Pity to lose a prompt

[flemmings]

...especially when next month's are so uninspiring. Pity. And pity I can't write this in Chinese because natch it's all about the pronouns. Thanks again to rasetsunyo for the rundown:

Gou Jian as Crown Prince is the only person to use 我 wo3 (the modern first-person pronoun) on a regular basis... Kings (use) 寡人 gua3 ren2 lit. unmatched/lonely person.

Ah, what avails the scepter'd race! Ah, what the form divine! when every English speaker is reduced to a single bland 'I' weep weep. (Am I mad or is there a stunning double entendre in Landor's lines?) Anyway, it's all about the pronouns and one does the best one can in English. (Mourns for boku, ore, atashi, ware, wara, wagahai and 'kono Ling Gufu')

Title: "Simply the thing I am shall make me live"
Day/Theme: Mon Feb. 25 - "What are kings, when regiment is gone?"
Series: Woxin changdan/The Great Revival
Character/Pairing: Gou Jian
Spoilers: ep 20 on

Gou Jian calls himself I when he's prince and We when he becomes king. Defeat doesn't change that. Shackled and dragged to Wu with his captive generals and queen, he is still We, asserting his kingship with every sentence he speaks. The man who feels his conqueror's foot on his neck, the man who carries rocks at a menial's orders, the man who endures the agony of Wu's pillory, is We.

But the man who scurries to kneel so his conqueror may dismount from his horse, the man who grooms that horse with the care he fails to give himself, the man who puts his conqueror's excrement in his mouth, who is he? Fu Chai is convinced it's I. Wu Zi Xu is certain it's still We. But Gou Jian?

Gou Jian knows it's He. And if they all survive to return to Yue, Gou Jian knows He won't be coming back with them.

Comments

[incandescens]

Oh yes. Just right.

And incidentally -- you know, there's nothing to stop us doing some prompt-swapping or prompt-suggesting on the Woxin community or otherwise between ourselves.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

there's nothing to stop us doing some prompt-swapping or prompt-suggesting on the Woxin community

Avaunt, tempter!

[incandescens]

Without a doubt His Majesty will do as he wishes. It is this humble councillor's duty, however, to mention the possibility.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! It's requited in full (and then some) when this is the result. Gorgeous use of the prompt!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. But scholarship is always useful; creativity can never be depended on to come through in a pinch.

[bladderwrack.livejournal.com]

Ahh, neat.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ah, glad you liked it.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

IMHO this could not be written more precisely nor convey a deeper in meaning in Chinese - your contrast of We and I and He is done exactly right. ^_^

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. But of course Foreign Language Scrim makes me feel the kingly 'gua ren' is so much more evocative and poetic and desirable than those commoners, I and we.