Giles understood he was blazing a trail. At the time of the French Revolution, China had been the world’s largest empire. In 1910 England held the title and was feeling the responsibility. This was the moment of high British Empire—a decade after the Boxer Rebellion, fifty years after the Indian Mutiny, and eight since the bitterly fought Boer War—when imperial reach was consolidating in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, as an English speaker Giles was flying solo. Ever since the Enlightenment, the French and the Jesuits had made strides in translating Chinese arts and letters for the West. The Germans, the Russians, and particularly the Japanese had begun to study and translate the great Chinese classics. In this realm, however, the English were just gearing up for what would become a golden century of Asian language scholarship.
In 1905 Captain E. F. Calthrop, R.F.A., had published an English translation of The Art of War in Tokyo, under the Japanese name for Sun Tzu: Sonshi. Assisted by two Japanese military men, he had worked from a Japanese version of the text. Giles dismissed Calthrop’s work as substandard and not scholarly, and other scholars have rejected it too. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Calthrop’s work did not face quite the scholarly depredation that it would by the 1930s, but it was clearly unacceptable.
Giles’s effort in 1910 was the first translation into English of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War by a serious sinologist. With a text some 2,400 years old, Giles confronted a language and a sensibility at considerable remove from his own, and he worked years before the great “Orientalists”—Arthur Waley, Ivan Morris, Donald Keene, Burton Watson, James Legge, John Fairbank, Owen Lattimore, and scores of poet-translators—would fairly invent Asian studies for English speakers. Yet Giles achieved his mission. His version can and does stand alone. It is still studied by military men and is beloved by general readers who have no connection to combat.
For more than fifty years, the Giles translation was the definitive edition—it had no competitors. But at the opening of the twentieth century his feat was neither easy nor assured. A quick scan of the original Chinese text frames the issues: The writing is neat and brief—like a haiku poem. And in several instances, it makes no earthly sense in English or Chinese. We need not investigate too deeply to discover why. When we encounter works like The Art of War we are on the long cusp of an oral tradition. As Arthur Waley writes, “The earliest use of connected writing . . . was as an aid to memory . . . [I]ts purpose was to help people not to forget what they knew already, whereas, in more advanced communities, the chief use of writing is to tell people things they have not heard before” (introduction to The Book of Songs, p. 11).
A completely accurate translation is categorically impossible, always a hopeful approximation. But translators working in European tongues rarely confront the Pandora’s box Giles did. He succeeds, but not without infelicities and compromises. Guiding his readers into this fabulous, ancient world, he introduces English words to descant the laconic Chinese text—sparingly, but he does. Later translators will argue against this practice, but they will have access to a version of the text that is “purer” by a thousand years. And other translators will reflect the reigning literary and cultural trends of their times. That is the “way” of translation—Dryden and Pope, even Fitzgerald set the standard for their periods, but now they sound, if not quaint, more like themselves than a true rendering of other men’s words. Language is a living thing, and as change is essential to life, it is characteristic of our words. We read Dryden’s translations of Homer, Ovid, or Virgil for the devilish brilliance of Dryden’s own lyricism, and even his vocabulary seems odd now, a thing apart. In The Art of War Giles found some measure of himself—citizen, thinker, pioneer, and, most especially, educator. That’s probably why this work still stands.
Lionel Giles had to carve a passageway between West and East, Classical and contemporary, yet still keep to the text Sun Tzu composed. In the notes, Giles nails cultural and historical observations, plus the interpretations of the commentators, to the relevant phrases he translates. It is often delightful reading, but cumbersome. He wonders aloud about his choices and argues with the interpretations of other scholars, while offering wise observations about the world and its bellicose propensities. The notes break the rhythms of the original, herding the text as a sheepdog might into fields of military history, corrals of interpretive queries.
The notes are of uneven length, naturally, and do not accompany every item. We have maintained the style of the original notes but have edited them for relevance; for example, they include descriptions of Giles’s methods and rationales for the translation, but such academic discussion is of interest only to linguistic scholars, and we have eliminated it here. When, for this edition, we have selected only part of a note, we have not used ellipses to show that, in the original, text precedes or follows the selection, but we have used ellipses to show omitted words within the selection.
