Princeton Library of Asian Translations

J. Thomas Rimer, Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature, Theatre, and Art at the University of Pittsburgh, has written widely on Japanese culture. Yamazaki Masakazu, Professor Emeritus at Osaka University, is an award-winning playwright whose collected works have been translated into several languages. This annotated translation is the first systematic rendering into any Western language of the nine major treatises on the art of the Japanese No theater by Zeami Motokivo (1363-1443). Zeami, who transformed the No from a country entertainment into a vehicle for profound theatrical and philosophical experience, was a brilliant actor himself, and his treatises touch on every aspect of the theater of his time. His theories, mixing philosophical and practical insights, often seem strikingly contemporary. Since their discovery early in this century. these secret treatises have been considered among the most valuable and representative documents in the history of Japanese aesthetics. They discuss subjects from the art of the playwright to the reciprocal nature of the relationship between performer and audience. "Zeami's treatises on the art of No rank among the finest of all writings on the theatre. Though speciticatly devoted to the drarna of a particular place and time-Japan in the early fifteenth century-they contribute to an understanding of the dramatic arts of the world. The texts make absorbing reading, but they are difficult in the original, even for specialists. We arc fortunate that two authorities on the Japanese theatre, a Japanese and an American, have combined forces to translate and present Zeami's most significant works"-Donald Keene, Columbia University

David Tod Roy (1933–2016) was professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. His monumental five-volume translation of the Chin P'ing Mei was completed in 2013. The second volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the second volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form-not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. "[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."---Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre-from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."---Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books "Racy, colloquial, and robustly scatalogical, [this translation] could only have been done now, when our literary language has finally shed its Victorian values. David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing . . . earlier versions."---Paul St. John Mackintosh, Literary Review "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."---Robert Chatain, Chicago Tribune Review of Books

The description for this book, The Culture of the Meiji Period, will be forthcoming. "This book, a translation of Irokawa's 1969 classic Meiji no Bunka, is best described as an analysis of popular political consciousness in the Meiji period and its corruption by the Emperor System. . . . the translation is lucid and seamless, a remarkable achievement given the number of contributors who worked on it."---L. L. Cornell, Pacific Affairs "A fascinating account of aspects of Japanese culture between 1868 and the early twentieth century. . . . Irokawa Daikichi is an indefatigable researcher, and the fruits of his own and others' labors on back roads and in old storehouses are amply represented here. Moreover, he has discovered materials untouched since the Meiji period, and he is able to interpret them in fresh, provocative ways. He makes excellent use of poetry, letters, diaries, and songs to probe the mentality of peasants and rustic intellectuals, and he interprets his findings in a way that challenges major post-World War II trends in historiography."---J. Victor Koschmann, Journal of Asian Studies

This is the paperback edition of the first full study, translation, and critical annotation of the Essence of True Eloquence by Jey Tsong Khapa (1357-1419), universally acknowledged as the greatest Tibetan philosopher. Robert Thurman's translation and introduction present a strain of Indian Buddhist thought emphasizing the need for both critical reason and contemplative realization in the attainment of enlightenment. This book was originally published under the title Tsong Khapa's Speech of Gold in the "Essence of True Eloquence." ? "I am very happy that Tsong Khapa's masterpiece of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy has been translated into English, and can now be studied by Western philosophers and practitioners of Buddhism. It has long been one of my favorite works, and I hope that others will appreciate its deep thought and lucid insights as we have for centuries in Tibet."--From the foreword by the Dalai Lama "The first part [of the book], an extensive introduction, can stand on its own as an insightful and incisive study of Tibetan philosophy, its roots in India, and its relevance to a twentieth-century Western audience. The second part translates Tsong Khapa's text.... The quality of both the translation and the introductory essay makes this book a valuable contribution to the study of the central way."---Karen Lang, Journal of Asian Studies

