# 心中有些不满



## bankei yotaku

Hello everybody. Some days ago I posted a thread to check a translation of a sentence from 秋 by 巴金. I went a bit ahead with the translation of the first paragraph. I am a bit confident that I got the following four sentences more or less correctly, or at least, they make sense in the translation, in the context of what the narrator is saying. I write them below separated, if you’d be so kind to take a look.

*一个月以前省城附近有过几天混战。
One month ago in the vicinity of the provincial capital, there were a few days of chaotic battle.

城门关了三天。
City gates were closed for three days.

我家也落过炮弹，大 家惊扰了好一阵, 又算平安无事了。
Artillery shells fell also on my house, everybody got alarmed for quite a while, but in the end it all turned out well.

我们现在又过着太平日子。
We are now again passing peaceful days.

不过近来我实在疲乏得很遇到的全是不如意的事情。
However lately I am indeed very tired that an affair that is entirely unsatisfactory came across.*

Main issues as yet arose in the next sentence, which is a series of linked phrases, or clauses. 

*姑母因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止, 心中有些不满去年重阳在我家遇到四婶与陈姨太吵架听了些闲言冷语, 回家后得不高兴以后便托病不再来我家。
The paternal aunt, because of paternal uncle Wu in the middle of the mourning period, shall be happy to take her siblings at home – but paternal uncle San won't prevent it anymore – having in the heart some dissatisfaction since last year Double Ninth Festival when she came across aunt-in-law Xi together with maternal aunt Chen at my house and, heard a great quarrel, of some idle talk, cold words, she returned back home unhappily, and later then she pleaded ill to avoid coming again to my house.*

Here, I take “姑母” to be the topic, and at the same time the subject of the sentence. The scope of “因” I get it extended to “五叔在居丧期中” and what comes next determines what would happen in reason of the condition. The rest of the period then does not present any other element that seems to me it might be subject of the various phrases, so I consider it to be “姑母”, “the paternal aunt”, all along, so that “三叔” is the one who “不加阻止”, what the condition calls to happen, but he is not the one in whose “heart” are “些不满”. That is “姑母”, and she is also the one who “遇到”, “听了”, “回家后” and “托病”. Is that correct (apart my comprehension of the sentence in general)? Thanks everybody in advance.


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## Skatinginbc

bankei yotaku said:


> “些不满”. That is “姑母”, and she is also the one who “遇到”, “听了”, “回家后” and “托病”. Is that correct?


Yes.


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## bankei yotaku

thank you very much


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## fyl

bankei yotaku said:


> The scope of “因” I get it extended to “五叔在居丧期中”


It extends to 三叔又不加阻止.


bankei yotaku said:


> uncle Wu in the middle of the mourning period, shall be happy to take her siblings at home


喜儿 is apparently the name of a girl. 收房 means to marry her as a concubine.


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## hx1997

bankei yotaku said:


> 姑母因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止, 心中有些不满, 去年重阳在我家遇到四婶与陈姨太吵架, 听了些闲言冷语, 回家后很不高兴, 以后便托病不再来我家。


Three commas are missing (highlighted in red). As fyl rightly pointed out, 因 extends to 三叔又不加阻止, and 喜儿 is a female name (nickname, to be precise). To rephrase a little:
姑母心中有些不满，因为五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房，三叔又不加阻止。她去年重阳在我家遇到四婶与陈姨太吵架，听了些闲言冷语，回家后很不高兴，以后便托病不再来我家。


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## bankei yotaku

First of all, fyl and hx1997 many thanks for your replies. They've been very informative. Many thanks also for the commas, I forgot to write them down while copying the text. By what you say then it seems to me that who "将喜儿收房" must be "五叔", and the "居丧期" it's his. It certainly makes no sense that a woman would take a concubine. It is this that "三叔又不加阻止": I take then here "又" to be understood as "moreover". 

