtually every single translation of O sensei that I have so far encountered.
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Hear! Hear! Such a translation would be beneficial even in Japanese!
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
I am now writing Column 10
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And where is Column 9 today August the 2nd (August the 3rd if one resides in Japan) . . . hmmmm . . . . Jun . . . pleeeeease?
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
. . . and have translated about a half-dozen pages of Takemusu Aiki--some of the later material, about World War II.
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Page numbers please.
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
There are some really outrageous statements here . . .
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OH, THANKS A LOT Peter! I have to admit this statement finally got me to get off my lazy bottom and go get my copy of Takemusu Aiki . . . and low and behold, I have a copy of 合気神髄 sitting next to it!
Whoda thunk it?
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
. . . and so the question arises: to what extent does the context affect the truth of what is stated?
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Yeah baby!
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Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
What O Sensei stated himself (allegedly) is complemented by what others have written about him. The 'documentation' here is supposed to be good, but I do not think so. For example, there is very little in Stan Pranin's extensive research into O Sensei's life in Tokyo between 1927 and 1942 that will enable us to illuminate O Sensei's own statements in Takemusu Aiki.
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Peter are you, by chance, willing to autograph 8x10 glossies? I'm seriously considering a prominent place for you on the wall of my dojo.
Honestly, thank you for all of your hard work and your willingness to share. I don't know that we will always draw the same conclusions, but that hardly matters. (Getting closer to "the truth" is what matters in my mind, not who's right or wrong today or tomorrow.) The fact that you are publicly sharing pertinent information in a highly transparent fashion and from a hard earned position that demands to be taken seriously is what matters most IMO. That you do so in a down to earth, accessible and un-pretentious manner is icing on the cake!
I don't know how many folks will read, comprehend and appreciate what you are sharing, but at least it is out there and that in itself is ground breaking.
As my 5th graders would say, "You rock Mr. Goldsbury!"
