Classical Chinese poetry and, in
particular, Chinese regulated poetry - also known as ‘recent style poetry’ - from
the Tang dynasty offers the greatest challenge to a translator. Not only must one deal with all the
subtleties of historical and cultural context and literary allusion but there
is also the challenge of the rendering of the strictly regulated form of the
poetry into another language. While most
translators forgo this ultimate challenge, concentrating more on an accurate
translation of the intended meaning, there is a great potential for reward from
bringing the visual and aural aspects of this poetry to the Western
reader. This essay attempts to show that
such greater rewards are achievable, and that the inevitable trade-off is worth
it.
Classical Chinese poetry is generally
considered to have flourished most prominently during the Tang dynasty
(618-907AD). The particular genre of
classical Chinese poetry known as regulated or ‘recent style’ poetry came to
prominence during this dynasty. This
genre, along with its immediate predecessor, known as ancient or ‘old style’
poetry, influenced all Chinese poetry until the modern era, that is, for more
than one thousand years. The history of
Chinese poetry is well documented (Liu & Lo, Mair 1994, Owen 1996, Minford
& Lau). The history of the
translation of Classical Chinese poetry is well documented by Eliot Weinberger (1987).
The translation of poetry in general is fraught
with difficulties. In addition to the
usual difficulties of translation, there are the added difficulties of trying
to preserve the various poetic qualities of the original. The famous late-19th century
Chinese translator Yan Fu specified the three translation criteria of Xin,
Da and Ya (信达雅), literally translated as fidelity, comprehensibility (or fluency or
expressiveness) and elegance (or quality) (Yan, Zhong). Here fidelity refers to the original author’s
meaning, comprehensibility, fluency or expressiveness refers to the target
language and elegance or quality refers to the overall product of the
translation. These particular ideals
have been discussed at length in the intervening century, and many other
‘theories of translation’ have been expounded.
The existence of various schools of thought on the theory and practice
of translation is manifest in the frequent existence of a wide range of
translations available for any particular item of literature[1]. One point that must be emphasised is that the
various goals can to some extent be in conflict with one another, and so there
are trade-offs to occur when performing a translation. The resolution of these trade-offs must take
into account the motives of the translator, as well as such things as the
target audience.
In the context of translation of Chinese
regulated poetry there is a fourth conflicting criterion which is not
completely contained within Yan Fu’s three.
This is the preservation of the regulated physical form of the
original. The physical form of the
original poem has no bearing on the preservation of the poet’s meaning, on the fluency
of the translation, or on the elegance of the resulting poem. If anything, the adherence to regulations in
the original poem is a measure of the language skills of the original
poet. The reproduction of this skill in
a translation is of course not a reflection of the original poet, but of the
translator. Nevertheless, there is no
reason not to aim to reproduce this skill in a translation, thereby revealing
the full glory of Tang poetry.
The reader, or more accurately the receiver, of
translated poetry may be motivated by one or more of a wide range of reasons
for doing so. The two most disparate of
these are reading for enjoyment and reading for academic analysis. For the purposes of this essay, the emphasis
is on reading, or listening, for enjoyment, for which purpose the technical
quality of a translation is not considered to be as important as the perceived
enjoyment of the receiver[2]. As a corollary, this author believes that the
primary impact of a poem must occur on the first reading (or hearing, if the
poem is being read aloud by somebody else). Thus for the purposes of this essay, the
‘accessibility’ of a poem to a wide audience is more important than technical
quality. To this end, rhyme and metre
play a large part. That this should be
the case is of course a personal preference.
Now considering in particular the preservation
of the form of regulated verse, there are two aspects which may work in the
translator’s favour. Firstly, English is
a very rich language; there often being many words which have the same or a
similar meaning. This should make it
easier for the writer to conform to constraints of rhyme and metre. Secondly, poetry that conforms to constraints
will almost certainly contain some contrivances, either in the choice of word
or the choice of message, and thus the need for accurate translation is
reduced. Finally, considering the translation of poetry in general, poetry is
already an interpretation. It is the
interpretation of the poet’s thoughts and feelings in the poet’s language of
choice. Reinterpreting accurately those
thoughts and feelings in another language, while challenging, should not be
impossible, as long as it is possible to determine just what the poet’s
thoughts and feelings were. This again
serves to reduce the need for concentrating on a strict accuracy of
translation, since the same thoughts and feelings can be expressed in different
ways using different actual words.
Good translated poetry is good poetry first and
a good translation second, but it is still necessary to have both a good
translator and a good poet to produce a translated poem. Nevertheless, the pre-existence of earlier
attempts at translation can provide any translator with the groundwork for a
new translation.
Often regarded as the best ever classical
Chinese poet, or at least the best proponent of regulated verse, is Du Fu
(712-770) (Owen 1981 p.183, Hung p.1). For this reason, there are frequently many
translations of Du Fu’s poems. Thus it
seems appropriate to choose Du Fu as the poet of study for this analysis.
Poetry can mean different things to different
people, but the English word has a Greek root meaning to create (“Poetry”). In this
context a reasonable definition of what is meant by poetry is “art created from
language”. This definition makes no
assumptions about the particular language being employed, about the way in which
the art is recorded nor, more importantly, about the way the ‘artistic
experience’ is transmitted to the ‘receiver’.
The development of Tang dynasty poetry had it
roots in what is now known as gushi (古詩), which began to be developed in
the second century AD (Frankel 1976 p.213). From then until the 5th century gushi was the predominant form of
poetry, characterized only by fixed-length lines and a fixed rhyme scheme. The first signs of the development of the
prosody rules which define regulated verse were evident in the latter half of
the fifth century with the issuing by Shen Yue in 488 of his manifesto on tonal
prosody (Mair & Mei 1991 p.378) (Chang
“What is Jintishi?”). By the middle of
the sixth century various developmental schools of poets had worked through the
unresolved issues and refined the rules (Mair & Mei
1991 p.396) to what became jintishi (近體詩), the name
being used to distinguish it from gushi. The latter was not replaced, but remained a
valid poetic form even during the height of the popularity of jintishi which occurred during the Tang
dynasty.
