In the Sense of a “Successful” Translation – Valerie Li

In the Sense of a “Successful” Translation

ZIXI LI

Ancient Chinese poetry is notable for its aesthetic, rhetorical beauty and depth. Its forms, themes and contexts vary in accordance with constantly changing historical backgrounds such as warfare, love or culture. Translations from the ancient Chinese language to modern Mandarin are implicit and subtle, therefore adding another layer of uncertainty to the complex analyses of the ancient Chinese poetry. Li Bai[李白] was a Chinese poet acclaimed from his own day to the present as a genius and a romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. The American poet and critic, Ezra Pound, translated Li Bai’s poetry and made it into a collection named Cathay for Western audiences. From the collection, I have chosen to focus on the poem “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[玉阶怨]” (Rihaku 5) and to analyze Pound’s mechanisms and approaches, eventually evaluating his translation for its success and credibility.

The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) was the golden age of classical Chinese poetry; great poets and their works gained reputation and exceptional status. Among them, Li Bai[李白], Rihaku in English, wore the laurel without any doubts. The prosperous Tang Empire bonded closely with the Western world. Merchants and couriers promoted trades and abundant cultural exchanges. The legendary Marco Polo was one of them. Hundreds of years later, this particular situation reiterated itself with Pound translating Li Bai’s poetry for Western audiences. Although Pound’s translation is not literal and misses the nuances of the Chinese language, it can be considered successful as it promotes contemporary cultural exchange between the Western and the Oriental world, and preserves elegance in a Western context.

However, Pound faced obstacles in his translation process, further complicated by another translation of this poem. He was not the only contributor to Cathay; it was actually translated based on a Japanese manuscript of “The

Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[玉阶怨]” by Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908), an American art historian. Pound was not a native Chinese speaker although he could read Chinese partially. Therefore, he did not know whether Fenollosa’s understanding of ancient Chinese poems was accurate, or if there were errors and typos in the writing and delivery processes in Fenollosa’s translation. Unavoidably, Pound’s translation deviated from Li Bai’s original version’s literal meanings and lost parts of its stylistic beauty and essence. Pound did successfully, however, manipulate the general, original meaning of Li Bai’s work. His endnotes1 rigorously explained connotations of specific confusing Chinese phrases. As a result, knowing that the definition of a successful translation can be broad, Pound’s translation of “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[ 玉阶怨]” (Rihaku 5) does not seem utterly unsuccessful, not just from a grammatical perspective, but also from the stylistic and cultural standpoints.

“The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[玉阶怨]” (Rihaku 5) is not a very typical Li Bai[李白] work. Li Bai’s poems mostly center around themes such as warfare, the empire’s expansive landscapes and friendship. Additionally, his habitual poetic touch is known as “bold”[豪放](Liscomb), referring to his unintentional use of genius poetic and linguistic techniques. However, “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[玉阶怨]” (Rihaku 5) showcases extremely delicate strokes with visual and sensual details indicated and elaborated in every line[行]. Its message is also believed to convey maids and concubines’ complaints and grievances as they live in the depressive palace. Both the implicitly and the culturally specific theme make Pound’s later English translation harder to achieve.

As a ‘successful’ translation is hard to obtain, “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance[玉阶怨]”s (Rihaku 5) original text and Pound’s translation should be displayed and analyzed alongside to tackle deeper linguistic and cultural nuances, and eventually answer the question of its success.

1 Pound’s endnotes under his translation: “Note--Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore, there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore, a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore, he has no excuse on account of weather. Also, she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.”

Rihaku’s original work and Ezra Pound’s translated version:

玉阶怨[The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance]

玉阶[stairs made of jade]生[has, grows]白露[white morning dew]， 夜[night]久[long]侵[invade]罗袜[socks made from expensive, flowery fabrics] 。 却下[let down]水晶帘[crystal curtain]， 玲珑[exquisitely]望[stare at]秋月[the autumn moon]2 。(Rihaku 5)

The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew;

It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings.

And I let down the crystal curtain;

And watch the moon through the clear autumn. (trans. Pound)

Grammatical dissimilarities between the two languages are obvious. The original text in Chinese possesses a flexible grammatical structure. To some extent, it is free from any strict grammatical rules since there is no subject existing throughout all lines. Sentences in the original Li Bai work are not complete. This flexibility in grammar yields certain ambiguities. According to the word-to-word translations in the Chinese source text in the brackets above, the line “night long invade socks made from expensive fabrics” has its official, modern Chinese scholarly explanation of “the coldness of the night invades, wets my socks made from expensive, flowery fabrics”3 .

2 Inside the brackets are straight-forward, literal and word-to-word translations given by me. Pound only has one official version of translation. Inside the brackets are direct English translations of these separate Chinese vocabulary in this poem given by me based solely on their literal meanings with the help of a Chinese-English dictionary. 3 This line is translated by myself from its modern Chinese explanation.

Another possible confusion lies in the next line where “let down crystal curtain” actually refers to “Then I return to my bedroom and carefully let down the window curtains that have crystal-like textures to block the coldness from entering the room” in its contextual meaning. On the other hand, Pound’s English translation strictly obeys grammatical rules: he strictly used “The jewelled steps are”(1), “It is so late”(2), “And I let down”(3) to make sentences complete (Rihaku). Subjects are clearer; images are more vivid; little or no confusion exists. The audience attains a moderately clear picture of a lady wandering around all alone in the palace in Pound’s English translation. Therefore, the accuracy of expression and delivery of messages in English might be higher compared to Chinese.

