恭喜發財! Happy lunar new year, folks! 2015 is the year of the Sheep (or the Goat, depending on your reading of 羊), which also happens to be my Chinese zodiac animal. For the occasion I've translated another Meng Haoran poem, which I chose because it was one of the first poems related to spring that I found in the sources I had at hand. As an admitted amateur and poetaster I think it's a decent enough poem, but there's definitely some argument as to its literary merit, and I can see how it might read as broad and sentimental.
Be that as it may, I had fun trying my hand at translating it. I imagined the poet in a sort of hibernation, aware of the change of season and its attendant goings-on but unwilling or unable to react- unless one counts reflection as a reaction, that is.
Anyway, I hope you dig it. 新年快樂!
***
春曉
孟浩然
春眠不覺曉
處處聞啼鳥
夜來風雨聲
花落知多少
Spring Dawn
Meng Haoran
I sleep through the spring, oblivious to the dawn
everywhere I hear birds squawking
night comes, along with the sound of wind and rain
who knows how many blossoms fall?
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Sunday, February 15, 2015
孟浩然 Meng Haoran 題大禹寺義公禪房 “Inscription on Venerable Yi's Chamber at Dafu Temple"
I am very excited to finally have a good classical Chinese-English dictionary, in the form of Paul W. Kroll's A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. I've already started using it, as demonstrated by my translation of the Meng Haoran poem below. (More of Meng Haoran's poems can be found here.)
The translation is not one upon which I spent a great deal of time, which is likely obvious, but I wanted to share it before I call it a night. I may revise it in the future, but who knows; I kind of like the way it turned out.
The Chinese text of the poem comes from A Full Load of Moonlight: Chinese Chan Buddhist Poems, translated by Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde. Their English rendition of the poem served as a rough guide, but any errors in translation (and/or transcription) are entirely mine. I hope you enjoy it.
微臣
史大偉 D.A.S.
***
孟浩然
題大禹寺義公禪房
義公習禪寂 結宇依空林
戶外一峰秀 階前眾壑深
夕陽連雨足 空翠落庭陰
看取蓮花淨 方知不染心
Meng Haoran
"Inscription on Venerable Yi's Chamber at Dafu Temple"
To practice Zen in silent solitude
Venerable Yi built a dwelling in an empty forest
exquisite mountain peak outside the door
multitude of deep ravines in front of the steps
last light of day melds with patter of rain
trickle of blue into the shady courtyard
if you see and grasp the pure lotus
just then you will know the spotless mind
The translation is not one upon which I spent a great deal of time, which is likely obvious, but I wanted to share it before I call it a night. I may revise it in the future, but who knows; I kind of like the way it turned out.
The Chinese text of the poem comes from A Full Load of Moonlight: Chinese Chan Buddhist Poems, translated by Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde. Their English rendition of the poem served as a rough guide, but any errors in translation (and/or transcription) are entirely mine. I hope you enjoy it.
微臣
史大偉 D.A.S.
***
孟浩然
題大禹寺義公禪房
義公習禪寂 結宇依空林
戶外一峰秀 階前眾壑深
夕陽連雨足 空翠落庭陰
看取蓮花淨 方知不染心
Meng Haoran
"Inscription on Venerable Yi's Chamber at Dafu Temple"
To practice Zen in silent solitude
Venerable Yi built a dwelling in an empty forest
exquisite mountain peak outside the door
multitude of deep ravines in front of the steps
last light of day melds with patter of rain
trickle of blue into the shady courtyard
if you see and grasp the pure lotus
just then you will know the spotless mind
Monday, February 09, 2015
Agent Jeffries was right.
As I'm sure you know, Twin Peaks is due to return in 2016. This is huge, huge news for me, but rather than speculate about what it'll be like or even whether it's a good idea, I'm just going to wait patiently and, as the rambling anecdote below should illustrate, revel in the mysteriously wonderful/wonderfully mysterious nature of existence.
Sometime last week, while listening to Stars of the Lid's "Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30", I thought about the fact that said song imagines something I never expected to exist. Sure, David Lynch has made remarks over the years about revisiting Washington's most famous fictional town, but how likely did any of us think that really was? And then, last year, came the news that Lynch and Mark Frost are going to write and direct another nine episodes of my favorite TV show ever.
"Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30" is now no longer a reference to something that never was or would be. While the new episodes of Twin Peaks will probably not start with #30, there will finally be something after episode #29, and thus the SOTL song, unless it's used in the show (which is unlikely, I think, as long as Angelo Badalamenti is still alive) becomes the music of an alternate history. Not long ago we lived in a world in which there never was an episode #30; now, we have its equivalent on the horizon, but it won't be what Stars of the Lid envisioned in 1997 (the year, incidentally, that I got into Twin Peaks). What was once a song for a nonexistent event becomes a song for a different nonexistent event.
This strange convergence/divergence of artistic purposes may well be proof that Agent Phillip Jeffries was right: "we live inside a dream." I think I can handle that, but then again, Dale Cooper thought he could handle the Black Lodge, and we know how that ended.
Sometime last week, while listening to Stars of the Lid's "Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30", I thought about the fact that said song imagines something I never expected to exist. Sure, David Lynch has made remarks over the years about revisiting Washington's most famous fictional town, but how likely did any of us think that really was? And then, last year, came the news that Lynch and Mark Frost are going to write and direct another nine episodes of my favorite TV show ever.
"Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30" is now no longer a reference to something that never was or would be. While the new episodes of Twin Peaks will probably not start with #30, there will finally be something after episode #29, and thus the SOTL song, unless it's used in the show (which is unlikely, I think, as long as Angelo Badalamenti is still alive) becomes the music of an alternate history. Not long ago we lived in a world in which there never was an episode #30; now, we have its equivalent on the horizon, but it won't be what Stars of the Lid envisioned in 1997 (the year, incidentally, that I got into Twin Peaks). What was once a song for a nonexistent event becomes a song for a different nonexistent event.
This strange convergence/divergence of artistic purposes may well be proof that Agent Phillip Jeffries was right: "we live inside a dream." I think I can handle that, but then again, Dale Cooper thought he could handle the Black Lodge, and we know how that ended.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)