The two basic forms of jintishi are lüshi (律詩) or "regulated verse",
and jueju (絕句) or "truncated verse" which
are distinguished primarily by line length (eight and four lines respectively),
and the jueju’s somewhat relaxed
constraints on parallelism within its couplets.
These two forms are each then subdivided into their respective
five-character and seven-character forms, resulting in wulü (五律),
qilü (七律),
wujue (五絕), and qijue
(七絕).
It is not only a ‘school of thought’ as
mentioned in the introduction that determines the balance of emphasis on
conflicting ideals of accuracy, fidelity and quality. The motives of the translator can
significantly alter this balance. The
context of a translation includes aspects not only of the original text and
author, but also those of the translator and the intended audience. For example Tony
Barnstone reports “Sometimes I've deviated slightly from a literal
translation in order to get an effect that I believe is truer to the poet's
vision. There are no fast rules …” (p. 72). Richard Jackson goes
even further, quoting Stephen Mitchell “the well known translator of Rilke” (without reference): “with great poetry, the freest translation
is sometimes the most faithful.”
There are definitely conflicting schools of
thought on the issue of translating poetic form, or poetics in general –
including rhyme, rhythm, parallelism and structure (such as fixed line length). A good discussion of the dichotomy between
form and spirit is provided by Sin-wai Chan, who
nevertheless concludes “It is imperative to realize that as far as poetry
translation is concerned, form cannot be reproduced.” (p.109) Stephen Owen states
“There is also no way to echo the forms of Chinese poetry and still produce
translations that are accurate and readable.” (1996 p.xliv), and much earlier, William Hung had stated “I have found it difficult to cast my
translation in English meter and rhyme. […] I try, therefore to convey only Tu
Fu's thought and spirit, and cease to worry over form.” (p.13) Eliot Weinberger goes
further to state “Chinese prosody is largely concerned with the number of
characters per line and the arrangement of tones – both of which are
untranslatable. But translators …often
may be seen attempting to nurture Chinese rhyme patterns in the hostile environment
of a Western language.” (1987 p.5)
However there is no lack of contrary views. C. John Holcombe
states “Free verse is hopelessly inappropriate to the regulated, highly
compressed and structured nature of classical Chinese poetry.” (“Pros and Cons
of the Draft”), and Arthur Cooper had earlier commented that
“much of our own 'free verse’ of today seems to me closer to the Chinese fu than to either shih or tz’u. This I think an inherent fault in attempts to
translate Chinese metric verse into ' free verse' or prose.” (p.61). Tony Barnstone,
referring to the emphasis on accurate translation at the expense of rhyme and
meter - a poem’s “right to sing” - comments “Too often translators have given
Chinese poets the resolution powers of an electron microscope, but have cut off
their ears.” (p. 75).
The talent of Du Fu is unquestioned; he is
frequently compared to Homer or Shakespeare, yet his poetry is as yet not fully
available to non-speakers of Chinese. That
he was not particularly popular in his own time, and thus much of his work has
not survived to this day, is even more distressing. Arthur Waley, in the
preface to his 1946 publication Chinese
Poems, states “I have indeed made many attempts to translate Li Po, Tu Fu
and Su Shih; but the results have not satisfied me” (p.6). If somebody with the experience and talent of
Waley has found himself in this situation, what hopes have most of us?
Du Fu is known to have produced over one thousand[3]
poems which have survived but the largest anthologies in English[4]
that seem to be available are those of Florence Ayscough
with around 400 translations (in two volumes) and William Hung
with 374. This represents by far a
minority selection of what is available.
Other relatively prolific translators of Du Fu into English include Burton Watson, Rewi Alley and A. R. Davis, each with close to 200 translations.
The particular selection of poems for this
project was chosen during the process of accumulating translations. Essentially the poems ‘selected themselves’
by being poems for which a good selection of different translations was easy to
discover. The actual process is detailed
further in Section 4.
Table 1 below lists the 11 poems chosen, with their titles in Chinese,
pinyin and typical English translation.
This is followed by an analysis of these poems in terms of the
regulations of jintishi.
|
Poem |
Pinyin title |
Typical English title |
|
望嶽 |
wàng
yuè |
Gazing
at Taishan |
|
月夜 |
yuè
yè |
Moonlit
Night |
|
春望 |
chūn
wàng |
Spring
Outlook |
|
月夜憶舍弟 |
yuè
yè yì shě dì |
Thinking of My Brothers on a Moonlit Night |
|
天末櫰李白 |
tiān
mò huái lǐ bái |
Thinking
of Li Bai at the End of the Sky |
|
客至 |
ké
zhì |
A
Guest Arrives |
|
春夜喜雨 |
chūn
yè xǐ yǔ |
Welcome
Rain on a Spring Night |
|
聞官軍收河南河北 |
wén
guān jūn shōu hé nán hé běi |
News that the Imperial Army has Recaptured North and South of the River |
|
旅夜書懷 |
lǚ
yè shū huái |
Night
Thoughts of a Traveller |
|
登高 |
dēng
gāo |
Climbing
High |
|
江南逢李龜年 |
jiāng
nán féng lǐ guī nián |
Meeting
Li Guinian South of the River |
Table 1. List of poems chosen for
analysis
The rules governing ‘Recent Style
Poetry’ involve the three aspects of tone, rhyme and parallelism. In general there seems to be reasonable
agreement over what the rhyme and parallelism rules were, but there seems to be
less general agreement amongst researchers on the rules governing tones or,
more generally, prosody.
There are available several
different descriptions of the prosody rules governing Regulated Poetry. These mostly differ in minor ways from each
other, but nevertheless this can affect the degree to which individual poems
can be considered to be conforming to the rules. The descriptions, summarised here in
publication order, will be referred to by the authors’ names. In order to highlight the differences between
the published interpretations, the common aspects will be presented first and
then the different interpretations will be presented as refinements of these
basic rules.
