Good poetry, good translation
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[This is a guest post by Denis Mair]
River Snow
Liu Zongyuan (773-819)
Over ranged mountains, no birds are seen in flight
On every pathway, human traces are being erased
In a solitary boat, an old man in rough-weather gear
Is out on the cold river, fishing in the snow
{Here the mountains are just a backdrop in a scene where falling snow makes things indistinct. Although precipitous mountains can "cut off" the flight of birds, I don't think this line is emphasizing the impassibility of mountains to birds. That would be a tangent. And to say that the birds are "receding in flight" would be over-particularizing the image, choosing only the birds that are flying away from the viewer. Surely, there could also be birds flying towards or lateral to the viewer. The important thing is that the snow is making it hard to see any birds flying, or they don't want to be out flying in the snow.}
Since we're on the subject of crappy translations, i would like to mention one of my bugbears—– a poem that has been abused by many translators. In Du Fu's poem (see below) If we just put ourselves in the poet's place, we can picture a bird flying into the distance, dwindling to the edge of visibility. There is no need for flinging the eyes out into space or splitting the eyeballs. This line says more about the poet's state of mind than about his eyeballs. He has the inclination to watch the bird until it is gone from sight: in other words, he is borrowing the bird's flight to savor the vastness of the view and the threshold of perception. As for the resonance between scudding clouds and the viewer's mood, it's almost a koan exercise in itself to marry the two into a seamless statement. The viewer seems to have endured some troubling events, so the wind-scalloped clouds seem to hit him in the pit of the stomach. I think that's where such clouds would "hit" an English speaker, instead of in the chest.
The simplicity of a koan's surface doesn't mean it's simple to unpack.
望岳
岱宗夫如何,齐鲁青未了。造化钟神秀,阴阳割昏晓。
汤胸生层云,决眦入归鸟。会当凌绝顶,一览众山小。
————-
Pinyin and traditional characters added by VHM:
wàng yuè
dài zōng fū rú hé,
qí lǔ qīng wèi liǎo.
zào huà zhōng shén xiù,
yīn yáng gē hūn xiǎo.
dàng xiōng shēng céng yún,
jué zì rù guī niǎo.
huì dāng líng jué dǐng,
yī lǎn zhòng shān xiǎo.
岱宗夫如何，
齊魯青未了。
造化鍾神秀，
陰陽割昏曉。
蕩胸生曾雲，
決眥入歸鳥。
會當淩絕頂，
一覽衆山小。
Selected readings
- "Bad poetry, bad translation" (6/18/21)
- Nienhauser Jr., William H.; Hartmann, Charles; Crawford, William Bruce; Walls, Jan W.; Neighbors, Lloyd. Liu Tsung-yüan. Twayne's World Author Series, No. 255. New York: Twayne, 1973.
Jerry Packard said,
June 20, 2021 @ 9:23 am
A beautiful job by Denis. Do I dare attempt suggestions?
Over myriad mountains, no birds in flight
On every pathway, human traces gone
From a solitary boat, a codger in bamboo gear
Alone on the cold river, fishing in the snow
Jonathan Smith said,
June 20, 2021 @ 10:07 am
?!
Don't know this poem but surely "heaves its breast and billowed clouds are born / slits its eyes and roosting birds return", i.e., here we have the mountain, not the viewer? At any rate, the birds are certainly what is "ru"ing, not the eyes… but to each their own for good reason.
Nick Kaldis said,
June 20, 2021 @ 10:11 am
I would also dare add to the lovely renditions by Denis and Jerry, two of my own attempts at translating this poem:
River Snow
Liu Zongyuan (773-819)
A thousand mountains, birds fly off
Ten thousand paths, people’s prints gone
A solitary skiff, poncho, rainhat, old man
Alone, fishing, winter, river, snow
River Snow
Liu Zongyuan (773-819)
Into a thousand mountains birds fly out of sight
where countless travellers’ paths disappear.