"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year" Robert P. Goldman is the William and Catherine Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and general editor of the Rāmāyaṇa Translation Project. Sally J. Sutherland Goldman is senior lecturer in Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley, and associate editor of the Rāmāyaṇa Translation Project. The definitive English translation of the classic Sanskrit epic poem-now available in a one-volume paperback The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, the monumental Sanskrit epic of the life of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu, has profoundly affected the literature, art, religions, and cultures of South and Southeast Asia from antiquity to the present. Filled with thrilling battles, flying monkeys, and ten-headed demons, the work, composed almost 3,000 years ago, recounts Prince Rama's exile and his odyssey to recover his abducted wife, Sita, and establish a utopian kingdom. Now, the definitive English translation of the critical edition of this classic is available in a single volume. Based on the authoritative seven-volume translation edited by Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland Goldman, this volume presents the unabridged translated text in contemporary English, revised and reformatted into paragraph form. The book includes a new introduction providing important historical and literary contexts, as well as a glossary, pronunciation guide, and index. Ideal for students and general readers, this edition of the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki introduces an extraordinary work of world literature to a new generation of readers. "A masterpiece of scholarship."---Wendy Doniger, New York Review of Books "Truly epic and millennial in scale. The translation and expertise that have gone into this are not likely to be surpassed."-Frederick M. Smith, Religious Studies Review "The translation admirably succeeds in pursuing its 'twin goals of accuracy and readability.' . . . The closest thing {readers} could get to what the original taste and texture of the text must have been. . . . This is a remarkable achievement."-Yigal Bronner, European Legacy "Goldman has chosen a translation style that is simple, direct, and very close to the text, without being prosaic. He has avoided the twin pitfalls of preciousness and pedantry. The Rāmāyaṇa, as he reminds us, is a poem in a sense we have almost lost touch with: intended to be heard, easily understood, chanted in a loose and repetitive meter that permits the lapidary phrase."-Edwin Gerow, Journal of Asian Studies

David Tod Roy (1933–2016) was professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. His monumental five-volume translation of the Chin P'ing Mei was completed in 2013. The fourth volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the fourth and penultimate volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form-not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. "[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."---Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre-from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."---Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."---Robert Chatain, Chicago Tribune Review of Books "Both the fourth volume of The Plum and the previous three volumes are top-notch English translation of traditional Chinese fiction. Roy's superb translation skills preserve the subtleties in the original Chinese novel. English-speaking readers can, for the first time, appreciate one of the masterpieces of Chinese fiction in its entirety, thanks to Roy's diligent and careful work. Most important of all, The Plum represents the culmination of Roy's life-long devotion to research on fin Ping Mei and demonstrates Roy's encyclopedic knowledge of Jin Ping Mei scholarship. Reading The Plum can help scholars understand the research that has been conducted on this novel and help them develop new directions for future research. I wholeheartedly recommend The Plum to anyone interested in Chinese literature, culture, and history, and look forward to the publication of the final volume of Roy's translation."---Junjie Luo, Chinese Literature "This volume, a masterwork of translation of language, culture, social values, and literary intent provides students of linguistics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and history, as well as those willing to invest time in a long but highly entertaining tale with an invaluable opportunity to gain insight into sixteenth-century society outside imperial court circles during the Ming era."---Ilicia J. Sprey, Sixteenth Century Journal "Clearly David Roy is the greatest scholar-translator in the field of premodern vernacular Chinese fiction. . . . The puns and various other kinds of word plays that abound in the Chin P'ing Mei are so difficult to translate that I can't help 'slapping the table in amazemen

