AtD translation: invested in, invested by

[Mike Jing]

I probably didn't make myself quite clear. My primitive reading is that:

1. The conferees are laying siege, or at least trying to, lay siege to
"Time and its mysteries", with the aim of learning these mysteries, for
whatever purpose they may have in mind.
2. Thus the conferees, and by extension their spirits, are invested in the
art of this siege, or "the
siegecraft of Time and its mysteries", meaning they care about it deeply
and are willing to devote time, energy, etc. in order to pursue it.
3. They are so obsessed with this pastime of theirs that it is as if they
are surrounded by it and cannot escape, thus they, or their spirits, are
invested by "the siegecraft of Time and its mysteries."

Since the two military terms are directed at different parties, I do not
consider them redundant, or "laying it on thick" as you call it. And there
is a paradox in there as well, since the party laying siege is in turn
besieged by their own obsession.

And I'm not sure what "words are invested by the passing of time" means,
but I'll take your word for it.


On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 2:55 AM Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

> That depends on how you read that phrase – if words are invested by the
> passing of time they very well could be invested, endowed, by the
> siegecraft of time. (One military term would normally suffice, I'd say; you
> don't have to lay it on thick.)
>
> Am Fr., 5. Feb. 2021 um 01:18 Uhr schrieb Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>
>> You probably could be invested by time in other ways. The original text,
>> however, is that their spirits are invested by the "siegecraft of time",
>> not by time itself, and that seems an important enough distinction to me.
>>
>>