Mere words can bridge only part of the epochal cultural chasm that exists between Sun Tzu’s time and subsequent eras, even for the Chinese. Giles also faced textual interpolations and corruptions that had accreted like barnacles to the original over the millennia. For centuries, the best scholars in China had chewed over certain ideograms, argued over entire lines (or their absence), and fought over the veracity of variants of the original, just as Western scholars debate the authorship of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the provenance of Shakespeare’s plays. Over the centuries, a great scholarly literature developed to explicate the thorny passages, to wonder over the ideograms, and to ferret out bogus additions.
Giles provides us with the most pungent and trenchant of them here in selections from the commentaries. What a gift! The authors include Wang Hsi, Ts’ao Ts’ao, Tu Yu and his grandson Tu Mu, Li Ch’üan, Mêng Shih—some of the most illustrious names in Chinese military and historical literature. They elucidate the numbered points Sun Tzu makes with examples from China’s 3,000-year history, in a method that is a classic Chinese teaching device and characteristic of Chinese expository style. Apart from the delicious entrée they give us to Chinese culture, the commentaries present a print approximation for the modern reader of how an instructive treatise might have been transmitted at the time of Sun Tzu. As part of his original introduction Giles included descriptions of the major Chinese commentators he cites in the notes; they appear in this edition in the Appendix.
In this edition, we have introduced relevant excerpts from the work of Western writers and thinkers, ancient and modern—generals, poets, political leaders, and other observers.
Sun Tzu on The Art of War
I. LAYING PLANS
[When the enemy launched a surprise attack on Caesar’s supply train] Caesar had everything to do at one time: to raise the standard . . . ; to sound the trumpet; to recall the soldiers from the fortifications; to summon those who had proceeded some distance to seek materials for a rampart; to form a battle line; to encourage the men; and to give the signal. A great part of these arrangements was prevented by the shortness of time and the sudden approach and charge of the enemy. Under these difficulties, two things proved of advantage: the soldiers’ skill and experience . . . and the fact that Caesar had forbidden his several lieutenants to depart from their respective legions before the camp was fortified.
Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico (58-51 B.C.)
Sun Tzu signals the importance he assigns to planning by opening The Art of War with its discussion—and then reiterating many of the points from this chapter through subsequent chapters. While we cannot know with certainty whether the Greeks and the Romans studied Sun Tzu’s work, they must have known it at least indirectly. Across the centuries caravansaries plied the Silk Road, exchanging cultural tidbits far less valuable between China and empires to the West. DG
1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
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sp; 3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.
4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
It appears from what follows that Sun Tzu means by Moral Law a principle of harmony, not unlike the Tao [method or way] of Lao Tzu in its moral aspect. One might be tempted to render it by “morale,” were it not considered as an attribute of the ruler in paragraph 13.
We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice?—shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power?—is it better to be good, or to be strong?
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
5, 6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
If, for example, good meant intelligent, and virtue meant wisdom; if men could be taught to see clearly their real interests, to see afar the distant results of their deeds, to criticize and coördinate their desires out of a self-canceling chaos into a purposive and creative harmony—this, perhaps, would provide for the educated and sophisticated man the morality which in the unlettered relies on re-iterated precepts and external control.
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.
Wang Hsi [see “Appendix: The Commentators”] . . . may be right in saying that what is meant is “the general economy of Heaven,” including the five elements, the four seasons, wind and clouds, and other phenomena.
Though from the earliest times the Chinese were monotheistic, by Sun Tzu’s era various lesser deities associated with the seasons and the elements had taken hold. DG
8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.
For Sun Tzu, heaven and earth conjure the conditions and the situations, as much as the physical terrain, whereby moral law is made manifest and played out. DG
9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness.
