Sun Tzŭ
on
The Art of War
THE OLDEST MILITARY TREATISE IN THE WORLD
Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes
BY
LIONEL GILES, M.A.
Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS.in the British Museum
1910
To my brother
Captain Valentine Giles, R.G.
in the hope that
a work 2400 years old
may yet contain lessons worth consideration
by the soldier of today
this translation
is affectionately dedicated.
Contents
Preface to the Project Gutenberg Etext
When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzŭ’s Art of War, thework was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy ofit, and translated it into French. It was not a good translation because,according to Dr. Giles, "[I]t contains a great deal that Sun Tzŭ did not write,and very little indeed of what he did."
The first translation into English was published in 1905 in Tokyo by Capt. E.F. Calthrop, R.F.A. However, this translation is, in the words of Dr. Giles,"excessively bad." He goes further in this criticism: "It is not merely aquestion of downright blunders, from which none can hope to be wholly exempt.Omissions were frequent; hard passages were willfully distorted or slurredover. Such offenses are less pardonable. They would not be tolerated in anyedition of a Latin or Greek classic, and a similar standard of honesty ought tobe insisted upon in translations from Chinese." In 1908 a new edition of Capt.Calthrop’s translation was published in London. It was an