A Brief Introduction to Chinese Classical Poetry

[stlukesguild]

A few interesting thoughts related to the discussion:

http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/liu_zongyuan.html

http://www.chinese-poems.com/yip.html

And perhaps a sight worth looking into:

http://www.chinese-poems.com/index.html

[crystalmoonshin]

That's a good general translation. I love this poem too (along with many others). Although I'm not a specialist in this though, and I'm sure zowie86 will put my right if I stray a bit sensewise, I think there are points that you've missed here.

First of all 'shuang' is closer to 'frost' than 'ice', at least in my understanding of the charater.

'Yi' at the start of the second line I feel could be better translated, from meaning anyway, as 'I mistook for' or 'I thought was'.

I also think that 'ju' and 'di' at the beginning of the last two lines actually function as verbs, 'raising' or 'lifting up' for 'ju', and 'lowering' for 'di'.

Just a short note, got to go now.

I was expecting to be corrected about the "shuang" thing. I'm not really sure if it's the same as "bing", but just the same, those two words evoke the cold element. (I'm in a tropical country and we don't have winter here...) But yeah, frost would be a better translation.

About the "yi" word, which can mean "doubt" when combined with "huai" (huaiyi), I remember my Chinese teacher paraphrasing the entire poem and she used the word "xiang" 像 (to resemble).

The last two lines can be translated as:

I lift my head to gaze at the bright moon
I bow my head and think of my home country.

[zowie86]

As for crystalmoonshin’s translation of Li Bai, I’m afraid it must be greatly polished to be called a translation. In the original, there are obvious end rhymes in line 1,3, 4, with five characters in each line. I presume you’d better use the same syllables in each line, whether it’s 6 or 8 or 10 to render the beauty in form. And rhyming and rhythmic pattern be used to represent the original musicality obvious to Chinese ears. Silas Thorne is right in pointing out your mistakes in conveying the meaning. (Forgive me that I’m trying to be honest as you are.)

There are at least 13 translations of this poem 静夜思.
Personally, I prefer a translation by a Chinese scholar Xuan Yuanchong:
Thoughts on a Tranquil Night
Before my bed a pool of light--
O can it be frost on the ground?
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned.
Note: Seeing a pool of moonlight, the poet is drowned in the pool of homesickness.

He used iambic tetrameter, with licenses certainly, and rhyming scheme of abab, which are supposed to be musical to English ears. But the biggest question is probably whether it’s beautiful to English readers as the original is musical and poetic to all Chinese readers.

Below are two versions in free verse. You are free to comment if you like.
In front of my bed the moonlight is very bright.
I wonder if that can be frost on the floor?
I list up my head and look at the full noon, the dazzling moon.
I drop my head, and think of the home of old days.
(Tr. Amy Lowell)

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed---
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting my head to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

And I must say, personally I don’t like the translations from Arthur Waley, David Hinton or David Young, let alone Kenneth Rexroth, who is more like a writer using Chinese resources than a responsible translator. All of them used free verse, losing the beauty of form and musicality in the original while failed to better convey the meaning for their incompetence in Chinese, event though they are unrestrained by strict rhyme and rhythm.

[crystalmoonshin]

Hi, Zowie! Thanks for the comments. I greatly appreciate them. I guess I really left out a great deal of the poem when I didn't consider the rhythm and the rhyme.

[JBI]

山 行

杜牧（803-852）



远上寒山石径斜，

白云生处有人家。

停车坐爱枫林晚，

霜叶红于二月花。


Mountain Hiking

Du Mu (803-852)

Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping


Up the distant cold mountain a stone path extends slant.

At the place where white clouds rise there is a house.

I stop my carriage and sit to enjoy the late maple forest.

The frost-bit leaves are redder than February flowers.

http://3us.enghunan.gov.cn/index.php...emid=4&lang=zh

[stlukesguild]

There are at least 13 translations of this poem 静夜思.
Personally, I prefer a translation by a Chinese scholar Xuan Yuanchong:

Thoughts on a Tranquil Night
Before my bed a pool of light--
O can it be frost on the ground?
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned.

He used iambic tetrameter, with licenses certainly, and rhyming scheme of abab, which are supposed to be musical to English ears.

This translation may be the most literal... and the scholar may suppose to have created a work that is musical to the English ear... but it sounds far too simplistic as English... rather like the lyrics of a popular "moon-spoon-June" love song.

[Silas Thorne]

JBI, I think the meaning is there in this translation, but it seems the poetry of the original here has been hacked off with a knife and left on a mountain path to be trod upon. Just my personal view, mind.

zowie86, I much prefer the last free verse translation. Although the original does have 'moonlight' in the first line, the last syllable stressed in the line, and what seems most important,is the gleam of the moon which causes what seems to be frost on the ground. And the 'sinking' into the internal world of homesickness works better for me.
The phrase 'moon bright' in the verse translation that you prefer clashes a little for me, and 'find' doesn't seem to capture the 望 wang of the original.
But I can see now just how difficult it is to translate such poems, balancing poetry, meaning, and the character of the original text.

[Jozanny]

I've stayed silent because I don't know to what degree this is translation, or a modern rendition of a language which is too far removed from European forms. I have lost most of my French, but

tu
vous
you

are roughly equivalent to each other. If it is impossible to aim for such parity between Chinese and English, then what am I reading? Even if Governor Huntsman had the time to teach me Mandarin, I do not think I could ever become fluent, and yet Pound, who wasn't, winds up with stanzas very similar to Hinton, who is. I'd be a reader of very little faith, even if I took the trouble.