The five cardinal virtues of the Chinese are (1) humanity or benevolence; (2) uprightness of mind; (3) self-respect, self-control, or “proper feeling”; (4) wisdom; (5) sincerity or good faith. Here wisdom and sincerity are put before humanity, and the two military virtues of “courage” and “strictness” [are] substituted for uprightness and self-respect.
10. By Method and discipline are to be understood the marshalling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the gradations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.
11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail.
12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:
13.(1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral Law?I.e., “is in harmony with his subjects.”
(2) Which of the two generals has most ability?
(3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?
(4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced?
Tu Mu alludes to the remarkable story of Ts’ao Ts’ao (A.D.155-220), who was such a strict disciplinarian that once, in accordance with his own severe regulations against injury to standing crops, he condemned himself to death for having allowed his horse to shy into a field of corn! However, in lieu of losing his head, he was persuaded to satisfy his sense of justice by cutting off his hair. Ts’ao Ts’ao’s own comment on the present passage is characteristically curt: “When you lay down a law, see that it is not disobeyed; if it is disobeyed, the offender must be put to death.”
(5) Which army is the stronger?
Morally as well as physically.
(6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained?
Tu Yu quotes [another commentator]: “Without constant practice, the officers will be nervous and undecided when mustering for battle; without constant practice, the general will be wavering and irresolute when the crisis is at hand.”
(7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment?
That is, on which side is there the most absolute certainty that merit will be properly rewarded and misdeeds summarily punished?
It is certainly for the interest of the service that a cordial interchange of civilities should subsist between superior and inferior officers, and therefore it is bad policy in superiors to behave toward their inferiors indiscriminately, as tho’ they were of a lower species, such a conduct will damp the spirits of any man. . . . Cheerful ardor and spirit . . . ought ever to be the characteristic of an officer . . . for to be well obeyed it is necessary to be esteemed.
John Paul Jones (1776)
14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.
Who does what, and how the activities are organized (in counterguerrilla or guerrilla warfare), is far less important than understanding the mission and being determined to accomplish it by means not inconsistent with the mission. So long as a sufficient number understand the mission and what it implies, seek to accomplish it with a dedication and an intelligence not substantially inferior to that of the enemy, and receive adequate political support, the counterguerrilla effort should not usually be difficult.
Lt. Col. Charles Bohannan and Col. Napoleon Valeriano, Counterguerrilla Operations (1962)
15. The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer:—let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:—let such a one be dismissed!
The form of this paragraph reminds us that Sun Tzu’s treatise was composed expressly for the benefit of his patron, Ho Lü, king of the Wu State.
16. While heeding the profit of my counsel, avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances over and beyond the ordinary rules.
17. According as circumstances are favourable, one should modify one’s plans.
Sun Tzu, as a practical soldier, will have none of the “bookish theoric.” He cautions us here not to pin our faith to abstract principles; “for,” as Chang Yü puts it, “while the main laws of strategy can be stated clearly enough for the benefit of all and sundry, you must be guided by the actions of the enemy in attempting to secure a favourable position in actual warfare.” On the eve of the battle of Waterloo, Lord Uxbridge, commanding the cavalry, went to the Duke of Wellington in order to learn what his plans and calculations were for the morrow, because, as he explained, he might suddenly find himself Commander-in-chief and would be unable to frame new plans in a critical moment. The Duke listened quietly and then said, “Who will attack first to-morrow—I or Bonaparte?” “Bonaparte,” replied Lord Uxbridge. “Well,” continued the Duke, “Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects; and as my plans will depend upon his, how can you expect me to tell you what mine are?”
18. All warfare is based on deception.
The truth of this pithy and profound saying will be admitted by every soldier. Col. Henderson [Lt. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, author of Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1898) and The Science of War (1905)] tells us that Wellington, great in so many military qualities, was especially distinguished by the “extraordinary skill with which he concealed his movements and deceived both friend and foe.”
This is the great, famous line from The Art of War, quoted through the ages. DG
19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.
22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
Wang Tzu, quoted by Tu Yu, says that the good tactician plays with his adversary as a cat plays with a mouse, first feigning weakness and immobility, and then suddenly pouncing upon him.
23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.