3.1.1 Basic Rules of Recent Style Prosody
1)
All
‘regulated’ poems (lüshi or jueju) consist of four or eight lines of
either five or seven characters. All
lines occur as couplets.
2)
The
same rhyme is used throughout, occurring at the end of even-numbered lines and
optionally at the end of the first line also.
3)
There
is a caesura between the second and third characters of each line and an
additional caesura between the fourth and fifth characters of each line in the
seven-character form.
4)
When
there are eight lines (lüshi), there
is parallelism between the third and fourth lines and the fifth and sixth lines,
i.e. the second and third couplets each exhibit parallelism.
5)
All
characters are divided into two groups of tones, known as level and deflected
tones. These are defined in terms of the
Classical Chinese tones, with Level being the original level tone, and
Deflected being the original rising, falling and entering tones.
6)
Each
line follows one of only four different tone patterns. These can be defined in terms of the
seven-character line, with the five-character line omitting the first two
characters (and the first caesura). The
four patterns are as follows, where / denotes a minor caesura, // denotes a
major caesura, L denotes a level tone, D denotes a deflected tone and a
subscript R denotes rhyme[5].
a)
L
L / D D // D L LR
b)
D
D / L L // D D LR
c)
D
D / L L // L D D
d)
L
L / D D // L L D
7)
Each
set of four lines follows one of four different sets of tone patterns. These are defined in terms of the line
patterns above, namely abca, badb, cadb or dbca. In lüshi (eight lines), the patterns are
abcadbca, badbcadb, cadbcadb and dbcadbca.
3.1.2 Variations Published
The variations that can be identified from the
publications of earlier researchers are almost exclusively related to the
‘liberty’ allowed in choosing the tones in some positions within lines. The earliest found reference to the prosody
of Chinese Regulated Poetry is from John Fryer in 1901 (p.xcii),
who does not specify the tone rules, but as an example of “regular poetry”
gives the pattern cadb above, but with the fifth and seventh tones
swapped. In association with rule 2)
above, which he does state, this pattern implies the use of rhyme on a
deflected tone. While currently not
considered to be common, this is not at variance with some of the much more
recent descriptions such as Downer & Graham and Mair & Mei described
below.
James J.Y. Liu (Liu, 1962 p.26)
relaxes Rule 6 (”some liberty is allowed”) for the first, third fifth
characters of seven-character lines (and by extension the first and third
characters of the five-character form). If
we signify an optional tone with a dash “-” then according to Liu the four
basic jintishi forms are:
- L / - D // - L LR
- D / - L // - D LR
- D / - L // - D D -
L / - D // - L LR
- L / - D
// - L D - D
/ - L // - D LR
- D / - L // - D D - L / -
D // - L LR
- D / - L // - D LR
- L / - D // - L LR
- L / - D // - L D -
D / - L // - D LR
- D / -
L // - D D -
L / - D // - L LR
- L / - D // - L D -
D / - L // - D LR
- D / - L // - D D -
L / - D // - L LR
- L / - D // - L D -
D / - L // - D LR
- D / - L
// - D D - L
/ - D // - L LR
- L / - D // - L D -
D / - L // - D LR
- L / - D // - L D
- D / - L // - D LR
- D / - L // - D D -
L / - D // - L LR
- L / - D
// - L D - D / - L
// - D LR - D / - L
// - D D - L
/ - D // - L LR
G. B. Downer and A. C. Graham
(p.147) also relax Rule 6 for the first and third characters of each seven-character
line, but do not extend this to the fifth character (thus only the first
character of five-character lines is affected).
Further, they relax the requirement that the rhyme be a level tone,
though stating “The tone of the rhyme, [is] normally but not necessarily
level.” If the rhyme is a deflected
tone, then this is achieved by swapping the tones of the fifth and seventh
characters (third and fifth characters in the five-character form). Thus as well as the four basic forms listed
below, there are another four forms where the fifth and seventh tones are
swapped.
- L /
- D // D L LR - D /
- L // D D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / -
L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR
- D /
- L // D D LR - L /
- D // D L LR - L /
- D // L L D - D /
- L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / -
L // D D LR
- D /
- L // L D D - L
/ - D // D L LR -
L / - D // L L D - D /
- L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / -
L // D D LR
- L /
- D // L L D - D
/ - L // D D LR -
D / - L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / -
L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR
Hans H. Frankel
(pp213-215) uses the same basic structure as Downer and Graham above.
Wai-lim Yip (pp226-230) also
relaxes Rule 6 for the first and third characters of the seven-character line,
but not for every line. In particular the
a) lines in Rule 6) above do not have any flexibility in the tone of the third
character. Thus according to Yip the
four basic forms are:
- L /
- D // D L LR - D / L
L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // D D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR
- D / L
L // D D LR - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // D D LR -
D / - L // L D D - L
/ - D // D L LR - L /
- D // L L D - D /
L L // D D LR
- D /
- L // L D D - L
/ - D // D L LR - L /
- D // L L D - D /
L L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // D D LR
- L /
- D // L L D - D
/ L L // D D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // D D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR
Victor H. Mair and Tsu-lin
Mei (1991 p.408) relax the tonal constraints of the first, third and fifth
characters of the seven-character form[6]
in the same way that Liu does but they impose a stricter requirement on the
non-rhyming characters at the line ends, requiring these to “show maximum tonal
differentiation among themselves”. This
phrasing is important because it is also stated (p.407) that the rhyme words
may be either level or deflected (with the non-rhymed line endings belonging to
the other tone category). Thus if the
rhyme characters are (presumably all the same) one of the deflected tones, the
non-rhyming characters must all be the same level tone. This would not violate the rule because there
is no tonal differentiation possible with the level tone. Further, Mair and Mei do not mention rhyme on
the first line, but this is relatively easy to accommodate into their analysis
consistently with the other analyses presented here. Thus according to Mair and Mei the four basic
forms are:
- L /
- D // -
L LR - D / -
L // - D LR - D /
- L // -
D D - L / -
D // - L LR - L / -
D // - L D1 - D /
- L // -
D LR - D / -
L // - D D2 - L /
- D // -
L LR
- D /
- L // -
D LR - L / -
D // - L LR - L /
- D // -
L D - D / -
L // - D LR - D /
- L // -
D D1 - L / -
D // - L LR - L /
- D // -
L D2 - D / -
L // - D LR
- D /
- L // -
D D1 - L / -
D // - L LR - L /
- D // -
L D2 - D / -
L // - D LR - D / -
L // - D Da - L /
- D // -
L LR - L / -
D // - L Db - D /
- L // -
D LR
- L /
- D // -
L D1 - D / -
L // - D LR - D /
- L // -
D D2 - L / -
D // - L LR - L / -
D // - L Da - D /
- L // - D LR - D /
- L // -
D Db - L / -
D // - L LR
The
further four forms incorporating non-level rhyme are assumed[7]
to be as follows, where D1 represents the any one of the deflected
tones, but remaining the same throughout the poem.
