救命! 韓非子把我難倒了。。。

[Zerg]

Hello, I'm stuck on a random sentence from Fuller's 文言文 textbook, and this thing has no answers! What a rip. Can anyone help?

 

It's : 其子能亦其面而白其睛。What? His son

can... indeed his face and turn his eyes white? I'm lost.

 

It's from 韓非子。

 

宋有富人，天雨牆壞。其子曰「不築且有盜」，其鄰人之父亦云，暮而果大亡其財，其家甚知其子而疑鄰人之父。昔者鄭武公欲伐胡，迺以其子妻之。因問群臣曰： 「吾欲用兵，誰可伐者？」關其思曰：「胡可伐。」迺戮關其思，曰：「胡，兄弟之國也，子言伐之，何也？」胡君聞之，以鄭為親己而不備鄭。鄭人襲胡，取之。此二說者，其知皆當矣，然而甚者為戮，薄者見疑。非知之難也，處知則難矣。

 

 

[MPhillips]

I just googled the sentence which is causing you a problem--someone asked the same question on a Chinese website about 6 yrs. ago. Most of those who responded thought 亦 was an error & that the sentence would make sense if 亦 were replaced by 赤。The sentence then means something like "His son can make his face turn red & his eyes turn white.", which does sound somewhat plausible, like a kid throwing a temper tantrum I guess.

[陳德聰]

Are you wondering about the red phrase you've highlighted as well? I'm a bit confused since I don't see the line you're asking about in the text you posted.
 

Might be important to note that it's the father whose face is turning red and who is rolling his eyes because of his child. Being red in the face means being embarrassed or ashamed of his child and making his eyes white means make him 翻白眼.

[Zerg]

Ah, I have indeed posted an entirely irrelevant passage underneath. Not quite sure what that's about. Apologies.

 

Anyway, thank you so much for the help! Just by the way, does anyone know if there are 古文 textbooks out there with answers you can check your translations against? Because without that, unless I can get stuff from the Chinese Text Project or Google Books, life is pretty hard.

 

Thanks again!

[MPhillips]

Hi Zerg! I wish I knew of a book to recommend, but that aside, was the sentence written by Han Fei-tzu? (Sorry I prefer Wade-Giles for names of ancient figures)

[OneEye]

You can do what many others have done with Fuller: ask here when you're not sure. It's a fantastic textbook, don't throw it out just because he doesn't give all the answers.

[Zerg]

Hi MPhillips, Yep, I think Han Fei-tzu would be the Wade-Giles version.

 

Cool, I'll keep on with the Fuller, and rely on the kindness of strangers.

 

Thanks all!