No! I think absolutly not! I enjoy this deep digging and I enjoy the clarification of the Hawkes translation (which I read several times). Here you often mentioned points, at which I remember suspicious thoughts I had when reading Hawkes.
And further I find many details in the Schwarz translation only by careful comparison with your translation and comments even if you don't take it into account (not to speak about Kuhn).
Personally my chinese is not good enough to read a modern edition with my knowledge of ~ 1000 characters and I don't know nearly nothing about classical chinese and chinese literature (poems...) albeit I read Xi you ji, Qing ping mei, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai and more in translations.
"Are We Digging Too Deep?"
No! I think absolutly not! I enjoy this deep digging and I enjoy the clarification of the Hawkes translation (which I read several times). Here you often mentioned points, at which I remember suspicious thoughts I had when reading Hawkes.
And further I find many details in the Schwarz translation only by careful comparison with your translation and comments even if you don't take it into account (not to speak about Kuhn).
Personally my chinese is not good enough to read a modern edition with my knowledge of ~ 1000 characters and I don't know nearly nothing about classical chinese and chinese literature (poems...) albeit I read Xi you ji, Qing ping mei, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai and more in translations.
So Thank You for this fine project
Frank
Sorry Jin ping mei (golden not emotion!)
I don't know how to edit own posts
Frank