In a solitary skiff, under poncho and rainhat, an old man
sits alone, fishing the icy river, as it snows.
Richard John Lynn said,
June 20, 2021 @ 10:45 am
more fine tuning:
千山鳥飛絕
萬徑人蹤滅
孤舟蓑笠翁
獨釣寒江雪
Over a thousand mountains bird flights ceased,
On a myriad paths men’s tracks vanished,
And a straw hatted old man in a solitary boat
Fishes all alone in the river snow.
Jerry Packard said,
June 20, 2021 @ 11:46 am
Nice rendition, Professor Lynn. Making good use of the techniques you taught us in a Chinese Aesthetics class at UMass in 1974.
Jerry Friedman said,
June 20, 2021 @ 1:18 pm
I'm glad to see Denis Mair saying the snow is what causes footprints to disappear, as I assumed in my attempt at translation. However, I notice that other translators take different approaches.
I'll also point out that Denis Mair's and Jerry Packard's translations allow the ambiguity that Diana S. Zhang sees in the original: the old man could be fishing as the snow is falling, or fishing the snow with Zen futility. Most Western readers, though, might need a footnote to point that out.
For those who, like me, don't know the Du Fu poem or read Chinese, there are thirty English translations here.
Michael Fuller said,
June 20, 2021 @ 1:29 pm
I'm curious to know if people see what I see when I read the poem, which leads to a proposal to slightly recast Richard John Lynn's translation:
Amidst a thousand mountains bird flights ceased;
On the myriad paths men’s tracks vanished.
A straw hatted old man in a solitary boat
Fishes alone in the river snow.
Do you see mountains on both sides of the river? Do you see birds (now gone) flying into and out of those mountains or over them? Do you see paths on the banks of the river? The second couplet does not seem to me to be in coordinate relation to the first, which for me frames the second. And finally, do you have the sense of loneliness as well as aloneness in the final image? For, me it's more alone than lonely.These are all matters of individual disposition, but these possibilities in activating the text are probably part of why the poem remains compelling.
Peter Taylor said,
June 20, 2021 @ 2:38 pm
Is the old man fishing with a cormorant, making a contrast between the absence of birds in the background and the activity of a bird in the foreground?
Michael Fuller said,
June 20, 2021 @ 4:54 pm
As far as I know, "fishing the snow" does not really work except if one wants to take a very writerly approach. The more usual Daoist approach would be to fish with a line but no hook. (The "snow" is a perfectly regular locative complement here: fishing [in] the cold river snow.)
Jonathan Smith said,
June 20, 2021 @ 6:32 pm
A problem is that rhyme/rhythm are unapologetically priorities 1a+b in traditional Chinese poetry, meaning English (etc.) translations by God Themselves would remain "doggerel" to many a Western modern…
‐——–
'Cross hill and vale, the birds a broken chain,
each track or trail trod forth by man lies slain.
A lone boat and her straw-capped passenger,
still snow-fish lonely 'long the ice-locked main.
Or sth…
Phil H said,
June 20, 2021 @ 6:34 pm
I feel like the word 踪 is inviting a lot of overtranslation. In the second line, the things that gets erased are the tracks on the mountains.
This is very rough, and I haven’t yet got the lines to work properly together, but here’s a first draft:
Among a thousand snowy mountains
Not a blackbird was moving
A thousand mountain trails had been erased
Just one solitary boat, manned by straw hat and cloak
Just fishing in the cold snowy river
Michael Fuller said,
June 20, 2021 @ 6:44 pm
When I was at Yale as a student, I was very fortunate to have Parker Huang as one of my Chinese teachers. He was an accomplished chanter of poetry in a Cantonese tradition. I learned from his chanting that whatever I might think of as the phonological features and prosody of a poem are probably illusory. One would need to know how people chanted the poems to understand how they conceived of the poems as performances. I have been very cautious in my assumptions ever since.