[zowie86]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]

but it sounds far too simplistic as English... rather like the lyrics of a popular "moon-spoon-June" love song.

As a matter of fact, the original is absolutely simple to Chinese, and it is popular in all generations. You will easily find a 3-year-old child reciting this little poem in China. Simplicity is probably one of the reasons why some poems like this become popular.

If you think it's somewhat like a "moon-spoon-June" love song, the poet and the translator will probably be glad to hear that. It's a little melodious lyric on home missing.

Melody and simplicity are salient in most Chinese poems, except those by Li Shangyin.

[zowie86]

I've stayed silent because I don't know to what degree this is translation, or a modern rendition of a language which is too far removed from European forms. I have lost most of my French, but

tu
vous
you

are roughly equivalent to each other. If it is impossible to aim for such parity between Chinese and English, then what am I reading? Even if Governor Huntsman had the time to teach me Mandarin, I do not think I could ever become fluent, and yet Pound, who wasn't, winds up with stanzas very similar to Hinton, who is. I'd be a reader of very little faith, even if I took the trouble.

Luckily, you may find 你 and 您 in Chinese as equivalent to tu and vous.

You are sensible in saying that you have very little faith in Pound, etc, but don't lose faith. We actually find lots of good translations from English to Chinese, why can't we translate Chinese well into English?

That translators in the past failed to do that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't do it better in the future.

Have a little faith.

[JBI]

Luckily, you may find 你 and 您 in Chinese as equivalent to tu and vous.

You are sensible in saying that you have very little faith in Pound, etc, but don't lose faith. We actually find lots of good translations from English to Chinese, why can't we translate Chinese well into English?

That translators in the past failed to do that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't do it better in the future.

Have a little faith.

The reason is probably that the bulk of poetic translations are of classical texts, rather than contemporary ones - certainly the Chinese Classical grammar cannot be represented in English as well as, lets say, Vernacular Chinese Grammar, which would seem to be far closer to English, and therefore easier to translate.

Though, just looking at the characters themselves, as I only know about 100 or so simple characters at the minute, I can notice patterns, which most certainly could note be replicated into English. Beyond that to, the actual tones and sounds of the characters cannot be translated into English (though it would be interesting if someone tried writing with tonal indicators in English).

English on the other hand, I would think translates well, as it seems to rely on the meaning of words in sentences, or clauses, and therefore can easily be converted into other languages. I would think, something like French would change far more when translated, as it is such a grammar savvy language, whereas English is such a meaning language - though I could see problems with translating irony and humor.

That being said, when it comes to it, generally I feel that translators who keep the line structure of the poems run into two major problems; one, they must use English grammar, meaning they would need to add words on essentially every line. Two, for flow, they would almost certainly end up reworking the word order.

Perhaps translations that look more like:
Thoughts
Tranquil Night

Before my bed
pool of light--


frost on the
ground?

Looking up,
the moon bright;

Bowing in
homesickness;
drowned.

Or something like that - of course, probably a bad example (it would probably be easier with longer lines, or a longer poem with more variance and complexity in image, but you must surely get the idea.


Now, beyond that, perhaps someone innovative and creative could translate beyond that, by maintaining a sort of color, or visual presentational pattern that evokes elements of the Chinese original. In truth, a very innovative artist, working mind you with both visual manipulation, and textual manipulation, could quite possibly get beyond the visual and grammatical constraints. Of course, sound would still be a problem, and any such effort would most likely make the poem far more complex than the original, but perhaps actually drawing the moon, as both word and image, before a bed, as both word and image, could create a closer sense of understanding.

[JBI]

邵雍

山村

一去二三里，
烟村四五家，
亭台六七座，
八九十枝花。

yi qu er san li
yen cun si wu jia
tin tai liu wu zuo
ba jiu shi zhi hua

Mountain Village
by Shao Yong
translation mine (and mediocre, unfortunately)

One goes just two or three li:
four or five smoking houses
six or seven pavillions
eight or nine or ten flowers

Note smoking houses, as in smoke from a cook stove, li, a measure of distance, around half a kilometer.

[crystalmoonshin]

邵雍

山村

一去二三里，
烟村四五家，
亭台六七座，
八九十枝花。

yi qu er san li
yen cun si wu jia
tin tai liu wu zuo
ba jiu shi zhi hua

Mountain Village
by Shao Yong
translation mine (and mediocre, unfortunately)

One goes just two or three li:
four or five smoking houses
six or seven pavillions
eight or nine or ten flowers

Note smoking houses, as in smoke from a cook stove, li, a measure of distance, around half a kilometer.

烟村四五家 is four or five smoking villages. 家 here is a 量词 (liangci) like 枝 and 座. Still, nice job.

I think many teachers use this poem to teach the numbers 1-10 in Chinese.

[JBI]

烟村四五家 is four or five smoking villages. 家 here is a 量词 (liangci) like 枝 and 座. Still, nice job.

I think many teachers use this poem to teach the numbers 1-10 in Chinese.

I got it as an introduction to Measurewords in Chinese . Only reason I posted it, is because it is the only poem I can safely say I understand.

[JBI]

Bump - woah, my Chinese has improved since I posted last on this thing I feel almost embarrassed.