Peeling away wenyan layers

[muckefuck]

monshu bought another lovely set of scrolls for his collection. With relatively little effort, we found translations online for three out of four. The stubborn exception was a non-poetic piece by Su Shi (a.k.a. Su Tung-p'o) which none-the-less had something to do with his famous Rhapsody on Red Cliff (to give but one possible variation of the name). I found the full text of which this was an excerpt on many Chinese-language websites and determined (a) that is was taken from the collophon to the ode and (b) it described a philosophical conversation between Su Shi and a "guest" (kè) during an outing on the Yangtse. But when it came to the actual meaning, I saw little alternative to curling up with a grammar and a dictionary and puzzling it out as best I could.

Needless to say, I did not get very far. Fortunately, there are still those papery things to fall back on when the Internet fails us. In Ronald C. Egan's Word, image, and deed in the life of Su Shi, I found a complete translation of the collophon. The lines on monshu's scroll read:

If you look at things from the viewpoint of the changes they undergo, nothing in Heaven or Earth lasts longer than the blink of an eye. But if you look at them from the viewpoint of their changeless traits, neither the objects of the world nor we ever come to an end.

I've spent the last hour trying to reconcile this translation with the Classical Chinese text in front of me; I'm still very puzzled. By chance, I ran into Liu laoshi on the street on Saturday and she offered to help me if I came early to class tonight.