DRINKING ALONE WITH THE MOON
"From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me –
Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make of three.
Alas, the moon was unable to drink
And my shadow tagged me vacantly;
But still for a while I had these friends
To Cheer me through the end of spring…
I sang. The moon encouraged me.
I danced. My shadow tumbled after.
As long as I knew, we were boon companions.
And then I was drunk, and we lost one another.
….Shall good will ever be secure?
I watch the long road of the River of Stars."
-Li Po, trnaslated by Witter Bynner in The Jade Mountain, New York, Alfred A. Knopf: 1920."From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me –
Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make of three.
Alas, the moon was unable to drink
And my shadow tagged me vacantly;
But still for a while I had these friends
To Cheer me through the end of spring…
I sang. The moon encouraged me.
I danced. My shadow tumbled after.
As long as I knew, we were boon companions.
And then I was drunk, and we lost one another.
….Shall good will ever be secure?
I watch the long road of the River of Stars."
I have been reading Witter Bynner's The Jade Mountain, translations of Chinese poetry from the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 CE) lately. The poems speak movingly across centuries, even to those of us without specialzed knowledge of Chinese history. The period is considered the Golden Age of Chinese literature, with works by more than 2,00 authors surviving. A stable, prosperous time when accomplishment at composition was a highly valued asset, seems to have provided fertile ground for writers.
Witter Bynner (1881-1968) was an enthusiast of Asian culture, but highly critical of what he considered insipid borrowings and overblown translations. He preferred Chinese arts and literature to those of Japan, writing that the translation of Chinese poetry gave him "a newer, finer, and deeper education than ever came to me from the Hebrew or the Greek." (quote from Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University).
Image credit: Francis Jourdain - Obscure Moon, c. 1920, Museum of Art & History, Saint-Denis, France.
7 comments:
Witter Bynner was a friend of DH Lawrence, I believe. This may be an English v American thing, but I much prefer Arthur Waley's translations from the Chinese, from much the same time,
You're probably right about Waley. I've read his translations in the past, but recently the catalogue of the "Third Mind" exhibition at the Guggenheim mentioned Bynner, who was unusual in living openly as a homosexual in his day, and I thought I'd give him a try.
Amy Lowell's translation of this Li Po piece was the first I read of Tang-era poetry, but I quite like some of Witter Bynner's lines.
I will look that one up, and thank you. I have a little piece with two translations of the same poem in the works. You and Neil have given us more to think about. And just in time for Mational Poetry Month in the States, too - April.
I would be remiss not to take this opportunity to suggest that everyone check out the website "Sedulia's Translations". (see Dispatches column at right).
I recently read this book as well. Although I think I prefer other translators (David Hinton, for example), I would not want to discourage anyone from reading this - it's very good. Kenneth Rexroth's advice was to read lots of different translators, not to see who was "best," but because each one caught different aspects of the poems.
Thank you for your comments, A. R. Reading more is always a fine suggestion. French is the only language I am familiar with other than English, and it, too, is an alphabetical language. Written Chinese, being mostly a pictographic and ideographic system, must be expecially challenging to translate.
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