Emily Cho
ENGL 392B
Dr Sylvia Söderlind
November 24, 2003
Lost in Translation
Traduttore, traditore. All English translations of Chinese poetry betray the
structure if not the essence of the original works. As Roman Jakobson noted, poetry is
untranslatable and “only creative transposition is possible” (238). Even so, with its
exacting demands on concision, ambiguity, and structure, Chinese poetry is difficult to
transpose intralingually. Between Chinese and English, there is the additional hurdle of
untranslatable signs. Is it possible then to transpose these poems interlingually?
The Chinese language is made up of monosyllabic characters, and each character
has a fixed tone. There are five tones in the Chinese written language (i.e. Mandarin).
The first two tones are “even tones” and the last three are “uneven tones.” One can
already see the dangers in trying to translate Chinese poetry into English: the sign – or
more appropriately in this case, “sound-image” – is vastly different. In English, each
sound-image may consist of more than one syllable, and its tone may affect the emotive
function but usually not its inherent meanings.
There are four types of Chinese poetry: shi (“poetry proper”), ci (“songs that
have lost their tunes”) , ge (songs) , and fu (prose poetry). Here, we will examine shi,
which consists of three forms: lü shi (code verse), gu shi (old poetry), and jue ju
(frustrated verse). All shi have the same number of characters – usually five, six, or seven
– in each line. Code verses contain two or more parallel couplets. By “parallel”, it is
meant that there is not only a parallelism in content, but also in tones, allusions, and parts
of speech. A character with an “even tone” must be paired with a character with an
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“uneven tone” in the same position in the next line. Nouns are paired with nouns, verbs
with verbs, adjectives with adjectives, and so forth. If a certain type of noun – for
example, an animal – is mentioned in one line, another noun denoting an animal is used
in the corresponding line to “balance” the couplet. Parallelism is sometimes used in
English poetry, but never to the excess of Chinese poetry. It is therefore challenging if
not impossible for an English writer to match this art of balance in his or her translation
of a Chinese poem. Old poetry (gu shi) is liberal with the tonal order within a line, and it
uses parallelism mainly to enhance a particular mood. The frustrated verse has four lines
of five or seven syllables each and is used to create a mood and not a story.
Li Bai (701-762 A.D.) wrote a gu shi called “Jìng Yè Sī” (“Thoughts on a Still
Night”):
Literally, word by word, it is translated as:
Bed before bright moon shine
Think be ground on frost
Raise head view bright moon
Lower head think home
(Bai, n.d.)
Chinese syntax differs from that of English, as is evident from the first two lines.
When read through the lenses of English syntactic rules, the “bed” in line 1 appears to be
the subject, even though the verb “shine” – like all other verbs in Chinese – is not
conjugated and therefore cannot clearly denote what is shining. This ambiguity makes
Chinese poems effortful to translate. Bynner translates line 1 as: “So bright a gleam on
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the foot of my bed” (2000). In the original poem, Li Bai states that the moonshine
appears before – or at the head of – the bed. Why does Bynner use the phrase “the foot
of”? Can this be a culturally influenced use of diction? Or is this an example of “our
ignorance of Chinese psychology” (Fang 133)? In Chinese, the notion of “foot of the
bed” does exist, but Li Bai chooses “before” or “head of” the bed. Upon closer
examination of Bai’s poem, we see that the word “head” is mentioned in the last two
lines. The popular use of parallelism in Chinese poetry is at work here. Furthermore, the
Chinese word for “back” – hòu – does not fit into the tonal pattern of the poem, so it is
not used by Bai.
Bynner’s “a gleam” is an interesting word choice. Does it serve a higher poetic
function than “moonshine”? After all, the word “moon” is mentioned in the first and third
lines of the original poem. Let us examine how Bynner translates the rest of the poem:
So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed -Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.
(Bynner 2000)
Bynner mentions “moonlight” in line three. Thus, his earlier use of “a gleam” creates
suspense in the poem – an atmosphere that Bai did not intend for his poem. In Bynner’s
translation, the tenses are evident. Not so in Bai’s poem. Because it does not have tensed
verbs, the Chinese language relies heavily on adverbs such as “today”, “right now”, or
“yesterday”. Lacking adverbs, Bai’s poem is ambiguous in terms of tenses. Does it matter
if Bai’s poem is set in the past, the present, or the future? It is Bai’s intention to capture
the fleeting scene of a moonlit bedroom which stirs within the narrator a sense of
nostalgia. This idea – this feeling – of nostalgia cannot and should not be trapped by time.
