Hey hey, amigos. Anyone still reading?
I’m not dead; I’ve just had a dead-ass six months. Time to get back in the game.
I’ll have more posts coming up later this week, but for now, in honor of the delightful summer rain that just woke me up, here’s a quick translation of Du Fu’s 春夜喜雨, “Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night.”
春夜喜雨
Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night
杜甫
Dù Fǔ
好雨知时节，
A good rain knows its proper time;
当春乃发生。
It waits until the Spring to fall.
随风潜入夜，
It drifts in on the wind, steals in by night,
润物细无声。
Its fine drops drench, yet make no sound at all.
野径云俱黑，
The paths between the fields are cloaked with clouds;
江船火独明。
A river-skiff’s lone light still burns.
晓看红湿处，
Come dawn, we’ll see splashes of wet red –
花重锦官城
The flowers in Chengdu, weighed down with rain.
No real notes on the translation, other than to say that I know it’s not rhymed or metrical, but I did it just now, so what do you want. Guoxue.com has a page on it in Chinese, but it’s not so much explaining things as enthusing about what a great poet Du Fu was, which, like, duh.
I’ve also seen versions of the poem that have 夜 as the first character of ‘野径云俱黑,’ but I’ll assume that it’s a typo.
In the last line, after toying with the idea of translating it as “Silktown,” I’ve decided not to translate 锦官城 literally. The translations of the poem that I’ve read all do this — Burton Watson gives it as “City of Brocade,” Florence Ayscough as “Embroidered Official City,” and Jerome P. Seaton as “Brocade Mandarin.” With all due respect for my esteemed colleagues, those all sound stupid; Du Fu meant Chengdu, and it sounds clumsy in English, and anyway it’s an allusion that no English reader is going to get without a footnote. Besides, my version of the line scans into nice-sounding iambs.
OK, seriously. New posts later in the week. I’m looking forward to writing them already.
Comments 17
Your translation gets my fiancee’s approval, and she seems to know the poem from her school days.
And it’s good to see you’re resurrecting this site.
Posted 25 Jul 2005 at 7:29 am ¶wow, just in the nick of time. I was all set to give up on bokane.org
this poem works for us here in Madras as well, as we have ben getting pounded by evening storms.
Posted 25 Jul 2005 at 1:55 pm ¶So, this was just a quickie? It came out well. Translating too literally like some of your “colleagues” can make a poem quite inaccessable.
The only thing that bothers me a bit is that the rain “waits” until Spring. I think this poem walks a fine line between personifying the rain for descriptive effect, and over-personifying it to the extent that it becomes a being rather than a natural phenomenon. I think that your translation of the second line sways from this line — I read the meaning of the original as more like “It does not fall until the Spring”.
Posted 26 Jul 2005 at 6:48 am ¶Eh.
Posted 26 Jul 2005 at 9:55 am ¶Todd - you’re right, but I picked ‘wait’ in part because I thought it sounded better, and in part because of 乃 there, which (I believe - corrections would be welcome) functions like 则 or 才, giving the line a gloss like “when Spring, thus occur.”
Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 1:47 am ¶Roy - we could use a few more storms here: it’s 97 degrees and hellishly humid. And I’m working in the un-airconditioned basement of a public school. Weep, wail!
Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 1:55 am ¶Brendan - in my rough translation, “not until” has this function.
Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 6:17 am ¶Yeah - sorry; I didn’t mean to just throw a literal gloss at you. My thinking at the time was that the use of 乃 suggested a conscious act, though now that I tihnk about it that’s probably wrong.
Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 7:59 am ¶Sorry for the delay — busy week, moving out of my apartment, etc. Will have something new up by Wednesday, I promise.
Posted 01 Aug 2005 at 1:03 am ¶Brendan,
Good to see you posting again. I also just started putting somethings down once again. Now the blog world can survive. Keep it up. It’s just bloody good writing.
Posted 09 Aug 2005 at 5:12 pm ¶Still waiting … tried to post comment earlier, but your install of MT didn’t let me.
Thanks,
Posted 16 Aug 2005 at 3:52 am ¶Tim
wondering…..?why r u interested in chinese ancient poets?
Posted 17 Aug 2005 at 5:00 am ¶I was kind of hoping you would post again….what are you up to?
Posted 19 Aug 2005 at 2:36 pm ¶Yes Brendan, I would like to see you in print.
Posted 20 Aug 2005 at 3:26 pm ¶Hi,
I have a blog about world culture, festivals, music, poetry, kids songs, etc. Right now I’m writing about Spring, Qingming, among other topics. I found your site by way of Du Fu’s Qingming poem - but then saw this one and liked it better. Would you like me to post it on my site with your translation and a link back to your site?
Posted 26 Mar 2007 at 7:47 am ¶As a Chinese and a big fan of Du Fu, i prefer “It waits until the Spring to fall” more than “It does not fall until the Spring”, because the spring rain 春雨means happiness and the title of the poem is “春夜喜雨”.
it might be little bit strange but “waits until ” makes me feel more delightful than “does not fall until “.
and thank you Brendan, i do admire you, i know how hard to translate chinese poem into english. if we had your translation in our ENGL301 class (唐·寒山子诗) it would be lot more fun.
Posted 08 Oct 2007 at 7:19 am ¶hey,amigo,i’ve read your translation,frankly,it’s very very good…..
Posted 05 Dec 2007 at 10:31 am ¶this poem has a good atmosphere and i think you’ve got it..~ i’m a Chinese girl and a super fan of you
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