- L /
- D // -
L D1R - D / - L // -
D D1R - D / - L // -
D L - L / -
D // - L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D / -
L // - D D1R - D / -
L // - D L - L /
- D // -
L D1R
- D /
- L // -
D D1R - L / - D // -
L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D / -
L // - D D1R - D /
- L // -
D L - L / -
D // - L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D /
- L // - D D1R
- D / - L // -
D L - L / -
D // - L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D /
- L // -
D D1R - D / -
L // - D L - L
/ - D // - L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D /
- L // -
D D1R
- L /
- D // -
L L - D / -
L // - D D1R - D / -
L // - D L - L /
- D // -
L D1R - L / -
D // - L L - D
/ - L // - D D1R - D /
- L // -
D L - L / -
D // - L D1R
Edward C. Chang relaxes
Rule 6 for the first character, most third characters and some fifth characters
of the seven-character form. This
produces something similar to Yip above where the a) lines of Rule 6 have no
flexibility in the third character, but with some extra flexibility in the
fifth character of the b) lines. Thus according
to Chang the four basic forms are:
- L /
- D // D L LR - D /
L L // - D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR -
L / - D // L L D - D
/ L L // - D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR
- D / L
L // - D LR - L /
- D // D L LR - L /
- D // L L D - D /
L L // - D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // -
D LR
- D /
- L // L D D - L
/ - D // D L LR - L /
- D // L L D - D /
L L // - D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // -
D LR
- L /
- D // L L D - D
/ L L // - D LR - D /
- L // L D D - L /
- D // D L LR - L / -
D // L L D - D / L L // -
D LR - D / -
L // L D D - L / -
D // D L LR
David Hawkes also
analyses a selection of Du Fu poems in terms of prosody, but just presents the
results, without detailing the actual rules used as a basis for the analysis. Nevertheless, those results proved to be very
useful for the following analysis, since they indicated quite clearly that
current pronunciation is not sufficient for such analysis. The first[8]
of our selected poems is specified by Hawkes as being gushi rather than jintishi. This is reinforced by the significant lack of
conformance to the rules regarding tones, while still preserving the structure
and rhyme exhibited by gushi. For this reason, the first poem is omitted
from the analysis following.
3.1.3 Analysis Results
Initial analysis of the chosen poems was
carried out using current pronunciation as an indicator of tones, the current
first tone being considered equivalent to the earlier level tone, and the
current second through fourth tones being considered as the earlier deflected
tones. This proved somewhat fruitless,
with large numbers of apparent tone violations.
Next a similar analysis was carried out using the current first and
second tones as an indicator of the earlier level tone as suggested by Edward C. Chang.
While this showed an improvement in the conformance of the poems to the
rules, there were still too many apparent violations to consider the method
appropriate. In particular, the two
poems described by Hawkes as “formally perfect”, namely春望 (chūn wàng) and月夜憶舍弟 (yuè yè yì shě dì), still
exhibited two and three tone ‘violations’ respectively[9]. Further, the current pronunciations did not
seem to provide the necessary matching rhymes for those two “formally perfect”
poems. It then became clear that the
only way properly to check the tonal and rhyming compliance of the poems was to
find some description of the pronunciation of the time. A brief foray into searching for “Tang
dynasty pronunciation” resulted in the discovery of the Unihan database (www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html)
which then led to Hugh M. Stimson’s monograph, which
provides “Middle Chinese” pronunciation for the characters used in a large
number of Tang poems.
Using the Stimson pronunciations, the formal
perfection of the two poems cited as such by Hawkes is confirmed. Further, it seems that several others of the
self-selected set are also completely compliant in terms of both tones and
rhyme. Table 2 lists the numbers of tonal
non-compliances for the 10 chosen jintishi
poems, according to the various rule variations set out above[10].
|
Title
\ Rulelist
|
Liu |
Downer |
Yip |
Mair |
Chang |
|
yuè
yè |
2 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
|
chūn
wàng |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
yuè
yè yì shě dì |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
tiān
mò huái lǐ bái |
1 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
3 |
|
ké
zhì |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
chūn
yè xǐ yǔ |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
wén
guān jūn shōu hé nán hé běi |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
lǚ
yè shū huái |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
dēng
gāo |
1 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
|
jiāng
nán féng lǐ guī nián |
1 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
Table 2. Tone violations for
selected poems.
Thus six of the nine[11]
lüshi poems show perfect tonal
conformance according to all the different tone rules defined above. As far
as rhyme is concerned, all the poems demonstrate perfect or near-perfect rhyme. To illustrate what is meant by “near-perfect”
rhyme, the third poem in the table above uses the rhyme words hæng, shiɛng, miæng, shræng and biæng in lines 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 respectively. Now while these use two different phonemes
for the finals of the characters, Stimson (p. ix) states
that the ɛng group of finals “could be collapsed” into the equivalent
æng finals, indicating that the
distinction in sound was a historical one by the time of the Tang dynasty.
