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archy and mehitabel and du fu

六月廿六日於費城市立圖書館讀《唐詩300首》英譯版

Written After Seeing an English Translation of 300 Tang Poems in the Philadelphia Public Library on June 26

古語韻難尋
夷言更添哀
囮者詠嘆寄
巢空鳥驚飛

what is with all these
translators who make
tang poetry read like e.e. cummings

don’t they know
classical forms never used
enjambment

Comments 12

  1. Hao wrote:

    Are you sure you don’t want to get a PhD and be a big-shot China scholar somewhere covered with ivies? :)

    Posted 24 Jul 2010 at 12:01 pm
  2. @mark_e_evans wrote:

    dude.

    awesome

    Posted 25 Jul 2010 at 12:47 pm
  3. alai wrote:

    ftw a+

    Posted 25 Jul 2010 at 3:33 pm
  4. jdmartinsen wrote:

    The results can be quite grim for the reverse, too.

    It could always be worse. Consider Li Yi’s immortal “Limerick of the Southern River”:

    My husband, a merchant of Kui,
    Puts off my needs day after day.
    If instead I’d relied
    On the regular tide,
    A surfer’s wife I’d be today.

    Posted 25 Jul 2010 at 8:57 pm
  5. Brendan O'Kane wrote:

    @Hao: I understand that using profanity in one’s dissertation is frowned upon, so probably not, at least for now.

    @jdmartinsen: There was a great Metafilter thread a while ago where people took great poems and rewrote them as limericks. (Jim contributed a wonderful rendition of “Dulce et Decorum” that pretty much won the thread as far as I was concerned.) May be time to do that for Chinese poems too.

    A filial girl named Mulan
    Didn’t want Dad to fight for the Khan.
    So she got her a saddle
    And rode off to battle,
    The whole while disguised as a man.

    Posted 25 Jul 2010 at 9:18 pm
  6. Magnus Nordenhake wrote:

    I thought
    旧时王谢堂前燕
    飞入寻常百姓家
    in 刘禹锡’s 乌衣巷was the only exception?

    Posted 30 Jul 2010 at 1:56 am
  7. Jeff wrote:

    You made me look up a character there

    Posted 31 Jul 2010 at 8:24 pm
  8. Jim wrote:

    Brendan,

    Which Chinese-English dictionary do you rely on when translating? I have several dead-tree dictionaries that are at least better than Wenlin et al. But I’m still not satisfied. Anyway, just wondering what you use. (If you say that real men only use Chinese-Chinese dictionaries or something along those lines, then I’ll harrumph at you loudly.)

    Thanks

    Posted 02 Aug 2010 at 11:04 am
  9. Cheng wrote:

    good lord. U know Chinese better than I do.

    Posted 14 Aug 2010 at 6:29 am
  10. Brendan wrote:

    Hey Jim — it basically depends, but if I’m working, then I’m going for speed, which means that I’m using computer dictionaries wherever possible. nCiku is pretty good in a lot of contexts, as is Adso. Google Translate is getting better, but still has the nasty habit of occasionally giving very reasonable-sounding but utterly wrong translations. For neologisms, Baidu Zhidao is invaluable, as people have often asked (in Chinese) for explanations of new coinages.

    Also, real men use Chi- etc etc.

    Posted 16 Aug 2010 at 12:39 am
  11. Brendan wrote:

    @Magnus — Goddammit! Yes, you got me. I still stand by my point.

    Posted 16 Aug 2010 at 12:40 am
  12. Wentao wrote:

    I suppose some 流水对 in ancient poetry may be considered as a sort of “enjambment”. Such “run-on lines” would be more common if 对仗 is not necessary.

    Posted 19 Sep 2010 at 11:16 pm