魏象枢·《与人》英译

为人作墓志铭，不填事迹，则求者不甘；多填事迹，则见者不信。其至无可称述，不得已转抄汇语及众家刻本以应之，譬如传神写照，向死人面上脱稿，已不克肖，况写路人形貌乎？

吾愿世人生前行些好事，做个好人，勿令作志铭者执笔踌躇，代为遮盖也。

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《明二百名家尺牍》

To My Friend

Wei Xiangshu¹

Writing an epitaph for someone without showing the deeds he had done in his life would make the solicitor of it dissatisfied. But loading it with a lot of good deeds would make the readers incredulous. As for the case in which a person died with no recommendations to speak of, and the writer of his epitaph had to quote from the laudatory utterances of various scholars for the occasion, it was simply like painting one’s portrait from his death mask, which bore little likeness to his original face—to say nothing of painting a portrait of a total stranger!

I wish the people in the world would do some good deed and be respected as a good man in their lifetime, so that writers of epitaphs might not think hard in order to fill such blanks for them.

Letters of Ming Dynasty’s Two Hundred Notables

1. Wei Xiaoshu (1617-1687), born in Yuzhou of Hebei Province, was a scholarly official at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. He was bold in fighting corruption among dignitaries.

（谢百魁、陈启达 译）