This is a good place to express something that has been increasingly clear to me as your translation has gone on: Hawkes was writing (and taking considerable poetic licence) to create a translation that reads approximately like a British novel written around the time that the Chinese text was.
"Sannikins" is an excellent example of this.
Calling someone their name or nickname with "-ikins" on the end evokes a kind of affectionate contempt, where the person is definitely junior in status (hence the childish, diminutive nickname - see "manikin", little man) but still one of the boys (needless to say, always boys) for whom favours are done. Perhaps someone who was a few years behind you at Eton and is a third son of a marquis who will probably never amount to much. But he still went to Eton and is the brother of a marquis.
I expect "Sannikins" is a loose way of translating Dai Quan's statement that he is a personal friend, extrapolating what the relationship probably is from Dai Quan's obvious importance.
PS: I'm a bit sad that there is no actual Chinese expression in the text meaning Sannikins. ☹️ Seriously, though, I'm learning so much!
Great post as always.
This is a good place to express something that has been increasingly clear to me as your translation has gone on: Hawkes was writing (and taking considerable poetic licence) to create a translation that reads approximately like a British novel written around the time that the Chinese text was.
"Sannikins" is an excellent example of this.
Calling someone their name or nickname with "-ikins" on the end evokes a kind of affectionate contempt, where the person is definitely junior in status (hence the childish, diminutive nickname - see "manikin", little man) but still one of the boys (needless to say, always boys) for whom favours are done. Perhaps someone who was a few years behind you at Eton and is a third son of a marquis who will probably never amount to much. But he still went to Eton and is the brother of a marquis.
I expect "Sannikins" is a loose way of translating Dai Quan's statement that he is a personal friend, extrapolating what the relationship probably is from Dai Quan's obvious importance.
PS: I'm a bit sad that there is no actual Chinese expression in the text meaning Sannikins. ☹️ Seriously, though, I'm learning so much!
Thank you for this! This helps clear that up in my mind.
There’s all sorts of interesting and somewhat odd things going on in the David Hawkes translation…