Re: Jaataka II, verse 154

Dear Johan,

There is a small joke I often tell my friends: if you find any Latin
translation in the
Pali translations don't ask about it as it is about something unspeakable,
esp to
the Victorian scholars of yesteryears.

Anyway that age is gone, so here goes. Any other Pali or Latin enthusiast
could have
translated it for you, but let me bloat my ego:

[The elephant tells the dung beetle:]
I will not kill you with the foot,
Nor by the tusk, nor trunk,
But with my dung I will kill you:
Let filth destroy filth!

This is also obvious from the story context: the dung beetle is challenging
the elephant
to a duel! I think the moral is when an evil person tries to smear a good
person with
undeserved evil remarks, they will only fall back on him: like spitting at
the wind, or as
in Thailand, they say don't spit at the sky.

There are many Latin passage in Ms Horner's translation of the Vinaya, which
I would
not dare to render into English, not for this website anyway. Try learning
Latin, please.

With metta,

Piya

On Jan 21, 2008 5:58 PM, johan wijaya <dhamma_joti@...> wrote:

> Could anyone help me with the translation of this verse as follows:
>
> "Na ta.m paadaa vadhissaami, na dantehi na so.n.diyaa;
> mii.lhena ta.m vadhissaami, puuti ha~n~natu puutinaa"ti
>
> This is taken from Jaataka-a.t.thakatha II, verse 154, [211] Roman page.
> By PTS, it's translated into:
>
> Non pede, longinquave manu, non dentibus utar:
> stercore, cui stercus cura, perise decet.
>
> That translation reads to me like Latin. and I don't understand Latin.
> Could someone help me with it? Thanks in advance.
>
> Metta,
> Jo.
>
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