/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20861426]

behold the peak of chinese canon

[Anonymous No.20861437]

>not du fu

[Anonymous No.20861448]

I think that’s a pretty poor translation desu. Not that it can be truley translated into English

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡

[Anonymous No.20861456]

>>20861448
Oh lord it's the same text without definite articles. How will us retarded westerners ever puzzle this one out??

[Anonymous No.20861457]

Love some Li Bai though. I find the rhymes still hold reasonably well in present day Mandarin

[Anonymous No.20861466]

>>20861426
>chinese canon
>posts english

[Anonymous No.20861468]

>>20861426
Good literature requires a hefty dose of solitude, individualism and introspection. None if which can be found in the orient.

[Anonymous No.20861472]

>>20861448
>Not that it can be truley translated into English
When you read about the hermeneutic gap you're going to be truly upset. English cannot be translated into English.

Now go read Umberto Eco's novel about communist uprisings, Sherlock Holmes, and semiosis: The name of the rose.

[Anonymous No.20861478]

>>20861456

Aesthetically, everything is lost in this translation. Using 11 syllable lines to represent five syllable lines is almost forgivable as something that can’t be preserved, except the stresses haven’t been spaced similarly to the original and the second line has fucking nine syllables. The rhymes are gone, again maybe not really an achievable goal without sacrificing literal meaning, so I could maybe forgive this.

What’s really gone is all of the implicit meaning is the symbolism. It’s not exactly religious imagery but I wouldn’t think poetry with Christological imagery could be translated into Chinese either.

Generally I don’t believe in translated poetry.

[Anonymous No.20861483]

>>20861468

> Poem literally about solitude and introspection
> bugmen don’t have these!

[Anonymous No.20861490]

>>20861472

That actually sounds really interesting. Name of the Rose has been on this list for a while. Where should I go from there?

[Anonymous No.20861491]

>>20861478
A biscuit made out of dead jews makes you live forever.

Done and dusted.

Never mind that HORRIFIC GENOCIDE CONDUCTED BY JESUS' BROTHER IN CHINA.

Jesus fuck cunt, read.

[Anonymous No.20861496]

>>20861491

Would someone who hasn’t been raised in a culture steeped in Christianity be moved the same way by such a poem as someone who has? I say no. And the poem relies on stirring these feelings. So the Essence of it can not be translated.

[Anonymous No.20861499]

>>20861468
Retard

[Anonymous No.20861500]

>>20861426

Good poem anon, thank you. I like the feeling of missing family as winter comes, a time when the warmth of companionship is most needed

[Anonymous No.20861503]

>>20861490
You'll want to briefly read about the Brigado Rossi and Autonomia Operaia in Italy in the 1970s, and read a few Sherlock Holmes novels, to really enjoy the name of the rose. If you don't know anything about class struggle you might want to read either Engels' Peasants War in Germany OR Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England. If you don't know anything about semiotics or hermeneutics watch Chomsky/Foucault and read it as Foucault scoring goals in both halves (or Chomsky scoring an own goal both times).

Now you're ready to really get into Name of the Rose. Because its shitty metaphors. P.s.: Marx wrote a fantasy adventure novel when he was a 20 year old, and Aristotle's "Comedy" is Marx's Adventure Novel.

After that I'd kind of recommend either more hostile author texts like Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, American Psycho (yes I know, but after you've engaged in semiotics you can aggressively read the texts); or, Kierkegaard on the hermeneutic gap, then Barthes, then Deleuze and Guattari which is basically a CYOA of shitposting.

[Anonymous No.20861508]

>>20861503

Thanks guy

[Anonymous No.20861517]

>>20861496
>who hasn’t been raised in a culture steeped in Christianity
>the Essence…cannot be translated
Essence never can be. Fuck off with your platonism.

For everything else there is day to day frictional interpenetration. You know what works in English? Koans. You know what you can translate easy as piss? Jokes. You know why you can't translate poems? Because they're word-songs and you're demanding the notes stay the same.

>Munted in August
>Dog piss on concrete
>The smell of my Newcastle.

oh but its chinky chinky chat chats

PEOPLE CAN LEARN OTHER LANGUAGES AND ASSIMILATE DEEP CULTURAL MEANINGS. IT IS A THING HUMANS ENJOY DOING.

[Anonymous No.20861528]

>>20861517
SO YES IF YOU WANT A METAPHOR FOR HOW MEANING IS TRANSMITTED TRY THIS POEM:

My cock
Is inside his cock
He cums in me
I cum back in him
Shitting it back and forth
Forever.

For intimacy's defeat of alienation in interpersonal contacts, read deBeauvoir's criticism of Sartre. Or her introduction to 120 Days

[Anonymous No.20861535]

>>20861517
> PEOPLE CAN LEARN OTHER LANGUAGES AND ASSIMILATE DEEP CULTURAL MEANINGS. IT IS A THING HUMANS ENJOY DOING.