The remaining aspect of regulation that needs
to be checked is the parallelism of the two middle pairs of lines. In this regard, just two of the nine lüshi do not readily pass this
test. The first of these two is 月夜 (yuè yè), which seems not to exhibit parallelism
in the second couplet. The couplet, with
its literal translation, is
遙 憐 小 兒 女
distant pity/love little son daughter
未 解 憶 長 安
not understand remember Chang an
where “little” and “remember” do not seem to conform
in grammatical function. However one of
the features of Classical Chinese is that in general any word can acquire any
grammatical function if appropriate.
Following this path, there are two possibilities to remedy the lack of
conformance. Firstly, 小 (xiǎo) could be considered to be a verb, in which case
the meaning might be “belittle” or “reduce”, neither of which seem to be appropriate. The second is to consider 憶 (yì) as an adjective,
with the meaning “memorable” which is possible,
but apparently not previously considered to be a likely meaning.
The other poem not conforming to the
parallelism requirement is 月夜憶舍弟 (yuè yè yì shě dì), for which the
parallelism of the third couplet is questionable. Here we have
有 弟 皆 分 散
have brothers all divide scatter
無 家 問 死 生
no family ask die live
where “all” and “ask” do not seem to conform, and it does not seem very
easy to consider 皆 (jie, all) as a verb, or to consider 問 (wen, ask) as a pronoun in this context.
To summarise the analysis of the eleven chosen poems, one poem turns out
to be gushi, and 10 are jintishi, of which one is a jueju, and of the remaining nine, five
are fully conforming lüshi.
One of the goals of this project was to find as
many different translations as possible for a selection of Du Fu poems. It was for this reason that the poems were
‘self-selected’, as mentioned above. The
initial candidates were those poems published in Du Fu Shi Xuan (Feng). Given this list of 167 poems, an initial scan
of readily available English language anthologies was performed in an attempt
to find translations. Two primary
sources were considered to be readily available. These were the VUW library and the internet. The VUW library electronic catalogue was very
readily able to provide lists of monographs containing appropriate keywords
such as “Chinese poetry” or “Tu Fu”.
This then led to the discovery of particular call numbers which were
potentially fruitful, providing large numbers of relevant volumes in a single
physical location. The internet was also
accessed primarily through a search process, namely the Google search web site. Various search terms such as “Tu Fu” or “Du
Fu” in combination with “poetry” and/or “translation” provided a good initial set
of anthology web sites which were used to build up the numbers of translations.
During this preliminary process, no attempt was
made to ensure that the translations were unique. Further, there was a potential for some
translations to be overlooked because of the way the title had been translated. Because this author was, at this very
preliminary stage, somewhat unfamiliar with any of the poems, it was only the
obviously matching titles that were recognised as matches. Apart from the similarity of title, the one
feature that was mostly used to confirm the potential of a match was the number
of lines in that translation, since most of the translations did match the
number of lines in the original poem. There were, however, some false positives
from similarity of titles, mainly due to the existence of multiple Du Fu poems
on similar subjects, such as the moon, night-time or rain.
This procedure resulted in an initial list of
16 poems which were found to have been commonly translated. More accurately, this was a list of poems
which occurred most frequently in the anthologies available, without taking
uniqueness into account. This list was then at one stage extended by another 11
poems which did not appear in Du Fu Shi
Xuan but were nevertheless found to be reasonably commonly translated. Eventually though the list was pared down to
a final 11 of which only one was not found in Du Fu Shi Xuan.
The next stage was to start collecting the
translations together in electronic form so that the unique ones could be
identified, and so that the complete list could be electronically published –
one of the goals of this project.
Interestingly, this task led to a burgeoning of the numbers of
translations found. In an effort to save
transcription from a printed document the procedure used was to take the first
phrase or line of a translation in a monograph, and enter that as an entire
phrase into the Google search engine. In
most cases, a match was found, and almost invariably when a match was found,
the whole translation was available in electronic form. Of course the chances of finding the complete
translation were augmented by the fact that there were no long poems in the final
eleven poems chosen. The surprising
result of this process is that frequently the match occurred as part of an
on-line anthology, which provided even more translations of the chosen
poems. Further, in several cases, large
selections of other translations of the same poem were discovered, usually by
Chinese translators. This explains why
some of the chosen poems have more than twice the average number of
translations found.
The process of searching on an opening line was
not restricted just to those translations which were not already available in
electronic form. Searching for a poem
which was already available on-line would lead to other web sites which
provided that same translation.
Frequently some of those sites provided otherwise undiscovered
translations. These were not only alternate
translations of the particular poem specified for the search, but also included
further translations of other poems on the list.
One of the disadvantages of using the internet,
of which every researcher should be aware, is that the quality of the
information available is unknown – and certainly variable. For this reason one must be careful to verify
independently any information available from the internet, or alternatively to
state explicitly that the information has not been verified. During the process of accumulating
translations as described above, a variety of different sources of error were
noticed. These include, but are not
restricted to the following:
Some of these errors found may genuinely fall
into the category of ‘typographical errors’, but the ease with which such
errors can be – and indeed have been – replicated by others means that extra
care should be taken whenever publishing electronically.
As already mentioned, many of the web sites
discovered were sites providing anthologies of Chinese poetry at various levels
of categorisation – Chinese poetry, classical Chinese poetry, Tang poetry, or
Du Fu poetry. However there was a wide
variety of types of web site encountered, such as electronic journal web sites
(e.g. www.thedrunkenboat.com), electronically
published book sites (e.g. Burton Watson’s The
Selected Poems of Du Fu at www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100345784#),
on-line academic learning sites (e.g. academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall),
on-line general literature web sites (e.g. www.humanistictexts.org), book
review sites (e.g. www.plumrubyreview.com/dec03/nonfiction/nonfiction.htm),
on-line poetry sites (e.g. www.poetseers.org), professional web sites
(e.g. www.davidhinton.net/Pages/Tu
Fu Sample.html), personal research web sites (e.g. www.poetry-chinese.com), web blog
(personal ‘diary’) sites (e.g. itudes.blogspot.com)
and cultural interest sites (e.g. www.chinahistoryforum.com/lofiversion/index.php/t14104.html
and afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php).