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The narrative should be in harmony with the narration. By using past tense in his
translation, Bynner erodes the sense of urgency in “Jìng Yè Sī”.
Li Bai’s poem does not have punctuation, yet it is effective in conveying its
message. What makes it so? Can it be the high poetic function of its word choices? Or
the emotive values of its tones and rhymes? Or maybe it is because of the deceivingly
simple references painted by Bai? Since poetry is a complex form of literature, it is safe
to say that its effectiveness stems from the combination of all of the aforementioned
factors. In translating “Jìng Yè Sī”, Bynner has added punctuation to the poem. He has
turned line two into the form of a question. This is a clever way of avoiding a literal
translation of the word “yí”, because “yí” is a sign that cannot truly be translated into
English. “Yí” suggests anxiety, suspicion, and doubt. This, however, is not linked to the
earlier suspense that Bynner tried to evocate. Instead, “yí” is related to mild confusion.
Nevertheless, Bynner’s addition of the pause and the question mark in lines one and two
supplement Bai’s intention that his poem be about thinking and nostalgia. In return,
Bai’s punctuation-less poem allows Bynner free rein in his interpretation of “Jìng Yè Sī”.
To “translate a poem whole is to compose another poem. A whole translation will
be faithful to the matter, and it will “approximate the form” of the original; and it will
have a life of its own which is the voice of the translator”(Mathews 67). Bynner’s voice
certainly rings clearly, but Bai’s voice is drowned in rynner’s translation. The referential
function – the matter – remains somewhat similar in the two poems, but with the
translation of codes – interlingual and poetic – the emotive and poetic functions are lost.
Benjamin believes that words have “emotional connotations” and that “a literal rendering
of the syntax completely demolishes the theory of reproduction of meaning and is a direct
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threat to comprehensibility”(78). Bynner did not render Bai’s syntax literally, but the
emotional connotations are diluted from the original poem because of the poorer word
choices and the unravelling of the poetic structure.
The poetic structure is the skeleton of the poem. Without it, there is no poetic art.
Bynner could well have written a prose paraphrase of “Jìng Yè Sī” if poetic devices do
not matter. Because the translator is bound to fail at reproducing Chinese metre, he does
not attempt this feat. Nonetheless, is he not a traitor for draining the essence from the
original poem in his re-creation of it? Mathews responds thus: “Yet the final test of a
translated poem must be does it speak, does it sing?”(68). Does Bynner’s translation of
Bai’s poem speak? Does it sing? This is arguable. Nontheless, Yefei He’s translation of
Meng Haoran’s (689-740 A.D.) lü shi “Chūn Xiăo” (“Spring Dawn”) certainly sings:
How suddenly the morning comes in Spring!
On every side you hear the sweet birds sing.
Last night amidst the storm -- Ah, who can tell,
With wind and rain, how many blossoms fell?
(He 1999)
He’s translation is lively and takes on a life of its own. Although it does not follow the
strict poetic form of Meng Haoran’s original poem – two parallel couplets with five
characters each – his translation does adhere to the English poetic code. Rhyming in
aabb form, He’s poem makes good use of word choice and of the phatic function. His
interpretation is an act of poetry. Compare it to Meng Haoran’s original poem:
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which translates literally, word for word, thus:
Spring sleep not wake dawn
Everywhere hear cry bird
Night come wind rain sound
Flower fall know how many
(Haoran n.d.)
Like Li Bai’s “Jìng Yè Sī”, Meng Haoran’s “Chūn Xiăo” is in aaba form. This differs
from He’s rhyme scheme but this does not matter because He managed to capture the
essence of Haoran’s poem. The Chinese syntax in “Chūn Xiăo” is dramatically different
from English syntax, but because He seems to have a strong grasp of both Chinese and
English, his translated poem is “destined to become part of the growth of its own
language and eventually to be absorbed by its renewal” (Benjamin 73). He has overcome
the problem of translation from the three angles that Fang suggested translators should
tackle: adequate comprehension of the translated text, adequate manipulation of the
language translated into, and what happens in between (111).
