Actually, that’s the way I thought it.
That’s my favorite sentence of the day.
I confess I am in love with the above poem. Let me
rant about it (i’m busy moving, so this is my break).
Marianne Moore said that in (good) poems we find imaginary
gardens with real toads in them. This poem succeeds
extraordinarily.
There is a whole real world in it. We know where the wife
and her husband are
in concrete, even minute detail, what time of year it is,
and how they got there; what the natural world is like
around them, what it’s like to be there. And there are two
whole lives, quite real, at least as long as they’ve
been lived so far–what it was like for them to be
children, what they did, their feelings revealed
through what they did, the way they played. And there is
a society here too.
Above all we are presented with the real human heart
of this young woman, not abstract, sentimental, or romantic
but expressed through its responses to the concrete
detail of this world. One knows her very well, almost
what she looks like.
This poem, for me, captures the particular flavor
of great Chinese poetry. There are no grand
principles expressed, nothing at all philosophical.
The order of things is taken for granted, both
socially and naturally, and people are living out
their lives embedded within a world they
never think to change. (Nothing at all like ‘All is changed,
changed utterly, A terrible beauty is born.’)
What makes the poem great is its embeddedness
in nature and in the concrete world and society which
it presents to us, and the extraordinary
human heartedness of the voices speaking to us.
They are like animals in a forest, singing to us
about their lives, except that these animals
are deeply civilized yet utterly human beings.
Back to mopping floors…
Gosh, Crane and WCW and all. I seem to have moved to the right neighborhood.
SMOKE
Smoke’s way’s a good way–find
or be rebuffed and gone:
a day and a day, the whole world home.
Smoke? Into the mountains I guess
a long time ago. Once here, yes,
everywhere. Say anything? No.
I saw Smoke, slow traveler, reluctant
but sure. Hesitant sometimes, yes,
because that’s the way things are.
Smoke never doubts though:
some new move will appear.
Wherever you are, there is another door.
– William Stafford, from “The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems”
(c) 1999, Graywolf Press (www.graywolfpress.org)
Back to mopping floors
No love poems in the suds
My feet on the ground
Sorry… wrong nationality (haiku being Japanese and all).
Yep, that’s it.
Here’s my literal tranlation for each line, followed by Dale’s, then Dale’s translation 2 and transalation 1, in that order (I think). I’ve tried to maintain some semblance of syntax by dividing it up with colons. I’ve also added some words in parens that aren’t there, but that I think clarify the structure.
line 1
whose home : jade flute: darkly (causes to) fly : sound
whose house jade flute dark/invisible/subdued flying/fleeting sound
In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting,
Whose jade-flute is this, notes flying invisibly
line 2
scattering into : (the) spring wind : (and) filling Loyang
scatter enter spring wind/s fill Lo City
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang?
Scatter into spring winds, fulling City of Loyang?
line 3
this night : melody-within : hear : break willow
this night tune middle hear break (name of a tune) willow
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song
Hearing the “Break-a-Willow-Twig” tonight,
line 4
who : (would) not bring up : old garden feeling
what man not arouse/move/stir old-(home) garden thought/feeling
who could help but long for the gardens of home?
Who can withhold the surge of thoughts of home?
Both translations of line three imply that there is a song called “break willow”. Even in that case, neither translation seems to match the syntax very closely. If I knew about such a song, I would probably have translated it something like:
“Hearing ‘Break Willow’ in tonight’s melody,”
It’s probably important, however, that “break willow” means: “to break a willow twig–to part from a friend, a parting present–from a story of one who broke off a twig of willow and gave it to his friend on parting at a bridge neear Sianfu.”
This certainly adds an undercurrent to the meaning that is otherwise missing. Perhaps an ITM-oriented translation should refer to something like “The Parting Glass”, instead of “Break-A-Willow-Twig”?
Also, it makes me think that “break willow” might not be the name of tune after all, in which case I might translate that line as:
“Sensing the parting of friends in this melody tonight”
Other than that, I don’t hate either translation.
I’ve emailed a friend who actually specializes in translating Chinese poetry, but I don’t know if he’s online during the school holiday. Maybe I’ll send him a follow-up with my question on line three.
Two great e. e. cummings poems, and among my favorites:
you shall above all things be glad and young
you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
\
- e. e. cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
\
- e. e. cummings
The following is my friend’s initial response (based on my first message, sent before I saw the original Chinese and made my follow-up). By the way, although he now teaches Chinese in college, his education in Chinese began as a Mormon missionary.
====================
That’s a very well-known poem, one of my personal favorites. I found it in an obscure book of poetry discussions collected from a newspaper column, which I studied religiously for 23 years and then lost last year!
I am on my home computer which has been de-configured for Chinese due to inadvertent toggling of Chinese by my wife so I can’t easily do a search. I’ll give you the pinyin (without tones) so that you can find it. Expect thousands of hits–I think it even made it onto a postage stamp.
Chun ye wen di
shei jia yudi an fei sheng
san ru chun feng man Lo cheng
ci ye qu zhong wen zhe liu
he ren bu qi gu yuan qing
I find Burton Watson’s translations so close to ideal that I tend not to translate anything, as in this case, except as teaching aids for students, and your list really ought to have his translation, which is usually a very commonsense paraphrase in English. For example, the “jia” is “person” and not “home” or “household” I think.
I’d translate it thus:
Whose jade flute lets fly its dark sound
Scattering in the spring wind, filling Loyang?
This night, hearing the song of the broken willow,
Who does not think of the courtyards of home?
Not really better than the translations you have below, just my view. “Dark” means “invisible,” a very common word in Tang poems.
What I enjoy about this poem is the deferral of sensation, a hallmark of Tang poems, in which the voice or persona never directly senses anything–just a sound outside of the realm of vision, which leads to thoughts of home and family far away and also unseen.
“Broken willow” of course refers to the token of parting, homophone for something like “please stay” (liu – to stay, I have no idea what zhe is doing, perhaps “broken stay”?).