Table 3 below presents the final list of poems
chosen and enumerates the form of
each poem (see Section 2.2) and the numbers of
translations, including literal translations, found for each one.
|
Poem |
form |
# translations |
|
Gazing
at Taishan |
gushi |
27 |
|
Moonlit
Night |
wulü |
44 |
|
Spring
Outlook |
wulü |
48 |
|
Thinking
of My Brothers on a Moonlit Night |
wulü |
19 |
|
Thinking
of Li Bai at the End of the Sky |
wulü |
12 |
|
A
Guest Arrives |
qilü |
19 |
|
Welcome
Rain on a Spring Night |
wulü |
26 |
|
News
that the Imperial Army has Recaptured North and South of the River |
qilü |
24 |
|
Night
Thoughts of a Traveller |
wulü |
32 |
|
Climbing
High |
qilü |
45 |
|
Meeting
Li Guinian South of the River |
qijue |
24 |
Table 3. Number of translations for each of the poems chosen
The premise of this essay is that the
preservation of form during the translation of Chinese regulated poetry is a
rare occurrence which need not be so rare.
In order to determine just how rare this occurrence is, the discovered
translations need to be analysed in some objective way to provide a measure of
the conformance to the various aspects of poetic form. At the same time though there must be a
similar measure of how ‘approachable’ the translations are in terms of other,
perhaps conflicting, measures. Fortunately, since conformance of Chinese poetry
to the regulations of jintishi is
easily measured, it is also reasonably easy to measure translations of jintishi against similar
regulations. Of course it is not
possible to use all the prosodic regulations when checking the English
translations, since English does not have the concept of tones[12]
and the English word is far different from a Chinese character. Nevertheless there are some of the qualities
of Chinese regulated poetry which can be exhibited by an English
translation. In particular, the concepts
of fixed line-length, parallelism and rhyme are all able to be carried over
into English. Further the caesura and couplet
structures of jintishi are also
available to a translation.
Considering all these possibilities, the translations
need to be measured against the following criteria of poetic form, which
correspond to the first four basic rules of jintishi prosody.
1)
Each
poem consists of four or eight lines of equal length. All lines occur as couplets.
2)
The
same rhyme is used throughout, occurring at the end of even-numbered lines and
optionally at the end of the first line also.
3)
There
is a caesura dividing each line approximately in two and an additional caesura
in the longer form which divides the first part in two.
4)
When
there are eight lines (lüshi), there
is parallelism between the third and fourth lines and the fifth and sixth
lines, i.e. the second and third couplets each exhibit parallelism.
The remaining rules are all related to the very strict order of tones,
which are not appropriate to the English language.
Some of the above four rules consist of
multiple elements, each of which may be determined independently. Taking this into account, each poem was
scored out of a maximum of seven points, being:
1)
matching
the number of lines of the original
2)
all
lines being of equal length[13]
3)
all
lines occurring as couplets
4)
rhyme
being used
5)
a
constant rhyme being used on even lines, plus optionally the first line
6)
each
line exhibiting a caesura, or two in the case of qilü
7)
the
lüshi exhibiting parallelism in the second
and third couplets
Only the ‘true poems’ were analysed here, so in particular the literal
translations (from various people) and the pure prose translations (from David
Hawkes) were not considered. Further,
some of the poems found were not really translations, but were more just “based
upon” a Du Fu poem. Such poems were not
considered either. Most translations
scored at least two points for matching the number of lines and being composed
of couplets. However the average
translation scored fewer than three points in total, which very much supports
the contention that the preservation of form during translation is a rare
occurrence. The one ‘most conforming’
translation is Stephen Owen’s “The View in Spring”,
reproduced here:
A kingdom smashed, its hills and rivers still
here,
spring in the city, plants and trees grow deep.
Moved by the moment, flowers splash with tears,
alarmed at parting, birds startle the heart.
War’s beacon fires have gone on three months,
letters from home are worth thousands in gold.
Fingers run through white hair until it thins,
cap-pins will almost no longer hold.
This scored six out of the possible seven, the
one lack being the constant rhyme on even lines. This particular example serves to illustrate
some of the details of how the translations were scored and in particular how
‘generous’ the scoring was, which reinforces the rarity of conformance. This translation qualified for the caesura
point because although the last couplet does not have as well-defined a caesura
as the others, it is possible to ‘force’ a caesura after the third word of each
of these lines. Secondly, the
parallelism is not strictly word-for-word, but there is a grammatical
structural equivalence exhibited by both middle couplets. For example in the second couplet “the moment” can be considered to be
grammatically equivalent to “parting”. Finally, the rhyme point is awarded, even
though rhyme is only exhibited in the second half of the translation, because
the even-lines rhyme structure does match the original.
Another issue to be addressed is whether or not
those translations that do show some of the qualities of conforming to the
regulations of jintishi do so at the
expense of other non-formal qualities.
To check this, all the translations were scored, rather subjectively,
against the three ‘Yan Fu criteria’ of fidelity, comprehensibility and
elegance, as mentioned in the introduction.
Each translation was assigned a score from 0 to 3. The translations were then gathered into two
groups, according to whether their jintishi
score was above or below the overall average, which was 2.9. Interestingly, the group with the low jintishi scores also on average scored
lower ‘Yan Fu scores’. The difference
was not great, with the ‘less conforming’ group satisfying an average of 1.5
Yan Fu criteria, and the ‘more conforming’ group averaging 1.7. The important point is that the more
conforming group of translations did not on average score lower against the Yan
Fu criteria, and thus in general, the conformance to jintishi regulations, as little as it is for the translations
analysed, is not achieved at the expense of other criteria.