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014" "One of The Wall Street Journal Bookshelf Best Books of 2013, chosen by Tash Aw" David Tod Roy (1933–2016) was professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. His monumental five-volume translation of the Chin P'ing Mei was completed in 2013. The fifth and final volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the fifth and final volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form-not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. "The story sprawls. There are more than eight hundred named characters, from high officials and military commanders to peddlers and prostitutes, with actors, tailors, monks and nuns, fortunetellers, acrobats, and many others, even cats and dogs, in between. Roy helps us keep track of everyone in a fifty-six-page 'cast of characters.'. . . In the original woodblock printing of the text, characters follow one another, without punctuation, no matter their source. Modern printings provide punctuation, but Roy goes further by devising a system of indentation and differing type sizes to set off allusions, poems, and songs. With this editorial help, the translation is actually easier to read than the original."---Perry Link, New York Review of Books "David Tod Roy, after more [than] 20 years of work, completed the fifth volume of his translation of the Chin Ping Mei, entitled The Plum in the Golden Vase. It's a masterpiece [and] an epic scholarly achievement. . . . The world of the Chin Ping Mei is beautiful and dark, cheap and exalted, righteous and profane, gorgeous and lurid and stinking and glorious."---Stephen Marche, Los Angeles Review of Books "Roy's complete translation makes it possible for English readers everywhere to read and appreciate this work, one of the great, sophisticated masterpieces of world literature." "Roy's translation . . . is both more complete and more readable than previous English translations. . . . Roy's rendering deftly switches between registers along with the novel, carrying across both its refined language and its infamous vulgarities."---Scott W. Gregory, Ming Studies "One can only begin to appreciate the work that has gone into this volume, with its numerous pages of notes, bibliography and index, and to the five volumes as a whole. . . . We are indebted to Professor Roy. The novel is a masterwork of Chinese fiction, and we celebrate the completion of his translation."---Andrew Lo, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies "The immensity of David Tod Roy's achievement in the eld of literary translation can hardly be overstated. . . . We are all . . . tremendously indebted to Roy's erudition and his indefatigable work of defamiliarization. No one can ever look at a proverb with the same complacency after reading Roy's translation."---Maria Franca Sibau, Journal of the American Oriental Society "Praise for the previous volume: "[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers.""---Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1994" David Tod Roy (1933–2016) was professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. His monumental five-volume translation of the Chin P'ing Mei was completed in 2013. The first volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the first volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form-not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in the earlier Chinese fiction tradition, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. "[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."---Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre--from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."---Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books "David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing ... other earlier versions."---Paul St. John Mackintosh, Literary Review "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."---Robert Chatain, Chicago Tribune Review of Books "What Roy has already accomplished [in this volume] is enough to establish his translation as definitive. . . . A tremendous achievement."---Charles Horner, Commentary "This is the first complete English translation of world literature and will immediately supersede all existing partial and abridged translations in that language. Even aside from the stunning achievement of the translation itself, the book represents a lifetime of meticulous scholarship on an enormous number of Sinological subjects. This work is the culmination of David Roy's entire scholarly career and a compendium of his vast learning in all phases of traditional Chinese civilization."-Andrew Plaks, Princeton University

David Tod Roy (1933–2016) was professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. His monumental five-volume translation of the Chin P'ing Mei was completed in 2013. The third volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the third volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form-not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. Written during the second half of the sixteenth century and first published in 1618, The Plum in the Golden Vase is noted for its surprisingly modern technique. With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (ca. 1010) and Don Quixote (1605, 1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in earlier Chinese fiction, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. Replete with convincing portrayals of the darker side of human nature, it should appeal to anyone interested in a compelling story, compellingly told. "[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."---Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre-from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."---Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books "Clearly David Roy is the greatest scholar-translator in the field of premodern vernacular Chinese fiction. . . . The puns and various other kinds of word plays that abound in the Chin P'ing Mei are so difficult to translate that I can't help 'slapping the table in amazement' each time I see evidence of Roy's masterful rendition of them. . . . I recommend this book, in the strongest possible terms, to anyone interested in the novel form in general, in Chinese literature in particular, or in the translation of Chinese literature."---Shuhui Yang, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews "Racy, colloquial, and robustly scatalogical, [this translation] could only have been done now, when our literary language has finally shed its Victorian values. David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing . . . earl