Classical Chinese poems are difficult if not impossible to translate into English. The two languages are just so fundamentally different. Nevertheless, many have given a try in the past and many will continue to try in the future. At last, the tremendous joys I have had reading these poems growing up and over the years have motivated me to give a try as well. So explains the purpose of this blog. A disclaimer: I am not in anyway a scholar/expert in classical Chinese poetry. I am merely a fan. So how do I convince you that my version of a particular poem would be more accurate and/or fun to read than the hundreds of translations already out there? Well, I don't intend to. I do NOT claim that my version to be better (or worse) than any other versions. Instead, take it as a second opinion. I will even post some other versions for you to compare. The whole purpose of this blog is to make an attempt to introduce you some great Chinese poems that I like and have enjoyed my whole life. And hopefully this will bring joy and entertainment to you.
Speaking of joy, the first poem I selected to present is quite sad. Technically it is a Ci (词) rather than Shi (诗). The latter is the literal translate of poem in Chinese. If you have read any Shi in original Chinese (which means you probably won't be interested in this blog of translated poems), you would know that Shi is a very rigorous form of poem. There are tone requirements: not only need Shi rhyme at the end of each line, other parts are required to have specific tones as well. In addition, there are requirement for number of characters and number of lines. Usually, each line need to have exactly five Chinese characters for Five Yan Shi, or exactly seven for Seven Yan Shi. And usually each poem is composed of exactly four or eight lines. Moreover, every two lines are considered a pair and they need to connect with each other. Usually, this is realized by putting corresponding words at the same position in respective line of the same pair. For example, if the first character of the first line is "morning", then a natural first character for the second line may be "night". The corresponding words need not to be opposite, but they need to have some natural logic connection. For example, "mountain" and "water" may be a good corresponding pair given the context.
Ci on the other hand relaxes a lot of the restrictions of traditional Shi. The most noticeable one being that Ci could have different number of characters in each line. However, the poet does not have total freedom when writing a Ci. Because there are preset templates for Ci. The template dictates things like how many characters can be used in which line and how many lines the poet need to use. Because of this, writing a Ci is often called filling a Ci, meaning filling the words in to a specific Ci template. In a way, Shi can be thought as Ci with a more rigorous template.
The particular template presented below is called Jiang Cheng Zi (or literally riverside town). It is written by THE most famous Chinese Ci poet (if not considered THE most famous overall poet), Su Shi (苏轼). Su Shi was once happily married with wife Wang Fu (王弗). Unfortunately, Wang Fu passed away at the young age of 27. This had brought tremendous pains to the poet over the years. The poem was written on the 10th anniversary of Wang Fu's death. Su Shi had a dream of Wang Fu that night so the subtitle of this poem is called to record a dream. The following comes the Chinese and my translated version. I try to stay as loyal to the original text as possible.
十年生死两茫茫，不思量，自难忘。千里孤坟，无处话凄凉。纵使相逢应不识，尘满面，鬓如霜。
夜来幽梦忽还乡，小轩窗，正梳妆。相顾无言，惟有泪千行。料得年年肠断处，明月夜，短松冈。
Ten years, the living, the dead, both feel lost (1),
I make no attempt to recollect,
As inherently impossible to forget (2).
Your lonely grave is away in a thousand miles,
To who I shall describe these desolate chills (3).
Just the same if we shall meet
You ought not to know me by sight (4),
My face covered in dust,
My hair silvered like frost (5).
Night comes, vague dream, back in town
Small chamber window (6),
Dressing up there you ARE (7).
Eyes encounter with unbreakable silence in air (8),
Merely a thousand lines of tears (9).
Year after year I recall the place of torturing (10):
The moonlit night,
The hill of pines (11).
(1) Both feel loss: the original is the Chinese character Mang (茫). It has several meanings, most commonly vast and lost. There is a connection between vast and lost. When you are in something/someplace that is vast, for example in a desert, you would often have this sensation of lost. Both the living and the dead have been left in respective world without each other's company for ten years. This line gives a sad feeling of isolation and helplessness.
(2) The memory of a loved one who passed away is not something the poet can choose to remember or forget. It is almost build-in. It has become a part of the brain, an instinct. Even when the poet is not thinking about her, she is always there. This line describe the deep feeling poet had for his wife.
(3) Desolate chills: it is a literal translate of the word. In Chinese, this is used to describe loneliness, sadness, and sorrow. Grave, it is where we honor the memory of loved ones who passed away. It is where we reconnect with them. We all believe they can still hear us when we talk to them over the grave, but sadly the reality is a little uncertain. Just like if you talk to someone in the next room, they may or may not hear you. The sadness of this line is that even talking over the grave is not an option now because the poet at that time lives a thousand miles away from hometown where the wife is buried. This gives the context of the dream. Why the poet need the dream to bring him back to the grave.