The following translations are an attempt to
provide an insight into what might be possible if more emphasis is given to
preserving form than to preserving the literal meaning of the poem. There is no claim that any of these
translations is any ‘better’, however that is defined, than any other
translation, but it is hoped that some merit may be found in this
approach. In each case some comments are
provided.
So what about Taishan?
From all round ever
blue.
Creation of the
Lord,
It splits the day in two.
Clouds ease a
troubled mind,
Far birds a
strain to view.
Each must one day ascend,
Look down on all, to do!
This translation preserves the even-length
lines (six syllables each), and provides a caesura. Although the caesura is not at a constant
position, it is constant within couplets, and only one couplet deviates, so it
would be awarded this point in the ‘generous’ scoring system. It also provides the standard even-line fixed
rhyme. It does not preserve the parallelism
in the third couplet, but parallelism is not necessary for gushi. Thus in the scoring
system described above it would score the full six possible points.
In the second line, blue is used instead of the
more common green, since from a distance a mountain does look blue. Either word is a valid translation of the
original qīng, which
can mean green, blue or black. In the
fourth line, hūn xiǎo is
commonly translated as “dusk and dawn”, which doesn’t quite fit, since dusk and
dawn are different times of day, rather than different amounts of light. The
character hūn can also mean
“dark”, thus a more appropriate literal translation is “dark and dawn” (or
“night and day”) which is what is used here.
Night Moon (literal)
This night Fu zhou moon
Chamber in only alone watch
Distant pity/love little son daughter
Not understand remember Chang an
Fragrant mist cloudy hair-bun damp
Bright splendour jade arm cold/needy
What time lean/rely empty curtain
Two shine tear mark dry
This literal translation matches most other
literal translations encountered with one exception. In the seventh line the third character (yǐ) is generally rendered as “lean
on”, whereas an alternative valid meaning is “rely on”, which changes the
meaning of the line from one of a hoped for physical activity, to a
reinforcement of that expression of hope, which is in keeping with the romantic
nature of the poem.
This moon at
home tonight
My wife must
watch alone.
I grieve for my
young ones
Who know not where
I’ve gone.
Damp mist, hair
fragrance lifts;
Cool moon, jade
arm falls on.
When will that
bright-lit pane
Shine on us both as one?
This translation would score a ‘perfect seven’
in the jintishi scoring system
described above. Note that although the
second couplet does not exhibit the required parallelism for jintishi, the original poem does not
exhibit parallelism in this couplet either, and so this ‘lack’ in the
translation provides a closer match to the original. Further the caesuras are not quite regularly
positioned, but they are regular within each couplet. In the fifth line a common translation has a
“fragrant mist” making the “hair-bun damp” which reflects the word order of the
literal translation. Another
interpretation is that the mist has become fragrant by lifting its fragrance
from the hair bun which it has dampened.
This latter interpretation is reflected in the above translation.
Nation
fallen, yet nature’s alive,
The city;
spring trees and grasses thrive.
For these
sad times the flowers they weep,
Being
apart, birds stir me deep.
The war
flames they’ll span three months soon;
Home news
is worth a small fortune.
My white
hair it’s torn out in vain,
Soon not to
hold even a pin.
This first translation was an early attempt to
provide a translation with rhyme in order to be ‘more accessible’ to a
non-critical audience. This would score
four out of a possible seven points, since the rhyme is not fixed on even
lines, there is no regularly located caesura in each line and couplets two and
three do not adequately reflect the parallelism of the original. The evenness of the length of the lines is
debateable, depending very much on just how the stresses are voiced, but in
terms of the scoring scheme applied to all other translations considered, this
point would be awarded.
Nation
fallen, yet nature’s alive,
City in
spring; grass
and trees bloom.
For these
sad times, the flowers they weep,
Being
apart, birds deepen my
gloom.
These war
flames ere will span three months;
Home news is
worth a small fortune.
My white
hair is torn
out in vain,
’Twill hold
not e’en a hairpin soon.
This translation satisfies the rhyme and
caesura requirements missing from the previous translation, but still fails on
the parallelism requirement, so would score six out of seven points. Note that in line five the word “soon” is
replaced by the (somewhat obscure) “ere”.
This is to avoid the use of a ‘rhyme word’ anywhere except in a rhyme
position, thereby taking note of the long list of “things to be avoided” in jintishi (see Mair
& Mei p.462-463).
Thinking of My Brothers
on a Moonlit Night
Watchtower drums interrupt travel,
Autumn Frontier - a lone goose’s call.
From tonight on the frosts will settle,
This moon’s as bright as it is back home.
My brothers, they’re scattered all over;
No home to ask of their fate at all.
Letters are slow to get wherever,
Besides, the war is not yet done.
This translation does not satisfy the constant
rhyme or parallelism requirement but does satisfy the other requirements, and
so would score five out of seven points.
Thinking of Li Bai at the Tip of the Sky
Cool winds freshen at the tip of the
sky,
Good friend just what are you now
thinking?
Wild goose, when will it bring me your
news?
Rivers and lakes; by fall rains
swelling.
Literature shuns achievement of fame
Demons rejoice to see men passing.
You ought to speak with the wrong’ed soul,
Toss the Miluo lines for his keeping.
This translation
satisfies the length, couplet, caesura and rhyme requirements for lushi, and would score six out of seven
points, failing only on the parallelism requirement. Although the rhyme is not ‘perfect rhyme’ it
does provide some aural ‘satisfaction’.
An
Unexpected Guest
All around my house do
the spring waters flow;
Nothing do I see but a flock of gulls
daily.
Blossomed path has yet for guests needed sweeping;
Wicker gate opens for you - first time only.
Far from market food offers
little flavour;
This poor household wine is quite old and cloudy.
If you’d like to sit and
drink with my neighbour,
I’ll call through the fence
- we’ll down it completely.
This translation comes close to satisfying all the
requirements of jintishi, to the
extent that the English language allows.