Although English carries greater efficiency in delivering messages, Chinese is distinctive in its implicit charm. Li Bai[李白] never used a single word relating to “grievance” throughout the whole poem while “grievance” is exactly the last word in the Chinese title of this poem: “怨[Grievance]”. He successfully portrayed a girl’s deep melancholy living in the palace without frankly pointing out the encompassing sadness. Chinese is indeed a language full of subtle and implicit elegance, which makes it extremely suitable for the beauty of literary poetic form. But a successful translation also gets challenging for non-native speakers like Pound to seize its literary, cultural meanings and stylistic essence.

Stylistic variances unavoidably exist because of the difficulty for Pound to grasp the contextual meaning. From the Classical Chinese knowledge I possess, the ancient Chinese’s translation obeys three major principles: accuracy[信], effectiveness[达], and elegance[雅]. Pound’s translation, as discussed, focused more on textual meanings alone. Accuracy[信] and effectiveness[达] were partially achieved while elegance[雅] was mostly lost. The Chinese language is extremely dense with its various, rich connotations and denotations: quantitatively, one simple word of Chinese might need one phrase of English or more for both of its meanings and messages to be clearly delivered. There are twenty-five Chinese words in total in “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance” while Pound used four complete sentences, thirty-five words in his English translation, still leaving few places of clarifications and most of the graceful, subtle implications out. Included in the short twenty-five Chinese words are

vivid imagery, implicit emotions, end rhymes4 and other elegant linguistic and stylistic features. For example, the last line in the original Chinese poem “exquisitely stare at autumn moon” composes a picture of a court lady staring at the exquisite moon from her palace window on a lonely autumn night. However, even if Pound’s English translated version did not include some of the Chinese elegant[雅] characteristics, it should not be directly deemed unrefined or unsuccessful as a translation.

Although partial Chinese elegance[雅] was lost in Pound’s work, as an Englishspeaking poet, he tried to create a “dynamic equivalence” in his translation (Lefevere 6). Ultimately, elegance[雅] directed for Western audiences was achieved. Solely investigating Pound’s English translation without regarding Li Bai’s original work, his sentences are effective in delivering images. No extra adjectives or past tense verbs are present. English-speaking readers would potentially find this piece of the poem ‘well-designed’ and ‘user-friendly’. Additionally, Pound included twelve syllables with round, rich sounds in the first two lines of his English translation and nine syllables with sharper sounds in the latter two. A vigorous sense of luxury and elegance[雅] in English therefore, exits and shines from English-speaking audiences’ perspectives. Moreover, Pound’s purposes of translating numerous ancient Chinese poems and making them into Cathay were effectively achieved. His first intention of translation is his strong personal interest in “Oriental” poetry. The second is his purpose of introducing Chinese poetry to the Western world. I read Pound’s intentions from his endnotes’5 explanations of possible confusing Chinese vocabulary in English and his comments on the poem’s standing being utterly implicit for his western audiences. Accordingly, Pound’s translation is consequently elegant[雅] in its English way.

But I am not necessarily elevating or praising Chinese culture here. On the contrary, I feel a little concerned. When Chinese audiences read and

4 End rhyme is defined as “when a poem has lines ending with words that sound the same.” 5 Pound’s endnotes under his translation: “Note--Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore, there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore, a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore, he has no excuse on account of weather. Also, she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.”

translate Shakespeare, Dante or Goethe, certain original, cultural messages will as well get lost during the trans-cultural and trans-lingual process of literary translation. Pound, as a Westerner, would always face cultural misunderstandings during translation of Eastern work. Struggling with his textual or stylistic accuracy cannot determine the level of success of his translation. Instead, focusing on the translation itself and its ultimate purpose allows us to analyze and evaluate its success more objectively.

Pound’s English translation of Li Bai[李白]’s “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance” yields an extremely bright and effective product for Western acknowledgements and eventually cultural exchange. Two languages’ linguistic, aesthetic and cultural differences are largely unavoidable. Therefore, translation products can never be perfect somehow, especially when examined from both sides. Ezra Pound’s translation of Li Bai’s “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance” can be regarded as successful since it smoothly carries out its translation process’s ultimate purposes: which, in Pound’s case, are cultural exchange and exploration of interests. From a broader perspective, the collection Cathay, carrying numerous exquisite pieces, absolutely brought exotic, poetic vitality and dynamism into the kingdom of Western literature. Receiving and exchanging literature’s vitality and dynamism are indispensable procedures for different cultures’ never-ending exchanges and progress. Translation can serve as a most effectual path.

WORKS CITED

Lefevere, Andre. Translation, History, Culture: A Sourcebook. Routledge, 1992.

Liscomb, Kathlyn Maurean. “Li Bai, a Hero among Poets, in the Visual,

Dramatic, and Literary Arts of China.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 3, 1999, pp. 354–389. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3051348.

Rihaku (Li Bai) “The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance.” Cathay, edited and translated by

Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg, 2015. gutenberg.org/files/50155/50155h/50155-h.htm.

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Deira, Dubai, is a rich place filled with glimpses of the past and traditional carts that you would only find in this area. Dubai’s history for it being a fishing and trading port inspired people to purchase big carts and assist buyers and traders at that time. These carts are helpful in Deira; though, modernity limits these roles to thrive as in the past. Today, potential customers, essentially from Oman and Saudi Arabia, purchase goods and supplies and need these men in this photograph to assist them in carrying their purchases along the way. The men portrayed in this photograph are hoping to find any potential buyer in their surroundings. However, the streets were empty, and time affects their profits. Their way to navigate through these barriers is to share profits with other cart holders by forming a community.

“Carts for Living” by Sadeq Mohammed Alkhoori