On Translation of CLASSICAL CHINESE

I The translation of classical Chineseinto English is extremely difficult. Essen-tially, this is because any given pieceof classical Chinese, as distinct from onewritten in modern Chinese, is a text of apast age. The text, even very aptly paraph-rased in modern Chinese, would very ofteninvolve a LOSS of colour, terseness and,in many cases, rhythmic effect. And sucha loss is always magnified when the classi-cal text is rendered into English or, forthat matter, into any other foreign lan-guages. Indeed, the difficulties involved are soenormous that there prevails a substantialbody of opinion which maintains that agreat number of Chinese classical writingsare virtually or absolutely "untranslatable",