Phil H said,
June 20, 2021 @ 7:22 pm
Just to second what Michael Fuller said there – any claim to know that a Tang poem means must be treated with extreme skepticism. Textual problems aside, we just don’t know what music they used, what social setting they were produced and recited in, what popular culture they referenced… There are a few poems I’ve read where I feel certain the poet is quoting something, but if it hasn’t been preserved, we’ll never know.
So all our readings are incomplete and provisional.
Phil H said,
June 20, 2021 @ 7:55 pm
Here’s a better version. I find the iambic pentameter works beautifully for a lot of five-character Tang poetry. If I have time, I’ll get a rhyme into this, but as a blank version, I think this is OK:
Across a thousand mountains
Bird flight
Ends
The paths that people made
Have been erased
A lonely boat contains a hat and cloak
A lonely fisherman
In river snow
Victor Mair said,
June 20, 2021 @ 8:46 pm
Many thanks to Jerry Friedman for supplying the thirty versions of the Du Fu poem. They are proof of what Michael Fuller said about not being sure what early Chinese poems mean unless we know how they were performed (including how they sounded and what they referenced [by way of allusions, etc.]) and of what Lucas Klein meant when he said that "Translating Chinese poetry is hard" (4/4/14).
Phil H said,
June 20, 2021 @ 9:13 pm
On the subject of the Du Fu, though, it’s not clear to me that any of the translations have captured what seems to me to be a fairly simple image in the third couplet. IMO, Du Fu creates an ambiguous description that could be him, and could also be the mountain.
汤胸 heaving breast: DU’s chest is heaving because he’s out of breath from the climb; and the breast of the mountain is full of precipitous rises and falls
生层云 Creates a layer of cloud: DU’s misty breath; and the cloud layer
决眦 Push to limits eyes: Du strains to see the birds, which are very far away; or the eyes of the mountain, which are caves or hollows at the top (limit) of Mt Tai
入归鸟 enter returning birds: Du spots the birds; and the birds literally enter the eyes/hollows of the mountain to roost
Perhaps I’ve missed something, but that has always seemed to me to be the poetic conceit of that line.
Scott P. said,
June 21, 2021 @ 3:55 am
So all our readings are incomplete and provisional.
While correct, from a postmodernist viewpoint that is unproblematical.
Setting postmodernism aside, are we trying to reconstruct what this poem meant to a T'ang reader (or listener?) Or are we trying to convey the aspects of the poem that transcend time and space? If the latter, the translation need not be either incomplete or provisional.
Phil H said,
June 21, 2021 @ 4:55 am
I'm not sure I believe in transcending time and space, but I was just talking about some very basic questions of interpretation. Things like, what does that job title mean? Who was this person to the poet and his audience? What plant is that? Is this a joke?… There’s a lot we don’t know. The much-vaunted continuity of Chinese culture doesn’t mean that meaning hasn’t been lost along the way.
Scott P. said,
June 21, 2021 @ 7:48 am
Meaning can be lost along the way, but it can be added too…
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 8:06 am
Hi All,
Over the course of the last year and a half we have been working on a new venture which includes a poetry section. I was wondering if we may reprint these translations on our website (in beta for another 3 months). One of our sub goals is to create a social and educational platform for those who appreciate Chinese poetry.
I have asked for approval from Professor Mair before reaching out.
https://mingarete.com/
https://mingarete.com/about/
This is the poetry section we are building
https://mingarete.com/anthology/
An example of a single poem with independent artwork. you can see there are Mandarin Cantonese and English read alongs.
https://mingarete.com/anthology/to-mr-li-guinian-on-the-occasion-of-our-meeting-in-jiangnan/
How your translation will appear (for now as we are still in beta)
https://mingarete.com/anthology_translatio/longxi-tunes-no-2/
We will make it easy for you to edit as we know iterations occur and we will keep track so that people can see the process.
I might have missed some translations from others will reach out here when kids are asleep.