The second part of the clause, in hx1997's rephrasing, leaves me a bit baffled. The cause of "不满" to "姑母" is the fact that "五叔" will take a concubine, even though "在居丧期中" and moreover "三叔" won't prevent this. In the rephrasing the two sentences are separated by the full stop, but I'm a bit interested also in the original structure. The first part I would translate like this then, keeping to the original structure:

*姑母因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止, 心中有些不满
The paternal aunt because paternal uncle Wu in the middle of the mourning period shall take Xier as concubine, paternal uncle San moreover won't prevent it anymore, has in the heart some dissatisfaction*

The sentences separated are obviously more comprehensible than put together and the second part I would translate like this, now understanding explicitly that the "太吵架" was between "四婶" and "陈姨", so what "姑母" listened, or heard was not that but "冷语":

*去年重阳在我家遇到四婶与陈姨太吵架, 听了些闲言冷语, 回家后很不高兴, 以后便托病不再来我家。
[since] last year['s] Double Ninth Festival at my house [when] she came across aunt-in-law Si having a great quarrel with maternal aunt Chen, she heard some idle talk, cold words, she returned back home unhappily, then later she pleaded ill to avoid coming again to my house. *

What I'd like to know here is: (1) do the interpolations of "when" and "since" and the genitive of "last year" have any sense? That is, are those specifications understood in the original sentence, or I get this wrong? (2) is this second part of the sentence, in the rephrasing too, a serial construction, that is more independent sentences put one after the other without linking elements, so that they could also be translated with full stops rather than commas? (3) did the author of the book with the original wording meant to highlight the fact that what he describes after "心中有些不满" expands on the reasons of "不满" and such "dissatisfaction" relates also to that?


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## Skatinginbc

To fully address your comprehension issues, I think you need four separate threads:
(1) 不过近来我实在疲乏得很, 遇到的全是不如意的事情。
(2) 姑母因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止, 心中有些不满。
(3) 姑母去年重阳在我家遇到四婶与陈姨太吵架, 听了些闲言冷语。
(4) 姑母回家后很不高兴, 以后便托病不再来我家。

This thread mainly concerns (2): 心中有些不满 (literally "having some dissatisfaction in one's heart").
姑母 (因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止) 心中有些不满。= (因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止) 姑母心中有些不满。My aunt held seeds of discontent in her heart (because my fifth uncle took Xi'er as a concubine during the mourning period and my third uncle did not stop it from happening).


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## hx1997

bankei yotaku said:


> (1) do the interpolations of "when" and "since" and the genitive of "last year" have any sense? That is, are those specifications understood in the original sentence, or I get this wrong?


In my opinion, for the genitive of "last year", you got it right. For "when" and "since", I'd suggest changing a bit:
*Last year's Double Ninth Festival at my house, when she came across aunt-in-law Si having a quarrel with Mistress Chen（陈姨太）, she heard some idle talk, cold words, so she returned back home unhappily, and since then she pleaded ill to avoid coming again to my house.*



bankei yotaku said:


> (2) is this second part of the sentence, in the rephrasing too, a serial construction, that is more independent sentences put one after the other without linking elements, so that they could also be translated with full stops rather than commas?


They are pretty much logically connected, so it's better to leave them be. A full stop could, if necessary, be put between 听了些闲言冷语 and 回家后很不高兴.



bankei yotaku said:


> (3) did the author of the book with the original wording meant to highlight the fact that what he describes after "心中有些不满" expands on the reasons of "不满" and such "dissatisfaction" relates also to that?


I haven't read the whole book, but judging from these sentences, it would seem so. Note that in the first part of the sentence, 姑母 was only 有些不满 (a little dissatisfied); into the second, she became 很不高兴 (very displeased). We could say the first part set the stage for the second, for her finally not coming again to my house.


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## bankei yotaku

Skatinginbc said:


> To fully address your comprehension issues, I think you need four separate threads:
> (1) 不过近来我实在疲乏得很, 遇到的全是不如意的事情。
> (2) 姑母因五叔在居丧期中将喜儿收房, 三叔又不加阻止, 心中有些不满。



I will post soon the number (1), to check my reading. As for the others well, for now let's stick to number (2)... because both of your replies clarify further my issues...

From Skatinginbc reply I noticed you read all verbs in the past, so that, from hx1997 reply, I guess the author wrote the sentence as one, without full stops, because in the second part of the sentence there is an explicit reference to "去年", which sets clearly the time reference. So that, according to hx1997's reading at first  姑母 was a bit dissatisfied for those reasons, and then she got that unhappy to lie in order not to visit the narrator. If the whole sentence is to be understood as in the past - and not only the second part - then here "将" in the first part should function as the marker of the object of the main verb 收房, and not as particle indicating future: is this correct? Since, the narrator first set the main reference in the sentence of thread (1), and then starts to tell the whole story from the very beginning, so that, what he first relates is not something still to happen. To take into consideration also hx1997 reply then I make this guess:

*The paternal aunt because paternal uncle Wu in the middle of the mourning period took Xier as concubine, paternal uncle San moreover didn't prevent it anymore, had in the heart some dissatisfaction, and last year's Double Ninth Festival at my house, she heard some idle talk, cold words, when she came across aunt-in-law Si having a quarrel with Mistress Chen, so she returned back home very unhappy, and then later she pleaded ill to avoid coming again to my house.*

where I interpolate conjunction "and" before "last year's" and before the last clause, as to say, 姑母 had A, in addition B, as a result "以后便托病不再来我家。"


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## bankei yotaku

hx1997 said:


> They are pretty much logically connected, so it's better to leave them be. A full stop could, if necessary, be put between 听了些闲言冷语 and 回家后很不高兴.



Yes, of course. What I was wondering is whether each clause could stand by its own, aside from the others in some other context, by the grammatical point of view, with an expressed subject, such as 她 in your rephrasing or 姑母. That is, whether they are all independent clauses or not, because I do not seem to be able to identify any explicit sentence-linking element, given that "since" and "when" are understood here. Could I use "她听了些闲言冷语", in answering to a question from someone who asked "她听了什么?", having seen her upset and complaining about people talking about something she's involved?


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## Skatinginbc

Skatinginbc said:


> took Xi'er as a concubine





bankei yotaku said:


> took Xier as concubine


Google results:
"took her as a concubine" ==> 16,500 results
"took her as concubine" ==> 1,070 results
妻 "wife" > 妾 "concubine" > 小妾 "lesser concubine" (e.g., 收房丫鬟)
Xi'er was a "lesser concubine" (小妾).
I prefer "took Xi'er as a concubine" because it is a subtype of concubine and there is a good possibility that she was merely one of his concubines.


Skatinginbc said:


> held seeds of discontent in her heart





bankei yotaku said:


> 姑母 was a bit dissatisfied for those reasons, and then she got that unhappy to lie in order not to visit the narrator.


Seeds of discontent were planted in the aunt's heart when the fifth uncle took Xi'er as a concubine.  It took time and added sustenance for the seeds to later grow into trees.


Skatinginbc said:


> fifth uncle...third uncle...





bankei yotaku said:


> uncle Wu...uncle San...


I am fully aware that "fifth uncle" and "third uncle" are not idiomatic in English, but "Uncle Wu" and "Uncle San" are quite misleading.  I prefer a "faithful though unnatural" translation to a "natural but misleading" one.


bankei yotaku said:


> 姑母 was _a bit _dissatisfied


I interpret the 些 in 心中有些不滿 as the 些 in 有些事我得事先講明, which means "some, certain", not "a bit".  不滿 (like 事 in 有些事) is a noun here, not an adjective.


bankei yotaku said:


> uncle San moreover didn't prevent it anymore


三叔又不加阻止 means that he did nothing to stop it.  "San didn't prevent it anymore" implies that "He tried to do something at first."


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## hx1997

bankei yotaku said:


> here "将" in the first part should function as the marker of the object of the main verb 收房, and not as particle indicating future: is this correct?


Exactly. 



bankei yotaku said:


> What I was wondering is whether each clause could stand by its own, aside from the others in some other context


Yes, they could.


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## Skatinginbc

bankei yotaku said:


> I do not seem to be able to identify any explicit sentence-linking element


A cohesive device sometimes entails the absence (as opposed to the existence) of an element.  For example, ellipsis is able to link texts together because the interpretation of the missing element in one text depends on the interpretation of another text.  Instead of looking for an explicitly expressed element, you need to identify what is missing. 


bankei yotaku said:


> What I was wondering is whether each clause could stand by its own, aside from the others in some other context, by the grammatical point of view, with an expressed subject, such as 她 in your rephrasing or 姑母.


Obviously you know what is missing--the subject.  It is exactly the lack of an explicit subject in each clause that links them closely together.


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## bankei yotaku

Thank you both very much for your replies.



Skatinginbc said:


> I am fully aware that "fifth uncle" and "third uncle" are not idiomatic in English, but "Uncle Wu" and "Uncle San" are quite misleading. I prefer a "faithful though unnatural" translation to a "natural but misleading" one.



Ok, I perfectly agree, and doing this systematically when working on ancient Greek. Would this mean that, if there were to be a translation, the good translator would put the given names of those characters, as they are related on the book?

All the remarks you both make have been much informative and clarifying. I'll come back to the forum soon, as I'll go ahead with translating some more lines...


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