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larryhammerI've been remiss in sharing really bad poetry with you -- mea cupla. I can only hope that quality can overcome quantity. Hang onto your hats, people -- this ride's gonna get rough.
Today's jalopy is 100 Tang and Song Ci Poems -- this copy is published in Beijing, but Google Books has a Hong Kong edition. It is perhaps unfair to poke fun at translations by a non-native speaker, but Yu Yuan-chong (as my copy credits him) was a professor of English at Peking University in Beijing who translated Chinese to and from both English and French, and thus professionally claims a certain fluency -- and personally claims ... but we'll get to that. First some background:
The ci (Wade-Giles: tz'u) was a Chinese genre in which a poet wrote new lyrics to one of 800-odd set tunes -- a sort of literary filking. Many tunes were folk songs (quite a few from Central Asia), while others were created by song-writers as original ci, then adopted by others. Most of the melodies are lost to us, leaving behind only the titles and stanza forms -- the tone patterns (to match the tune), rhymes, and line lengths (which differed through the stanza). The form developed in the late Tang dynasty (9th century) but is particularly associated with the Song dynasty (10th through 13th centuries).
Professor Yu, in his introduction, disdains the "modern fashion of putting Chinese verse into line by line prose or unmeasured sprung rhythm ... My intention is to not miss the specific beauty of a poem, so have tried to make my translations not only faithful but also beautiful, as beautiful as the original in sense, in sound and in form." So much for theory -- by way of practice, here's an example, which is set to a tune called either "Joy at Meeting" or "Crows Crying at Night":
As you may have noticed, Yu insists on using full rhyme and rigid meter, to the point of completely ignoring the lineation and rhyme pattern of the original. The other two quoted above are both unmetered, but they go line-by-line, keeping the original's shape. Even without outside comparison, however, because Yu's is a bilingual edition, you can see how much formal violence has been wrought. Not all that much, actually, in this one -- one line split in two -- but elsewhere he'll render two identical stanzas with two different ones, wrecking the binary form. Not that poetry necessarily should be translated line-by-line, as this can cause formal and syntactic damage in the target language -- fidelity in translation cuts in several directions -- but given how important paired contrasts are in Chinese verse, that "wreck" is appropriate.
In any case, the beauties of Song poetry are not well-served by Professor Yu.
Speaking of the rest of his book, here's a sample of egregious lines picked out by random sampling:
---L.
Today's jalopy is 100 Tang and Song Ci Poems -- this copy is published in Beijing, but Google Books has a Hong Kong edition. It is perhaps unfair to poke fun at translations by a non-native speaker, but Yu Yuan-chong (as my copy credits him) was a professor of English at Peking University in Beijing who translated Chinese to and from both English and French, and thus professionally claims a certain fluency -- and personally claims ... but we'll get to that. First some background:
The ci (Wade-Giles: tz'u) was a Chinese genre in which a poet wrote new lyrics to one of 800-odd set tunes -- a sort of literary filking. Many tunes were folk songs (quite a few from Central Asia), while others were created by song-writers as original ci, then adopted by others. Most of the melodies are lost to us, leaving behind only the titles and stanza forms -- the tone patterns (to match the tune), rhymes, and line lengths (which differed through the stanza). The form developed in the late Tang dynasty (9th century) but is particularly associated with the Song dynasty (10th through 13th centuries).
Professor Yu, in his introduction, disdains the "modern fashion of putting Chinese verse into line by line prose or unmeasured sprung rhythm ... My intention is to not miss the specific beauty of a poem, so have tried to make my translations not only faithful but also beautiful, as beautiful as the original in sense, in sound and in form." So much for theory -- by way of practice, here's an example, which is set to a tune called either "Joy at Meeting" or "Crows Crying at Night":
Silent, I climb the Western Tower aloneApparently Yu thinks the original is as beautiful as doggerel. I didn't chose this poem at random -- not because I cherry-picked it for (lack of) quality, as the whole book is like this (see below), but because this is a famous, frequently translated poem by Li Yu, the last emperor of the southern Tang dynasty (and a much better poet than ruler). Here's how it comes out in the hands of Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping (from The Anchor Book of Chinese Verse):
And see the hook-like moon.
Parasol-trees lonesome and drear
Lock the courtyard autumn clear.
Cut, it won't sever;
Be ruled, 'twill never.
What sorrow 'tis to part!
It's an unspeakable taste in the heart.
Silent, alone, I ascend the west tower.Oh, that's much better. *sigh of relief* To triangulate, here's Eugene Eoyang's version from Sunflower Splendor:
The moon is a hook.
Deserted parasol trees trap clear autumn in the inner courtyard.
Cut, it won't break,
straightened, it stays tangled
—the sorrow of parting
is a strange taste in my heart.
Silent, I go up alone to the Western Pavilion,Which is more prosaic, and so likely earns Yu's displeasure, but is still better than his -- and I think a better last line than Barnstone & Chou. For further comparison, here's other versions I found online: one with different lineation, scroll down to #27, this thread reveals it's been recorded by Teresa Tang, but I haven't found a copy yet, search for "western tower" to find several versions compared.
The moon's like a hook,
Lonesome wu-t'ung trees lock clear autumn in the courtyard.
Cut, it will not break;
Ordered, yet still unruly:
It's the sorrow of parting
Like the bittersweet taste in the heart.
As you may have noticed, Yu insists on using full rhyme and rigid meter, to the point of completely ignoring the lineation and rhyme pattern of the original. The other two quoted above are both unmetered, but they go line-by-line, keeping the original's shape. Even without outside comparison, however, because Yu's is a bilingual edition, you can see how much formal violence has been wrought. Not all that much, actually, in this one -- one line split in two -- but elsewhere he'll render two identical stanzas with two different ones, wrecking the binary form. Not that poetry necessarily should be translated line-by-line, as this can cause formal and syntactic damage in the target language -- fidelity in translation cuts in several directions -- but given how important paired contrasts are in Chinese verse, that "wreck" is appropriate.
In any case, the beauties of Song poetry are not well-served by Professor Yu.
Speaking of the rest of his book, here's a sample of egregious lines picked out by random sampling:
The bright moonlight is like frost white,Yes, you read that right: bowels.
The gentle breeze like water clean:
Far and wide extends the scene serene ...
Sunbeams after rain take chilly dye ...
I cannot get rid of this sorrow: kept apart
From my eyebrows,
It gnaws my heart ...
Sitting alone at the window, how
Could I but quicken
The pace of darkness which won't thicken? ...
Don't lean alone on rails when the bright moon appears!
Wine in sad bowels would turn into nostalgic tears.
---L.