@Jerry Packard
Over myriad mountains, no birds in flight
On every pathway, human traces gone
From a solitary boat, a codger in bamboo gear
Alone on the cold river, fishing in the snow
@Nick Kaldis
A thousand mountains, birds fly off
Ten thousand paths, people’s prints gone
A solitary skiff, poncho, rainhat, old man
Alone, fishing, winter, river, snow
Into a thousand mountains birds fly out of sight
where countless travelers' paths disappear.
In a solitary skiff, under poncho and rainhat, an old man
sits alone, fishing the icy river, as it snows.
@Richard John Lynn
Over a thousand mountains bird flights ceased,
On a myriad paths men’s tracks vanished,
And a straw hatted old man in a solitary boat
Fishes all alone in the river snow.
@Michael Fuller
Amidst a thousand mountains bird flights ceased;
On the myriad paths men’s tracks vanished.
A straw hatted old man in a solitary boat
Fishes alone in the river snow.
@julie lee
A thousand hills, flight of birds extinguished,
Ten thousand paths, trace of humans annihilated.
Lone boat, rush cape straw hat, an old man
Fishing by himself, in chilly river, snow.
@Philip Taylor
A thousand peaks, no bird in flight;
Ten thousand paths, of man no sight:
In peasant dress and snow-swept boat
@Scott P
Across the peaks, one hears no bird
Along the trails, no spoken word
In lonely boat, a man afloat
His hat pulled low, seeks fish in snow
@bathrobe
No birds over the many peaks,
No human tracks on the myriad paths.
An old, straw-cloaked man on a single boat
Fishes the cold snowy river alone.
A lonely fisher marks his float.
We can credit your name or handle and at anytime you can have it removed.
I can be reached at cyrusaurelius1@outlook.com or if you can respond here in the comments with a sure. Thanks
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 8:11 am
I forgot to add our youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9hXMRlDghXC8iGx0soVeAw
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2021 @ 8:58 am
Alex, aren't "quick and affordable courses" something that one would pay to advertise, rather than concealing them in a hyperlink from a comment ?
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2021 @ 9:11 am
And the same comment applies, of course, to your duplicate post in the other thread.
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 10:02 am
@Philip Taylor
"Alex, aren't "quick and affordable courses" something that one would pay to advertise, rather than concealing them in a hyperlink from a comment ?"
Hi Philip,
We are in beta, and are building many free sections for preserving art, literature, language and culture.
Yes we will have paid courses and for the vast majority they will be priced at 1 usd. There are several goals. One is to to preserve and present content that seems to be going by the wayside at a very affordable cost. The other is to provide liberal arts graduates with a way to make a decent annuity as content creators which we help on the media end (video, artwork, sound and will receive half the revenue from the low priced course. The entire genesis of the project is cant be easily explained here but over the coming week I will draft something. A short summary would be a close friend asked me years ago is there a model where I can stop practicing law or teaching and focus on poetry.
As mentioned I have asked Professor Mair first before posting and kept him in the loop as to the on going project for the last couple of years.
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 10:09 am
@Philip Taylor
Another inspiration for what we are working on was that many years ago a lady here asked for donations to create a dictionary for a dying language. We hope to use future profits to help sponsor things like that. Also the friend I mentioned also said its not easy for a person to commit to go deep along the path of like some of the linguists here given pressure to have families or even to make a living. Its our hope to build a successful platform to support initiatives like that.
If you read our about page that gives you some more background.
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2021 @ 10:19 am
Fair enough, if you have VHM's blessing then who am I to say otherwise. Nonetheless, posting an identical comment in two threads, the content of the hyperlinks of both reads :
seems to this insignificant individual more of an advertisement that a comment qua comment.
Jerry Friedman said,
June 21, 2021 @ 11:30 am
Michael Fuller: I see the mountains only on the other side of the river, which I'm looking straight across. However, they could be on my side too. I see the birds as flying among or over the mountains (though in my translation I picked "over" for the light rhyme). I see the paths as being in the mountains, but probably I should see them close to the river too. I don't know Chinese, so I can't answer your question about "alone" versus "lonely".
