What Is The Best English Translation of Sun Tzu’s “Art Of War”?

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

My article this week at Return of Kings deals with Sun Tzu’s Art of War.  

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most widely read of the military classics. A very large number of translations exist, of decidedly uneven quality. Some of these “translations” omit large portions of the original text’s commentary; and some of them are glossy, slicked-up books that bear little relation to the original.

As it turns out, The Art of War has much to tell us about the art of translation. The translator must know the language, of course; but he must also know his subject, and have a sensitivity to the nuances of a work’s historical context. The quality of a translation can make or break a work. A good translation can communicate the spirit of the original, while a bad one can alienate a reader permanently.

[To read the rest of my article, click here.]

The Apple Of Empress Eudocia

Quintus Curtius Biography, History , ,

I came across a poignant little tale yesterday, languishing in a forgotten volume of history on the reign of the Roman emperor Theodosius II (A.D. 401-450).  The book is the Chronographia of the ecclesiastical historian John Malalas (c. 491-578).

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Coming This Fall: Stoic Paradoxes

Quintus Curtius Current News , ,

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Stoicism has proven itself to be an enduring and influential philosophy.

It may not have attracted the greatest number of adherents when compared to other schools of philosophy, but the men that it did attract tended to be the best men.

Cicero, whose name is synonymous with eloquence, wrote a great deal on Stoicism.

I will be releasing a new book this coming fall.

I have decided to issue a fresh, new translation of one of Cicero’s lesser known works, a treatise called Stoic Paradoxes.

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The Ethic Of Prison Camp Survival

Quintus Curtius History , ,

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One of the greatest accounts of suffering and survival that I’ve read is the book Prisoners of the Japanese by writer Gavan Daws.  It’s a compendium of anecdotes, stories, and harrowing accounts of Allied prisoners taken by the Japanese Army in the Pacific.

More than this, it is a painstakingly-assembed oral record of the men–almost all of them dead now–who lived and survived in now-forgotten hellholes like Changi Prison, Cabanatuan, the Burma-Siam railroad, Davao, and a dozen other places.

Thousands of men from the armed forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and the Netherlands were done to death in these camps, either by disease, forced labor, starvation, or related causes.

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Back To The Basics: The Educational Teachings Of John Comenius

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

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I’ve recently learned something about the theories and works of a little-known philosopher and educationalist named John Comenius (1592-1670).  He was a Czech cleric perhaps best remembered for his progressive theories on universal education.  Some exposure to his ideas made me realize just how out of focus the educational system is here in the United States.

In Comenius’s time, illiteracy was the rule in perhaps a majority of Europeans.  He spent decades traveling around Europe to promote educational reform, and to attempt to bring the art of instruction in line with modern realities.

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“Do What I Say, Not What I Do”

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

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We live in times where our “leaders” at the top lecture us on duty and responsibility, yet aggregate to themselves a larger and larger portion of the pie.  They grow fat on your labor, and on your backs; and yet you have very little to call your own.

And in their spare time, they sweep away our cultural inheritance to make way for corrupting entertainments, distracting amusements, and intoxicating spectacles that offer nothing in the way of meaningful value.  We see this as the lesson of the great film Harakiri (1962).  It is one of the great samurai films, and a powerful indictment of institutional hypocrisy.

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Stephen Mitchell’s “The Iliad”

Quintus Curtius Literature ,

I like to listen to audiobooks when driving around.  News doesn’t interest me as much as in years past, and I can get what I want from websites.

I recently rented Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of The Iliad from my city’s library, thinking I would give the old tale another chance.  I had read bits and pieces of it in years past, but it had never seized my imagination.  But tastes change, and our perspectives change with our own life experiences, and it is good to give some things a second look.

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Delusion Is The Enemy Of Precision

Quintus Curtius Uncategorized , ,

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I’m not a big Sherlock Holmes fan.  Some of the stories are amusing, but I never really warmed to the character.  (I do like Arthur Conan Doyle’s science fiction and suspense stories, but that’s a separate conversation).

Anyway, about Sherlock Holmes.  He used to have a saying that “Passion was the enemy of precision.”  And it can be, certainly.

But other things are enemies of precision, too.  One of them is more insidious than passion.  It is delusion.

What is delusion?

Delusion is the failure or inability to see the reality that is before our eyes.  Delusion is the blocking out of information that does not conform to our pre-existing beliefs.

Delusion is all to common.  It can be a killer.

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Beauty Seeks Beauty, And Ugly Seeks Ugly

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

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Essayist and Japan observer Alex Kerr wrote a very perceptive collection of essays on Japanese culture and his experiences with it.  The book was released in the 1990s and was called Lost Japan.  I admire the book very much.  The essays in the book are unified by one theme:  his quest for the hidden beauty of things.

One of the many engaging stories he told in the book was how he (basically accidentally) got into art collecting.  He noticed that many Japanese antiquities were undervalued and underpriced.  So he bought a few of them.

And then he bought more of them.

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Adding Much-Needed Variety To Your Fitness Routine

Quintus Curtius Health & Fitness , , , , ,

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Everyone knows that physical fitness is crucial.  It is the bedrock that supports the other activities of the body and the mind.  But it’s often necessary to change things up a little.  It’s too easy to slip into a rut, to fall into a trap of feeling that we’re well-rounded, when we may not be.

And that’s something I see a lot of.

I see a lot of guys focusing too much on one thing, to the detriment of the big picture.  I’m seeing too much focus on weightlifting, and not enough focus on all-around fitness.

Remember that it’s all-around fitness that matters.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love weightlifting and firmly believe that it should be one of your foundations.  But other things matter, too.  And it’s easy to slip into the self-delusion that you’re in shape just because your biceps or pecs look good with a tight t-shirt on.  Some of these guys are laughable.

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