For some reason I’m guessing you aren’t one of those people though

[Anonymous No.20861548]

You have to hear how it *sounds* to truly appreciate its beauty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iph3jrMas-Y

[Anonymous No.20861549]

>>20861535
No, I spent my time learning English, which has been raped so many ways from sunday that it continuously leaks Latin, Greek, French, German, and picked up a case of Hindu while on holiday.

The same problem exists within languages as between them. What does avuncular mean? What if I had avuncular relations with you? What if I did not have avuncular relations with you?

The gap in meaning is continuous, and filled with hot glue.

On the other hand the meaning systems that I was forcibly indoctrinated into, German Idealism and Cha'an / Zen, are non-English and relied continuously on translations and translation problems. And this is before scholars gave up and just did a shit job translating french wankers for sepcunt undergrads.

[Anonymous No.20861551]

>>20861528
Mentally ill maddox lite. seek death

[Anonymous No.20861567]

>>20861548

CD claims “Peking dialect” but the man has pronunciation like a fucking farmer.

I have to be honest though. Chinese if fucking hideous until your ear tunes to it, and even then any pleasantness it has (to me) is more in conciseness and rhythm than actual tonal quality.

Before I learnt it when I lived there every conversation sounded like a fight was about to break out.

[Anonymous No.20861574]

Years ago when I took a Chinese class, I wrote my own Chinese poem, I've still got it memorized

夫婦同族
祖宗滿足
男友黑鬼
奶奶流淚

[Anonymous No.20861576]

>>20861567
>Before I learnt it when I lived there every conversation sounded like a fight was about to break out.
You do know what the last 200 years of history in China have been like, right? Oh wait, this is /lit/, nobody reads here.

[Anonymous No.20861584]

>>20861483
>>20861499
take it eaty kim takeshi, we don't want you jumping off of yet anothet building!

[Anonymous No.20861586]

>>20861574
You dirty devil

[Anonymous No.20861606]

>>20861426
Ok.

[Anonymous No.20861616]

There's no such thing as the Chinese language. Rather there are hundreds of millions of mutually unintelligible "dialects," each native to a single village, each with their own sounds and rules regarding tone. The reason Chinese people seem so obnoxious and aggressive in conversation is because they simply have no idea what the other is saying, hence the screaming, the shrieking and the waving of arms and the wiggling of fingers.

[Anonymous No.20861618]

>>20861606
it sucks, right?
I would be embarrassed to be chinese and this is my highest culture

[Anonymous No.20861620]

>>20861576

To be honest I did see a lot of street fights but I learnt to differentiate between actual arguments and boisterous joking

[Anonymous No.20861630]

>>20861620
Ability to "bants" in Chinese is indicative of language mastery. Bants tends to disinclude many "native" speakers. Seps cannot into the bants. Canadians can but pretend not to.

[Anonymous No.20861635]

>>20861616

Almost everyone at least understands Mandarin, which serves as a universal dialect. The local languages are largely dying out. Few born after the 80s can speak them any more unless they lived in deeply rural areas.

You are right about them having almost no mutual intelligibility though.

[Anonymous No.20861638]

>>20861635
I made it all up. It was a joke.

[Anonymous No.20861644]

>>20861635
>You are right about them having almost no mutual intelligibility though.
Go walking through Rural Europe while nominally speaking the dominant imperial language.

>>20861638
Doesn't matter if you were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE1d0G0t_G8

[Anonymous No.20861645]

>>20861630

This applies for pretty much all languages. The first time you manage to make a native speaker genuinely laugh is a good indicator

[Anonymous No.20861656]

>>20861644

I think this is what’s so boring to me about American English. It’s basically “normal” and “southern”. Shame that all the vibrancy of local dialects has been lost

[Anonymous No.20861661]

>>20861656
Try West Virginian; IWW Organiser; or, rare AAE dialects.

Americans suck.
Regionals are okay.

[Anonymous No.20861709]

>>20861426
k i n o

[Anonymous No.20861889]

Chinese are le bugman is the biggest CIA meme right now. Reality is a paradox and the Chinese ideal of Unity is going to obviously select for extreme individualism in a roundabout way, like how liberal freedoms select for gelding your children for moloch kek

Would rather read a billion haikus about frogs taking a shit than one more poem about eating a banana with your gay cousin

[Anonymous No.20861896]

>In 1899, an antiques dealer from Shandong Province searching for Chinese bronzes in the area acquired a number of oracle bones from locals, several of which he sold to Wang Yirong, the chancellor of the Imperial Academy in Beijing.[18] Wang was a knowledgeable collector of Chinese bronzes and is believed to be the first person in modern times to recognize the oracle bones' markings as ancient Chinese writing similar to that on Zhou dynasty bronzes.[18] A legendary tale relates that Wang was sick with malaria, and his scholar friend Liu E was visiting him and helped examine his medicine. They discovered, before it was ground into powder, that it bore strange glyphs, which they, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions, recognized as ancient writing.[17] As Xu Yahui states:

>No one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into people's stomachs.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone they have always been this way fyi

[Anonymous No.20861919]

>>20861426
Explain to me the difference between this and a doomer/Ryan Gosling meme.

