Three Hundred Tang Poems #261-290

For Poetry Monday, another scroll of translations: 30 poems from the first half of part 8, revised from initial drafts posted here. These are regulated quatrains like part 7 but with 7-character lines instead of 5. Sometimes this extra space is used to loosen up the lines and allow the poet to get almost discursive, sometimes it’s used to pack all the more material into the small space. As a result, while most translations use 6-beat lines, some have 5 and some 7. Not ideal, but it’s what I’ve managed. I’d rather compress as much as possible while still conveying the basic meaning and equivalent tone, than pad out lines to make all poems the same meter. The compression, in these poems, feels like a key component.

So to be explicit again: my translation priorities have been rendering the literal sense, matching rhetorical structures and tone, emotional tenor, and compression, while using as close to regular English meter as I can manage without doing violence to those first few. Where easy to do without departing “too far” from the original, I sometimes incorporate glosses into the translation, but otherwise save explanations for the endnote. At this point, however, I’ve given up on rhyme—at least for now: with more experience in judging what to balance, maybe I’ll revise a few of these into rhymes that match the original form.

As always, suggestions/discussions/corrections are welcome.

( Truly the landscape is exquisite, south of the river: / I meet you once more in the season of falling flowers )

And so onwards to the second half of the part.

---L.

Index of Chinese translations