(4) This is actually the same line with the "just ... meet" part. I break it into two lines because of length. In this line, the poet stepped away from the impossible situation in the previous line. A thought popped up that maybe it is still possible to communicate, still possible to meet with her. But this last quite opportunistic thought is immediately smashed into pieces as the poet realize that question: will she still recognize me after these years? He thought the answer would be ought not. So all hope is lost. This line is actually a subtle questioning of what comes next in the poem because they did meet in the dreams. The poem is written after the dream but the dream only comes into the poem in the second part as a flashback. It is one unique feature of this poem as the title says the poem is to record the dream.
(5) The first part of the poem ends here. This part is a narrative of how things changed in the recent ten years. Chinese poets often like to use frost to describe the color silver/gray or sometimes as a direct metaphor of gray hair. The dusty face is very visual but is probably a metaphor to describe all the hardships and changes in the past ten years the poet had endured. Time changes people and the poet clearly thought the change he had gone through is in a pretty bad direction. Again, the sentence describe a hypothetic situation where even his wife is still alive, after these years, she may not recognize the poet.
(6) It is implied that this is where they used to live together. It is just another ordinary day, his wife is doing her hair, putting on make-ups. This sentence created a sense of closeness and a feel of reality. But as can be seen from the following sentence, they both bursted into tears immediately as their eyes encounter as if they can somehow sense the fake of this meeting -- as if the people in the dream knows they are only part of a dream. This mix of reality and dream is quite odd but intriguing.
(7) The poet's wife had passed away ten years ago but the poet saw her in the dream. Here the poet used a Chinese version of present continuous tense to describe the authentic feeling of the dream. Sadly, no matter how authentic it may feels, it was a dream. This comparison of dream and reality is exactly what the poet want to emphasize in this line so I capped the word ARE.
(8) The original text simply says "eyes connect, no words". The Chinese language is pretty concise and because of this feature it is sometime not very accurate. But this is a good feature for poems as it opens up space for imagination. Here, only four characters are used but the line vividly conveys the feeling of silence, withholding, isolation, and perhaps some desperate. Why holding back words? It is as if they know it was only a dream and words are simply in vain. This line mixes reality with dream, consciousness with subconsciousness.
(9) Notice the poet used "line" to describe tears. He did not use "drop" since there are too many tears. But when will tear form a line? Only when you are not wiping them away. That is exactly what is happening at this point in the poem. They were simply standing there, staring at each other with no words spoken. Tears slowly drifted down along the cheek but both ignored that. The poem does not go on to describe what happens afterward. It only captures the moment when their eyes connected.
(10) Torturing is not the literal words here. The literal words are pains from cuts on the intestine. As you can see this is less poetic when translated into plain English (and somewhat graphic) so I exchanged the words. But what should be noticed is the scale of the pain. Sadness is an emotion but the poet described it as physical. Intestine pain is somewhat a common metaphor in Chinese literature to describe an unbearable sadness.
(11) It is strongly suggested that the hill of pines is where poet's wife is buried. Many translations spell it out hoping to make sense to the readers. Unfortunately, if you make everything as clear as possible, the text stops to be a poem. It is meant to be a bare description of the surroundings and context without explicitly referring it as a grave so I leaves the word out. But you should know the implied, which is not very easy to get from translation.
Below I paste other versions of translations I find online.
Alternative Version 1:
Ten years living and dead have drawn apart
I do nothing to remember
But I can not forget
Your lonely grave a thousand miles away ...
Nowhere can I talk of my sorrow --
Even if we met, how would you know me
My face full of dust
My hair like snow?
In the dark of night, a dream: suddenly, I am home
You by the window
Doing your hair
I look at you and can not speak
Your face is streaked by endless tears
Year after year must they break my heart
These moonlit nights?
That low pine grave?
Alternative Version 2 (by Burton Watson, a relatively famous version):
Ten years, dead and living dim and draw apart.
I don't try to remember,
But forgetting is hard.
Lonely grave a thousand miles off,
Cold thoughts, where can I talk them out?
Even if we met, you wouldn't know me,
Dust on my face,
Hair like frost.
In a dream last night suddenly I was home.
By the window of the little room,
You were combing your hair and making up.
You turned and looked, not speaking,
Only lines of tears coursing down.
Year after year will it break my heart?
The moonlit grave,
The stubby pines.
