I feel a bit cheeky posting two requests for translation help the day I join the forum! [Edit: I wasn’t able to post this yesterday in the end (automatic limit) so I post it today] I hope you guys don’t mind. I have deeply appreciated Suttacentral for a long time and really thank all those concerned. And very happy to be a member of the forum now.
These two translations have been a part of my research that I have been a bit stuck on.
So the lines I wish to understand:
mīḷhena littā ruhirena makkhitā, semhena littā upanikkhamanti.
yaṃ yañhi kāyena phusanti tāvade, sabbaṃ asātaṃ dukhameva kevalaṃ.
The only translation I could find was:
“Covered with blood and with gross foulness stained,
All mortal beings issue from the birth:
Whate’er they touch thereafter is ordained
To bring them pain and sorrow on the earth.”
I found that translation unclear. I have tried to translate. Here is my feeble start of an attempt:
“Come out smeared in blood, shit and plegm,
Because of that, the instant anything is touched by the body, is only entirely disagreeable, unsatisfactory.”
Anyone willing to push this to a better translation?
Many thanks!
Never heard any reply on this one. Anyone have any ideas now? That old translation is from about 120 years ago! Anyone have any comments on my very rough and ready start at a new one, or improvements?
Well, you’ve got the main point right, which is that it is the body’s filth that (according to the verse) turns everything they touch into nothing but pain. I’d probably render it:
Smeared with filth, stained with blood,
smeared with mucus they emerge.
From that moment on, whatever their body touches
is all unpleasant, it’s nothing but pain.
Oh, maybe, though to be honest I never even considered that. But the fact that it’s next to asāta strongly suggests that it is simply dukkha, with one of the k-s elided metri causa. If you search dukha* on SC, you’ll see that this spelling is not uncommon.
