Taking Leave Of A Friend

Anonymous artist - Emperor Wu Ti Welcoming A Man Of Letters, 17th century, Biblotheque Nationale de France

This silk screen, though it appears to illustrate a poem by Li Po, also known as Li Bai (701-762 CE), was created a millenium after he lived. This is the kind of anachronism that one is prone to when on unfamiliar foooting in another culture. These two translations make fascinating reading side by side, and suggest that translation is worthwhile, no matter how imperfect the result. Four of Li Po's poems, in German translation, are also part of Gustave Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song Of The Earth).

TAKING LEAVE OF A FRIEND by Li Po

- translation by Ezra Pound in Cathay (London, Harry Mathews: 1915).

"Blue mountains to the north of the walls,
White river winding about them;
Here we must make separation
And go through a thousand miles of dead grass.
Mind like a floating white cloud,
Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances
Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance.
Our horses neigh to each other as we are parting."
A FAREWELL TO A FRIEND by Li Po
- translation by Witter Bynner in The Chinese Translations (New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 1978)

"With a blue line of mountains north of the wall,
And east of the city a white curve of water,
Here you must leave me and drift away
Like a loosened water plant hundreds of miles…
I shall think of you in a floating cloud;
So in the sunset think of me.
…We wave our hands to say goodbye,
And my horse is neighing again and again."