China and the West

Snyder, Gary. Sixteen T'ang poems : [translations]. [ID D29196].
Note dat. 14.1.93
In the early fifties I managed to get myself accepted into the Department of Oriental Languages at UC Berkeley as a graduate student. I took seminars in the reading of T'ang and Sung poems with Professor Ch'en Shih-hsiang, a remarkable scholar, calligrapher, poet, and critic who had a profound appreciation for good poetry and of any provenance. Ch'en Hsien-sheng introduced me to the Han-shan poems, and I published those translations back in the sixties. The poems translated here also got their start in those seminars, but I never considered them quite finished. From Berkeley I went to Japan and for the subsequent decade was working almost exclusively with Ch'an texts. Another twenty years went into developing a farmstead in the Sierra Nevada and working for the ecological movement. In the last few years I have had a chance to return to my readings in Chinese poetry and bring a few of the poems I started back then to completion. The little collection is dedicated to the memory of Ch'en Shih-hsiang.

Two poems by Meng Hao-jan
Meng, Hao-jan [Meng Haoran]. Spring dawn. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : The Peabody review ; winter (1989-1990).
Spring sleep, not yet awake to dawn,
I am full of birdsongs.
Throughout the night the sounds of wind and rain
Who knows what flowers fell.

Meng, Hao-jan [Meng Haoran]. Mooring on Chien-te river. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : The Peabody review ; winter (1989-1990).
The boat rocks at anchor by the misty island
Sunset, my loneliness comes again.
In these vast wilds the sky arches down to the trees.
In the clear river water, the moon draws near.

Five poems by Wang Wei
Wang, Wei. Deer camp. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : Journal for the protection of all beings ; no 4 (Fall 1978).
Empty mountains :
no one to be seen.
Yet – hear –
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods ;
Again shining
on green moss, above.
Sekundärliteratur : Eliot Weinberger : Surely one of the best translations, partially because of Snyder's lifelong forest experience. Like Rexroth, he can see the scene. Every word of Wang has been translated, and nothing added, yet the translation exists as an American poem.
Changing the passive is heard to the imperative hear is particularly beautiful, and not incorrect: it creates an exact moment, which is now. Giving us both meanings, sounds and echoes, for the last word of line 2 is, like most sensible ideas, revolutionary. Translators always assume that only one reading of a foreign word or phrase may be presented, despite the fact that perfect correspondence is rare.
The poem ends strangely. Snyder takes the last word, which everyone else has read as on, and translates it with its alternative meaning, above, isolating it from the phrase with a comma. What's going on? Moss presumably is only above if one is a rock or bug. Or are we meant to look up, after seeing the moss, back toward the sun: the vertical metaphor of enlightenment?
In answer to my query, Snyder wrote: "The reason for .. moss, above'... is that the sun is entering (in its sunset sloping, hence 'again'—a final shaft) the woods, and illuminating some moss up in the trees. (NOT ON ROCKS.) This is how my teacher Ch'en Shih-hsiang saw it, and my wife (Japanese) too, the first time she looked at the poem."
The point is that translation is more than a leap from dictionary to dictionary; it is a reimagining of the poem. As such, every reading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act of translation: translation into the reader's intellectual and emotional life. As no individual reader remains the same, each reading becomes a different—not merely another—reading. The same poem cannot be read twice.
Snyder's explanation is only one moment, the latest, when the poem suddenly transforms before our eyes. Wang's 20 characters remain the same, but the poem continues in a state of restless change.

Wang, Wei. Bamboo Lane House. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Sitting alone, hid in bamboo
Plucking the lute and gravely whistling.
People wouldn't know that deep woods
Can be this bright in the moon.
Wang, Wei. Saying farewell. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Me in the mountains and now you've left.
Sunset, I close the peelpole door.
Next spring when grass is green,
Will you return once more ?

Wang, Wei. Thinking of us. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Read beans grow in the south
In spring they put out shoots.
Gather a lapful for me –
And doing it, think of us.

Wang, Wei. Poem. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
You who come from my village
Ought to know its affairs
The day you passed the silk window
Had the chill plum bloomed ?
Three poems for women in the Service of the Palace

Tu, Mu [Du, Mu]. Autumn evening. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
A silver candle in the autumn gloom
by a lone painted screen
Her small light gauze fan
shivers the fireflies
On the stairs of heaven, night's color
cool as water :
She sits watching the Herd-boy,
the weaving-girl, stars.

Yuan, Chen [Yuan Zhen]. The Summer Palace. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Silence settles on the old Summer Palace
Palace flowers still quiet red.
White-haired concubines
Idly sit and gossip of the days of Hsüan Tsung.

Po, Chü-i [Bo Juyi]. Palace song. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Tears soak her thin shawl
dreams won't come.
In the dark night, from the front palace,
girls rehearsing songs.
Still fresh and young,
already put down,
She leans across the brazier
to wait the coming dawn.

Tu, Fu [Du Fu]. Spring view. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
The nation is ruined, but mountains and rivers remain.
This spring the city is deep in weeds and brush.
Touched by the times even flowers weep tears,
Fearing leaving the birds tangled hearts.
Watch-tower fires have been burning for three months
To get a note from home would cost ten thousand gold.
Scratching my white hair thinner
Seething hopes all in a trembling hairpin.
(Events of the An Lushan rebellion)

Liu, Ch'ang-ch'ing [Liu, Changqing]. Parting from Ling Ch'e. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Green, green
bamboo-grove temple
Dark, dark,
the bell-sounding evening.
His rainhat catches
the slanting sunlight,
Alone returning
From the distant blue peaks.

Wang Chih-huan [Wang Zhihuan]. Climbing Crane Tower. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
The Whie sun has gone over the mountains
The yellow river is flowing to the sea.
If you wish to see a thousand li
Climb one story higher in the tower.

Liu, Tsung-yüan [Liu Zongyuan]. River snow. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
These thousand peaks cut off the flight of birds
On all the trails, human tracks are gone.
A single boat—coat—hat—an old man!
Alone fishing chill river snow.

Wang, Ch'ang-ling [Wang Changling]. Parting with Hsin Chien at Hibiscus tavern. Transl. by Gary Snyder
Cold rain on the river
we enter Wu by night
At dawn I leave
for Ch'u-shan, alone.
If friends in Lo-yang
ask after me, I've
"A heart like ice
in a jade vase."

Two poems written at Maple Bridge near Su-chou
Chang, Chi [Zhang Ji ]. Maple bridge night mooring. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : Cloudline : no 1 (1985/86).
Moon set, a crow caws,
frost fills the sky
River, maple, fishing-fires
cross my troubled sleep.
Beyond the walls of Su-chou
from Cold Mountain temple
The midnight bell sounds
reach my boat.

Snyder, Gary. At Maple Bridge (1984)
Men are mixing gravel and cement
At Maple bridge,
Down an alley by a tea-stall
From Cold Mountain temple ;
Where Chang Chi heard the bell.
The stone step moorage
Empty, lapping water,
And the bell sound has travelled
Far across the sea.