32 replies to this topic

[sylvester]

seems i can not connect with CHF some days ago...

[Tang Scholar]

Sorry, I'm rather figure minded. Anybody knows how much land is 十餘畝 in square meters?

[Tang Scholar]

seems i can not connect with CHF some days ago...

Sylvester, due to the hacking attack of 7 March the address now is
http://www.chinahistoryforum.org
This is temporary. At the end of May it will be again "com" instead of "org".
I hope by now you have no problems.

[Tang Scholar]

Sorry, I'm rather figure minded. Anybody knows how much land is 十餘畝 in square meters?

Do not worry. I have found that 1 mu (市亩 / 畝) = 10 fen = 60 zhang² = 666. m²
So that 十餘畝 is about 6 660 square meters. A rather small property, right? Just over half a hectar.

[Tang Scholar]

This time the Spanish version first. I will post the whole poem:

Volviendo al campo

Poco hecho a la vida de costumbre,
siempre amante de montes y colinas,
en la red mundanal caí por torpe,
y pasaron treinta años.
El ave sueña con el viejo bosque,
la perca añora las profundidades.
Abrí un terreno al sur, en la frontera,
volví al cultivo de un jardín y un campo. -------------------(Translation 32)
Una finca de menos de una hectárea,
y una cabaña de ocho o nueve cuartos.
Sauces y olmos dan sombra al corredor del fondo;
frente al salón conversan duraznero y ciruelo.
A lo lejos apenas se divisa una aldea;
se ve el humo detrás del cementerio.
Por profundos caminos ladran perros
y cantan gallos sobre las moreras.
En la puerta y el patio no hay polvo ni residuos;
en los cuartos hay sitio para el ocio.
Tras largo tiempo preso en una jaula,
vuelvo de nuevo a la naturaleza. --------------------------- (Translation 34)

[Tang Scholar]

Tao Qian bypasses a CHF Moderator

For the third time, Tao Yuanming knocked on the door.
I told him: You're not allowed here,
you're from too far an era,
your Chinese is not ripe yet,
please go.

He answered: how deeply wrong you are,
it's in my poems where all those Tang youngsters
are going to learn what this language can do.

And then, seeing how astonished I was,
he gently pushed me aside
and just passed through the door
to tell us his experience
of coming back to Earth.

[sylvester]

tody is firday, why no translation shown?


方宅十餘畝，草屋八九間。
i settled in a place that having some 600m^2 framland, making some 8 or 9 house with mud and grass.
榆柳蔭後簷，桃李羅堂前。
elm and willow shaded behind the houses, peach and plum arranged in front of the hall.
曖曖遠人村，依依墟裏煙。
lovely and friendly, i am far from towns, softly and tiny, is the smoke from market far away.
狗吠深巷中，雞鳴桑樹顛。
in my side, there are dogs barking somewhere in lane, there are rooster cry on the tree top.
戶庭無塵雜，虛室有餘閑。
wihtin my houses, i feeling no harassment, within my simple houses, i having leisure time.
久在樊籠裏，複得返自然。
being kept in cages for so long time i was, finally i get back to nature again.

Edited by sylvester, 24 April 2009 - 03:59 AM.

[Yizheng]

tody is firday, why no translation shown?

Maybe no translations yet because Friday is still a work day. That's why I often post my translation on Saturday. Now I've found a gap in my work, so here is my translation on Friday.

Tang Scholar, I feel sad I do not know Spanish seeing your translation. It seems to me a melodious language and would sound nice I'm sure.

Here is my one.

方宅十馀亩，草屋八九间。
榆柳荫后檐，桃李罗堂前。
暧暧远人村，依依墟里烟。
狗吠深巷中，鸡鸣桑树颠。
户庭无尘杂，虚室有馀闲。
久在樊笼里，复得返自然。
Hardly more than ten mu around and
Eight or nine thatched huts surround me now.
Elms and willows shade my backyard,
Peaches and plums out front in a row.
Dim outline of a distant village,
Faint wisps of smoke softly rise.
Dog barks in some secluded lane,
Fowl chirp atop the mulberry trees.
No worldly cares under this roof,
My quiet abode where time flows free.
Too long was I locked up in a cage,
And at last have come home to nature’s embrace.

[Tang Scholar]

Now, my Englisn version. Let's hope that Yizheng may find some music also in it...

Way back to farming

So little suited to common life uses,
having loved from the start mountains and hills,
carelessly I fell into a worldly net -
In such way thirty years have been spent.
The bird cannot but long for the old forest,
The perch harks back to former depths.
I opened up a field on the south border,
to return to a rustic farming field.----------------------------Translation 32
A strip of land, less than two acres,
an eight or nine room thatched cottage.
In the back, elms and willows shade the eaves;
before the hall, the plum and the peach trees converse.
How dark is the far village;
how near the market smoke.
Dogs bark in the deep lanes
and roosters crow on the mulberry trees.
The door and courtyard have no dust and garbage;
There is space in the empty rooms for leisure.
Longtime caught in a cage,
I now return to nature. ----------------------------------------Translation 34

[Tang Scholar]

I found difficulties with the character 墟[xu1]
According to Dimsum it is "old burial grounds". For Babelfish it is "Ruins".
And Sylvester writes "market". So, what to think?
For the moment, I wrote the equivalent of "cemetery" in Spanish, and "market" in English.

