Why Sima Qian did not commit suicide

Sima Qian, 2nd century BC. Taken from a mainland China website

Seeing that one of my students can read classical Chinese well, I felt a burst of jealous competitiveness. I determined to finish going over the "Letter in Reply to Ren An" by Sima Qian to help get my chops back. The draft of my own translation, along with many notes, continues to evolve here.

Today, I got up to the climax of the letter, where Sima Qian talks of his own personal troubles and excuses himself at length for not committing suicide. Any man should have died rather than suffer the punishment of castration, but he accepted it and lived on miserably so that he could finish writing his history of China.

Some thoughts on this part:


It's a grand act, strangely self-centered and self-immolating at the same time, summed up in what is currently my favorite sentence of the letter:

The reason I bear it all in hiding, eeking out my miserable life, that I dwell in the dark solitude of dirt, and shit, never taking my own leave, is that I hate that my inner heart has something that isn't over with. I am loath to leave the world and not express it in written style for later generations.

所以隱忍苟活，幽於糞土之中而不辭者，恨私心有所不盡鄙陋，沒世而文采不表於後世也。

After that part of the letter, Sima Qian goes on to describe a tradition of literature that is the product of expressing indignation. I'll write an entry on that next.

Notes on comprehension so far: Sima Qian's Chinese is undeniably difficult, with much special vocabulary that even the commentators see fit to explain at times. I think what most takes getting used to, however, are his complex sentence structures. Often there are more than three clauses strung together with very definite relation. Examples:

If a man cannot early on resolve himself outside of the constraints of the law, his degradation increasing by degrees, when it reaches the point that he's between the whip and the lash, then to want to draw on honor [commit suicide], isn't the situation too far gone already?

夫人不能早自裁繩墨之外，以稍陵遲；至於鞭箠之閒，乃欲引節；斯不亦遠乎？

It is human nature always to love life and hate death, to think of one's mother and father, to care for one's wife and children; only a person struck by higher principle could do otherwise, then there is something one cannot avoid.

夫人情莫不貪生惡死，念父母，顧妻子；至激於義理者不然，乃有所不得已也。

Note the 至 ... 乃 pattern which is very clear in the Chinese but difficult to translate literally. I consider that a good lesson for today. Also note the aphoristic opening to the thought, which to me shows us Sima Qian's encapsulating, generalizing mind at work nearly all the time. Perhaps that's over-reading, though.