Thanks for the comment about the possible Daoist or Zen aspect of fishing in the snow. I don't know enough to discuss it further, so I'll just say I probably didn't do justice to Diana S. Zhang's comment in the other thread.
However, I confess I don't understand " fishing [in] the cold river snow", which also appears in David Hinton's translation and in Richard John Lynn's. I can't read it as a description of where the hook is, because I imagine the hook is in the river, not the snow. And I can't read it as a description of the weather, because I don't understand how river snow differs from any other kind (though I'm familiar with lake-effect snow). What am I missing? Does it mean "in the cold river in snow"?
Jerry Friedman said,
June 21, 2021 @ 11:36 am
alex: Am I right in thinking that the section of your site where these translations would appear will be available to the public free of charge?
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 4:09 pm
@Jerry Friedman
"alex: Am I right in thinking that the section of your site where these translations would appear will be available to the public free of charge?"
Yes and people will be able to vote and also collect in their profile poems and translation they like which they can then make visible to the public if they wish to.
Furthermore independent artists who create images like the one we have for The Cherry Trees will have their art displayed https://mingarete.com/gallery/cherry-trees/
https://mingarete.com/gallery/he-shows-how-all-things-warn-of-death/
We will then help them try to monetize it by selling merch (shirt and cups) and promote their profile https://mingarete.com/contributor/tanya-tyurina/
https://mingarete.com/contributor/vincy/
you can see all the art she has created for the Chinese poems a mix of traditional to modern
The goal is to try to make poetry hip and to help artists out.
alex said,
June 21, 2021 @ 9:58 pm
@Jerry Friedman
Yes.
Barbara Phillips Long said,
June 22, 2021 @ 11:35 pm
@Richard John Lynn —
In my experience, “myriad” is unaccompanied by an article. I might say “on a dozen paths,” or “on dozens of paths,” but not “on a six paths” or “on a numerous paths.” As a reader, “on a myriad paths” caused me to pause — and I particularly resent such pauses when reading poetry. I wonder if “on uncountable paths” would keep the same number of syllables but reduce the stumble.
For those wondering, Bryan A. Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, says “myriad is more concise as an adjective…” and gives examples and more background about the adjective and the noun forms. His first examples are “myriad drugs” and “a myriad of drugs,” and if the line had been “a myriad of paths” then I would not have looked twice at it. The bulk of my reading is in U.S. English, though.
Among quantity adjectives, “myriad” seems to have left the group where the numbers are somewhat specific (thousand, millions, hundreds) and become more general (numerous, unlimited, various). I was interested to learn from Garner that at one time myriad was associated with ten thousand.
Philip Taylor said,
June 23, 2021 @ 6:29 am
" I was interested to learn from Garner that at one time myriad was associated with ten thousand" — any connection, I wonder, with <Br.E> "milliard" (= 1 000 000 000) ?
Jerry Friedman said,
June 23, 2021 @ 6:19 pm
Etymonline says of "myriad":
1550s, "the number of 10,000," also "an indefinitely great number," from French myriade and directly from Late Latin myrias (genitive myriadis) "ten thousand," from Greek myrias (genitive myriados) "a number of ten thousand; countless numbers," from myrios (plural myrioi) "innumerable, countless, infinite; boundless," as a definite number, "ten thousand" ("the greatest number in Greek expressed by one word," Liddell & Scott say), of unknown origin; perhaps from PIE *meue- "abundant" (source also of Hittite muri- "cluster of grapes," Latin muto "penis," Middle Irish moth "penis"). Beekes offers "no etymology." The numerically specific use is usually in translations from Greek or Latin.
(Sorry, I didn't put in the italics.)
Barbara Phillips Long said,
June 24, 2021 @ 1:28 am
This interpretation below was inspired by some themes mentioned in the comments about the poem.
Along the mountain range, the birds have gone to ground;
Along the mountain tracks and passes, no footprints show.
Alone in an empty boat, a hermit still fishes.
Alone, does he wonder why he fishes in the snow?