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A review by spacestationtrustfund
The Selected Poems by Li Bai
2.0
Li Bai (李白) didn't actually drown in the Yangtze while drunkenly attempting to embrace the reflection of the moon in the water, but it's a hell of an image. This review is of David Hinton's translation; Li Bai's poetry itself would get five stars.
As an example of Hinton's translation, here's his rendition of the poem《聽蜀僧濬彈琴》("Listening to a Monk's Ch'in Depths," as he calls it):
There are a couple of fairly obvious mistakes in Hinton's translation—he omits entirely the reference to the specific style of qin played by the monk, instead translating literally that the instrument is "cased in green silk"; the final line of the poem is a question, but Hinton turns it into a statement; he removes the reference to the monk's origin (i.e., Sichuan), only leaving "O-mei Mountain" (Wade-Giles for Mount Emei) as a clue as to the location. The overall structure of the poem is decent enough, but there are enough minor errors to add up to an overall misinterpretation. This style is consistent in Hinton's translations throughout.
[1] Sichuan Province.
[2] Literally silk material or damask; in literary terms, 綠綺 referred to, by extension, a particular 古琴 guqin used by the Western Han musician-poet Sima Xiangru (司馬相如) to court the poet Zhuo Wenjun (卓文君), or any qin styled after the original.
[3] 峨眉山 Mount Emei; here 峨眉峰 (the summit of Emei); a mountain in Sichuan Province.
[4] Together these two characters mean "beckon"; here it can be inferred to refer to the motion of plucking a qin.
[5] Sometimes the character 濬 is translated as "deep, depth" (i.e., profound, bassy, etc.) and sometimes as a name, Jun, presumably the monk's own.
[6] 古琴 (guqin) Chinese zither; the character 琴 resembles a seated musician playing the instrument.
As an example of Hinton's translation, here's his rendition of the poem《聽蜀僧濬彈琴》("Listening to a Monk's Ch'in Depths," as he calls it):
Carrying a ch'in cased in green silk, a monkAnd in the original language:
descended from O-mei Mountain in the west.
When he plays, even in a few first notes,
I hear the pines of ten thousand valleys,
and streams rinse my wanderer's heart clean.
Echoes linger among temple frost-fall bells,
night coming unnoticed in emerald mountains,
autumn clouds banked up, gone dark and deep.
蜀僧抱綠綺，西下峨眉峰；A character-by-character version (translation mine):
為我一揮手，如聽萬壑松。
客心洗流水，餘響入霜鐘。
不覺碧山暮，秋雲暗幾重？
Shu[1] / monk / hold / green / silk[2]The title of the poem, by character, translates to:
west / descend / E- / -mei[3] / peak
for / me / one / wave / hand[4]
like / listen / ten thousand / mountain valley / pine
traveler / heart / wash / stream / water
lingering / sound / enter / frost / bell
not / notice / blue, green, jade / mountain / dusk
autumn / cloud / dark / [how] many / heavy
listen / Shu / monk / deep[5] / pluck / qin[6]i.e., "listening to a Sichuan monk playing the guqin."
There are a couple of fairly obvious mistakes in Hinton's translation—he omits entirely the reference to the specific style of qin played by the monk, instead translating literally that the instrument is "cased in green silk"; the final line of the poem is a question, but Hinton turns it into a statement; he removes the reference to the monk's origin (i.e., Sichuan), only leaving "O-mei Mountain" (Wade-Giles for Mount Emei) as a clue as to the location. The overall structure of the poem is decent enough, but there are enough minor errors to add up to an overall misinterpretation. This style is consistent in Hinton's translations throughout.
[1] Sichuan Province.
[2] Literally silk material or damask; in literary terms, 綠綺 referred to, by extension, a particular 古琴 guqin used by the Western Han musician-poet Sima Xiangru (司馬相如) to court the poet Zhuo Wenjun (卓文君), or any qin styled after the original.
[3] 峨眉山 Mount Emei; here 峨眉峰 (the summit of Emei); a mountain in Sichuan Province.
[4] Together these two characters mean "beckon"; here it can be inferred to refer to the motion of plucking a qin.
[5] Sometimes the character 濬 is translated as "deep, depth" (i.e., profound, bassy, etc.) and sometimes as a name, Jun, presumably the monk's own.
[6] 古琴 (guqin) Chinese zither; the character 琴 resembles a seated musician playing the instrument.