[Tang Scholar]

Tang Scholar, I feel sad I do not know Spanish seeing your translation. It seems to me a melodious language and would sound nice I'm sure.

I hope so. Thank you for your appreciation.

Phonetically, Spanish is a very simple language, like Japanese and Italian. I understand Russian has more or less the same type of vowels, but there are more consonants and you can put more consonant sounds between two vowels. There are diphthongs in both Russian and Spanish, and for some of them Russian has special letters.
The predominant rhythm of one consonant-one vowel--one consonant- one vowel and so on is what makes it sound so melodic. Well, in cases you can put two consonants together, like in "pronto" (soon), and there are diphthongs too. But the possible combinations of such consonants are scarce and you cannot put many consonants before and after a vowel. The proportion between number of vowels and number of consonants is higher in Spanish than in English.

That melodic quality has a price. Because of such simplicity, there are less words of only one syllable, and you have to use more syllables to say something. Spanish is not so economic in terms of syllable count as English or Chinese. When you translate Chinese poetry into Spanish, you are lucky if you can convey the meaning with only two times the original amount of syllables...

[sylvester]

I found difficulties with the character 墟[xu1]
According to Dimsum it is "old burial grounds". For Babelfish it is "Ruins".
And Sylvester writes "market". So, what to think?
For the moment, I wrote the equivalent of "cemetery" in Spanish, and "market" in English.

墟 in 漢語大字典 have 6 meanings
1. big hill 《說文．丘部》：”虛，大丘也，崑崙丘謂之崑崙虛。”清段玉裁注：”虛者，今之墟字；猶昆侖，今之崑崙字也。”
2. ruins, lost city, and later also means village (漢語大字典 give the earliest using exsample as village is... 曖曖遠人村，依依墟裏煙。)
3. make a city to ruins
4. grave
5. market 《正字通(a famous dictionary written in 清dynasty)．土部》：”墟，今俗商賈貨物輻湊處謂之虛，亦謂之集。”
6. 境界 (my limited english can not translate it appropriately)

after reading all 6 meanings explanation, 墟 used as means market should started not later than 唐 dynasty, far later then 陶潛, so i think #2 ruins or village is better for this poem.
ruins is too ugly for this softly poem i think, and it seems no somke will arise in ruins? may be somethings ghosty...?
ruins is more old and original meaning of 墟, village/ market is just my guess, who know what 陶潛 wants to means

Edited by sylvester, 25 April 2009 - 07:22 AM.

[Tang Scholar]

墟 in 漢語大字典 have 6 meanings
1. big hill 《說文．丘部》：”虛，大丘也，崑崙丘謂之崑崙虛。”清段玉裁注：”虛者，今之墟字；猶昆侖，今之崑崙字也。”
2. ruins, lost city, and later also means village (漢語大字典 give the earliest using exsample as village is... 曖曖遠人村，依依墟裏煙。)
3. make a city to ruins
4. grave
5. market 《正字通(a famous dictionary written in 清dynasty)．土部》：”墟，今俗商賈貨物輻湊處謂之虛，亦謂之集。”
6. 境界 (my limited english can not translate it appropriately)

after reading all 6 meanings explanation, 墟 used as means market should started not later than 唐 dynasty, far later then 陶潛, so i think #2 ruins or village is better for this poem.
ruins is too ugly for this softly poem i think, and it seems no somke will arise in ruins? may be somethings ghosty...?
ruins is more old and original meaning of 墟, village/ market is just my guess, who know what 陶潛 wants to means

Thank you, Sylvester. I liked very much that idea of ghostly smoke, it made me smile. But probably then market or village would be right in this poem, I think.
/boundary/state/realm/ is the Dimsum meaning for 境界.

[sylvester]

look at that, 說文解字注.
http://www.gg-art.co...okdetailid=7571

those big and bark wordings are written by 許慎 in 漢dynasty,
and those small wordings written by 段玉裁 in 清 dynasty, to help us understanding what the 漢 dynasty guy said.

虛 = 墟, the 土 on left is an add on much more later, to tell you this chacater is about ground or soil.

the first big dark wordings say 虛 = big hill.
in the second part of big dark wordings, it stated "at ancient time, 9 man together form a 井, 4 井 form a 邑, 4邑 form a 虛" that means village!
thus a 漢 guy know that, at ancient time, each village, called 虛 that time, lived some 9*4*4 man.

Edited by sylvester, 25 April 2009 - 08:39 AM.

[Yizheng]

Phonetically, Spanish is a very simple language, like Japanese and Italian. I understand Russian has more or less the same type of vowels, but there are more consonants and you can put more consonant sounds between two vowels. There are diphthongs in both Russian and Spanish, and for some of them Russian has special letters.

Yes, I think Russian has similar vowels to Spanish, but more consonants, yes. A lot of Chinese poetry has been translated into Russian, and I think very successfully. But Russian is like what you say about Spanish, not economical. Even translating the poems from Chinese to English I feel often frustrated by difficulty of keeping the concise nature of Chinese in the English translation, and in Russian it would be even more frustrating.

I think that 墟 in this poem is a village. It is the best fitting meaning in the context anyway, even if the primary meaning of 墟 is usually ruins, but ruins does not fit here. I think often poets are use words in a very flexible way and sometimes we have to just try to follow their imagination maybe. When I was translating it, I didn't know all the history of 墟 evolution, that Sylvester has explained for us, i just thought Tao Qian is describing this scene and used 村 once, and then just uses 墟 as a different word for the same thing.