15 Lesson 14 – 魏節乳母

魏节乳母者，魏公子之乳母也。秦攻魏破之，杀魏王瑕，诛诸公子，而一公子不得，令魏国曰：“得公子者，赐金千镒，匿之者罪至夷。” 节乳母与公子俱逃，魏之故臣见乳母而识之曰：“乳母无恙乎？”  乳母曰：“嗟乎，吾柰公子何!” 故臣 曰：“今公子安在？ 吾闻秦令曰：有能得公子者赐金千镒，匿之者罪至夷。乳母倘言之，则可以得千金，知而不言，则昆弟无类矣。” 乳母曰：“吁！吾不知公子之处。” 故臣曰：“我闻公子与乳母俱逃。”母曰：“吾虽知之，亦终不可以言。” 故臣曰：“今魏国已破亡，族已灭，子匿之尚谁为乎？”  母吁而言曰：“夫见利而反上者，逆也 ; 畏死而弃义者，乱也。今持逆乱而以求利，吾不为也。且夫为人养子者，务生之，非为杀之也。岂可以赏而畏诛之故，废正义而行逆节哉！ 妾不能生而令公子禽也。”  遂抱公子逃于深泽之中。故臣以告秦军。秦军追见，争射之。乳母以身为公子蔽，矢着身者数十，与公子俱死。秦王闻之，贵其守忠死义，乃以卿礼葬之，祠以太牢。宠其兄为五大夫，赐金百镒。

Commentary on lesson 14:

1.1:      諸 is a noun prefix indicating a plural; sometimes it has the sense of “the various” as here,         “the various princes.”

1.2:      柰何 is an emotional phrase that generally is translated as “what to do about…”  It generally indicates a quandary, a sense of hopelessness, or an implied failure (i.e., “there’s noting that can be done about….”)  You will have to fiddle a bit usually to come up with a decent translation.

1.3:      Earlier we noted that 可 as an auxiliary verb turned its verb into the passive and was      often the equivalent of the “-able” suffix in English.  可以 is active in meaning and is  equivalent to the English auxiliary verbs “may” or “can”.  It can be contrasted with 能,  可以 means that the circumstances are such that a certain action is possible, 能 means that a person is physically capable of performing an action.  For example, you may be able to (能) shoot a deer from a thousand paces; but if there are no deer in your forest,  you can’t (不可以).   可以 is somewhat different from its modern usage in that the  modern usage usually indicates permission – (i.e., if the gaming laws permit, you my 可以 shoot deer).

1.4:      雖…亦… is a sentence pattern meaning “Even if…indeed…”  亦 usually means “also”, but is often a simple adverb of emphasis.

1.5:      Occasionally classical Chinese inverts two characters for no good reason.  Fortunately, the characters almost always invert under the same circumstances.  One is in the case of question words. Here, 為誰 “for whose benefit” in inverted to 誰為.  Another is the standard question 何以 “why”, “how” which, technically speaking, ought to be 以何, “for  the purpose of what,” “by means of what”.  In sentences with negatives you will also occasionally see the direct object come before the verb – e.g., 不之殺 “I didn’t kill him.”

1.6:      Verbs of telling take two objects: the thing told and the person to whom it was told.  In such cases, the thing told is often placed before the verb as an object of 以 – literally, “I told him by means of this.”  Naturally, if the thing told is already know, it will be omitted leaving only the 以.  Here we have a very typical phrase 以告秦軍 “he told it to the Qin army.”

1.7:      死義 is a typical abbreviated way of saying “die for rightness”.  A similar abbreviation occurs right after, 卿禮 means “rites (or ceremonies) befitting a person of the rank of minister.”  Similar verb+object compounds are 死節、死義、and 守忠.  The classical reader must be ready to interpret such abbreviated turns of phrase.

Grammar Note  13

More about 以 yǐ.  In lesson 4 we saw以 yǐ as a conjunction “in order to” in the format X 以 Y, X in order to Y:

We have also seen以 yǐ as a coverb “with, using, by means of, because of.” Probably most often the phrase introduced by this kind of 以 yǐ comes before the main verb, in what is called the “adjunct” position:

There are also occasions when 以 yǐ appears after the main verb and the object:

Although the coverb以 yǐ is basically transitive, if its object is 之zhī, then 之zhī is generally dropped.  In lesson 14 we see two examples of this.  In both cases the coverb phrase precedes the main verb:

As we have noted, since 之 zhī  usually drops out of such constructions the combination 以之     yǐ  zhī  is rarely seen.  Although understanding this particular kind of ellipsis of 之zhī  is important if we are to read Classical Chinese texts correctly, Shadick’s grammar apparently makes no mention of it.  Shadick’s work is often useful, but has Harbsmeier reminds us, in the present state of the art there can be no thoroughly reliable work on Classical Chinese grammar. As it happens, Y. R. Chao’s book (A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, Berkeley, 1968), which contains much on Classical Chinese as well as Mandarin, is more helpful here. He shows (pp. 333-335) that there are five Classical Chinese coverbs which often drop their objects. Besides 以yǐ, these are, 為 wèi  因 yīn 從 cóng and  將 jiāng.

Other points about lesson 14:

吾柰公子何? wú nài gōngzǐ hé? Here 柰nài means “to do something about something”.  It commonly occurs, as here, in rhetorical questions which imply and answer that nothing very effective can be done.