Spring Nights Welcome Rain
Good rain knows its best time;
Come spring
and it is there.
On breeze with night-time stealth;
Soaks all with quiet care.
Walkways are dark with cloud;
Bark light shines all the more.
Dawn breaks
all red and wet;
Blooms fill
the city fair.
This is another first attempt that can probably be improved upon, but
comes close to all requirements except the parallelism requirement.
News that
the Imperial Army has Recaptured North and South of the River
Beyond the
pass – a fresh dispatch: the North has been retrieved,
When I
first hear, from happy tears my clothes become all wet.
I turn to
see my wife and kids; distress where has it gone?
Gathering
up poems and books delight
wants no curb yet.
Though heat
of day, singing a song, in wine I must indulge;
In green of
spring, joining my friends off
home we gladly set.
From Ba
Gorge here, leaving right now, through
Wu Gorge do we go,
Then down
on through old Xiangyang town to
This translation satisfies the constraints on the number of lines, the
couplets, the fixed length lines, the caesura (both minor and major), the rhyme
and the parallelism of the middle couplets.
Thus it would score a ‘perfect seven’ in the analysis above.
A Night
Traveller’s Thoughts
Soft grassy
bank in the night breeze wafts,
Alone
tonight, this tall mast
standing.
Stars fall
on down to the flat wide fields;
Moon rises
from the great course flowing.
Fame on its
own - what gets words noticed;
Old, sick
servants should be retiring.
Adrift in
life - just what am I now?
But a
seagull - purgatory; waiting.
This
translation again comes close to satisfying all except the parallelism
requirements of jintishi.
Climbing
High
Keen the
wind, high the clouds, apes call mournfully;
Pure the
isles, white the sand, birds
are wheeling home.
Boundless
the trees shed leaves - rustling
down to earth;
Endless the
Yangtze flows - rolling
on and on.
Journeys
long, autumns sad, always travelling;
Every year,
many ills, climbing this
alone.
Hardships
and regrets have frosted up my hair;
Wretched
now I have just given up the wine.
This translation satisfies the line count, line length, couplet, caesura
(both major and minor) and parallelism requirements of jintishi. The rhyme,
however, is not quite strong enough to score both rhyme points.
Meeting Li
Guinian in the South
At Prince
Qi's palace I often saw you;
Before Cui
Jiu's hall I sometimes heard you.
Southern
scenery - is truly special;
As we meet
again here in life's autumn.
This translation satisfies the line count and line length requirements
of jueju, and almost satisfies the
caesura requirements – the minor caesura is not well defined. These are the only requirements for this form
of poetry, so this translation comes close to satisfying them.
Translation is a difficult process requiring
many varied skills. The translation of
poetry requires even more skills to produce an acceptable product. Taking this progression to the limit, the
translation of Chinese Regulated Poetry (jintishi)
offers the greatest challenge.
While most past translators of jintishi have concentrated on providing
the most accurate representation of the source language poem, with all its
subtleties of contextual meaning and frequent allusions, this emphasis has
generally resulted in a prose or blank verse product, often also accompanied by
explanatory notes.
Now while the full understanding of a poem can
be curtailed by a lack of knowledge of all the context and allusion, in the
case of jintishi this would be a
relatively small loss because of the intrinsic physical beauty of the poem in
both sight and sound. For this reason it
is appropriate to at least attempt to preserve some of these physical features
of such poetry.
The results of analysing several hundred
existing translations have shown that on average a translation which does
exhibit some of the characteristics of the form of the original poem can do this
without great loss of other qualities.
This implies that if it is acceptable for a translation to compromise
some of the non-formal characteristics in order to preserve more of the
physical beauty of regulated poetry then there is the potential for this to be
developed much further. Perhaps such a
compromise is still not required for some more of the physical structure to be
incorporated into a translation.
The process of translating literature is never
complete and we can hope that in our lifetimes we can see the full glory of
Tang dynasty poetry revealed to the West.
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See http://ecs.victoria.ac.nz/~ray/ChineseEssays/TranslationSources.htm
for a list of the sources of the translations gathered for this project.
See http://ecs.victoria.ac.nz/~ray/ChineseEssays/#poetry
for the complete sets of accumulated translations of the poems discussed above. For each poem, the original traditional Chinese
text is provided, along with pinyin representation, the original Tang
pronunciation of the last character of each line (to determine the rhyme), and
the original tone of each character, where the level tone is represented by L
and the three deflected tones, namely rising, departing and entering, are
represented by r, d, and e respectively. This is then followed by all the
translations discussed in this essay. (Corrections, particularly the
names of those translators named as anonymous, and further contributions are
welcome to Ray.Brownrigg@ecs.vuw.ac.nz.)
[1] The field of technical translation provides somewhat less flexibility in the finished product.
[2] Of course part of the process of deriving some enjoyment or entertainment from a poem may involve some kind of analysis, but this – perhaps unconscious – analysis is to be distinguished from analysis for its own sake.
[3] Counts vary between approximately 1150 and 1450, depending on whether individual poems or just separate titles have been counted – one title may have as many as twenty individual poems associated with it.
[4] Erwin von Zach has produced a translation of the complete works of Du Fu into German.
[5] Note
that there is an implied rule here that all rhymes occur in the level tone.
[6] Mair and Mei conduct their discussion purely in
terms of the five-character form, but the first two characters of the
seven-character form are invariant over all other descriptions presented here.
[7] The assumption here is that all rhyme words
have the same tone.
[8] The selected poems are listed in generally agreed order of composition.
[9] using the Downer and Graham rules
[10] Fryer is not included here since his description is incomplete.
[11] The last of the ten poems in the table is a jueju.
[12] though it can exhibit stress variations
[13] In this context, length is measured in terms of
stressed syllables, which is not quite objective, since the location of spoken
stress is not necessarily unambiguous.
For the purposes of this analysis a point was awarded for “even length
lines” if all lines were approximately
of even length.