Du Fu’s (712-770 A.D.) “Chūn Wàng” (“Spring Gaze”) is an exemplary form of
lü shi:
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And it is translated literally thus:
Country damaged mountains rivers here
City spring grass trees deep
Feel moment flower splash tears
Regret parting bird startle heart
Beacon fires join three months
Family letters worth ten thousand metal
White head scratch become thin
Virtually about to not bear hairpin
(Fu n.d.)
Written in ababcdcd form, “Chūn Wàng” is also in +-+-+-+- form, where + is “uneven
tone”, and - “even tone.” Although this can be mimicked in English through the use of
stressed and unstressed syllables, it is very unlikely that the translator can retain the
poetic form of five syllables per line. “Chūn Wàng” is also rich in contrasts. The first two
lines parallel each other in every way: “country” is contrasted with “city”, “damaged” is
contrasted with “spring” (new life), “mountains/rivers” is contrasted with “grass/trees”,
and the location “here” is contrasted with the location “deep”. In lines three and four,
“flower”/“bird”, “splash”/“startle”, and “tears”/ “heart” are similarly grouped terms. In
lines six and seven, the numbers “three” and “ten” are matched. The translator can easily
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incorporate these contrasting and similar terms into the translated poem, but these terms
will not be able to match syllabically.
Fang denounces “amateur Sinologists” whose “veneration of dictionaries” tends
to lead them “to lose sight of context” (132). For example, in the last line of “Chūn
Wàng”, there is an obscure reference to “hairpin.” A translator unversed in Chinese
history will not catch the nuance of the word. Hairpins in this poem connote authority:
the pins described were used to hold in place the caps worn by Chinese officials. This
small but significant fact is essential to the translator’s understanding of the narrative and
the narration, which helps the translator in remaining true to the spirit of the poem.
Benjamin believes that “the intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, graphic;
that of the translators derivative, ultimate, ideational” (76). Can translators accurately
derive the essence – form and substance – from Chinese poetry and faithfully echo these
works in English? It appears that this is a daunting task that one can rarely excel at.
Benjamin also speculates that “in translation the original rises into a higher and purer
linguistic air, as it were” (75). Can this be true? By reading “poor” English translations
of Chinese poetry, will the reader hold the original poems in higher regard? Or can these
poems stand on their own merits? Despite the betrayal of the translators, Chinese poems
can now be enjoyed by a broader audience because of these interlingual translations – or
as Jakobson pointed out, “transpositions.” Through these transpositions, Chinese poetry
can speak and sing and soar again.
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WORKS CITED
Bai, Li. “Thoughts on a Still Night.” In Chinese Poems. Available: http://www.chinesepoems.com/lb4t.html, date unavailable. Accessed: November 21, 2003.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.” In Illuminations. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, In., 1968.
Bynner, Witte. “In the quiet night.” In eChinaArt.com’s “Post Translation & Rewriting of
Tang Poem No.2.” Available:
http://www.echinaart.com/news/archive/news_tangpoem_091700.htm, 2000.
Accessed: November 20, 2003.
Fang, Achilles. “Some Reflections on the Difficulty of Translation.” In the President
and Fellows of Harvard College’s On Translation, p. 111-133. Edited by Reuben
A. Bower. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.In the
Fu, Du. “Spring View.” In Chinese Poems. Available: http://www.chinesepoems.com/springviewt.html, date unavailable. Accessed: November 21, 2003.
Haoran, Meng. “Spring Dawn.” In Chinese Poems. Available: http://www.chinesepoems.com/m9t.html, date unavailable. Accessed: November 21, 2003.
He, Yefei. “Meng Hao-jan.” Available:
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~yhe/poetry/meng_hao_jan_poems.html, 1999.
Accessed: November 20, 2003.
Jakobson, Roman. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In the President and Fellows
of Harvard College’s On Translation, p. 232-239. Edited by Reuben A. Brower.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Mathews, Jackson. “Third Thoughts on Translating Poetry.” In the President and
Fellows of Harvard College’s On Translation, p. 67-77. Edited by Reuben A.
Bower. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.