[Anonymous No.20861936]

>>20861889
>Chinese are le bugman is the biggest CIA meme right now

[Anonymous No.20862475]

>>20861574
would have been better if it began 父母同族

[Anonymous No.20862563]

>>20861618
But you don't seem to be embarassed about not being able to appreciate a culture older than you can imagine

[Anonymous No.20862579]

>>20861456
Confirmed 黑鬼

[Anonymous No.20862787]

>>20861448
You see, a lot is lost in translation. The poem actually means this

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡

Light before the bed's bright mooning
Upon the floor curious, disbelieve the Hoar:
Raise thy Head and gaze upon my Moon!
Now lower thy Head, and weep for home.

[Anonymous No.20862806]

>>20861548
fucking kek
theres 1.5 billion people who have to speak like this lmao

[Anonymous No.20863342]

>>20862787
Also a terrible translation. Mooning? Curious? Weep???

[Anonymous No.20863669]

>>20863342
it is a joke anon
a pun on frost, hoar / whore
the mooning phrase evokes Jorge Luis Borges Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius
I do not think you really understand it
Never mind

[Anonymous No.20864236]

>>20863342
>>20863669
Do you seriously not know that exposing your buttocks and anus is called "mooning" in American culture? It is the height of their young men's mating dance.

[Anonymous No.20864262]

For me, it's 月下獨酌:

花間一壺酒
獨酌無相親
舉杯邀明月
對影成三人
月既不解飲
影徒隨我身
暫伴月將影
行樂須及春
我歌月徘徊
我舞影零亂
醒時同交歡
醉後各分散
永結無情游
相期邈雲漢

[Anonymous No.20864307]

>>20861426
toasting some pleasant primitivism
>>20864262
I enjoyed this translation, probably not very literal since it (slant-) rhymes

From a wine pot amidst the flowers,
I drink alone without partners.
To invite the moon I raise my cup.
We're three, as my shadow shows up.
Alas, the moon doesn't drink.
My shadow follows but doesn't think.
Still for now I have these friends,
To cheer me up until the spring ends.
I sing; the moon wanders.
I dance; the shadow scatters.
Awake, together we have fun.
Drunk, separately we're gone.
Let's be boon companions forever,
Pledging, in heaven, we'll be together.

[Anonymous No.20864317]

>>20861548
That's not how it sounded when the poet wrote it. I don't see how that's any better than pronouncing Latin poetry in French.

[Anonymous No.20864329]

>>20864307
Seems reasonably close.

[Anonymous No.20864430]

>>20861426
well? explain. why autumn? why did the look of frost remind him of home? why did he lower his head?

[Anonymous No.20864455]

>>20864317
>I don't see how that's any better than pronouncing Latin poetry in French.
WELL YOU'RE NOT USING FRENCH FOR STARTERS

[Anonymous No.20864474]

>>20864455
What?

[Anonymous No.20864486]

>>20864474
There is a long running joke in English language cultures about French being the most revilable language and culture in existence.

Therefore the main fault in pronouncing latin poems using Parisian pronunciation isn't that you're cross-language polluting latin poems. It would be fine to speak latin poems with urdu pronunciation.

It is that you are speaking latin poems using french _French_ that is is the problem.

[Anonymous No.20864518]

>>20861889
>Would rather read a billion haikus about frogs taking a shit than one more poem about eating a banana with your gay cousin

[Anonymous No.20864581]

>>20864518
banana is hard to write in stenotype. most systems, anyway.

[Anonymous No.20864582]

>>20864317
French can't into quantitative verse, but, from what I've read, classic poems read in modern Mandarin follow the basic principles of rhythm that are used in current day Chinese formal verse.

[Anonymous No.20864640]

>>20864582
Not really, you can't actually properly hear the 平仄. Third or fourth tone must be 仄 but first or second tone could be 平 or 仄.

[Anonymous No.20864648]

>>20864640
That's why I used the word rhythm.

[Anonymous No.20864654]

>>20864648
The 平仄 is the heart of the meter, though.

[Anonymous No.20864681]

>>20864654
Mother fucker come on mother fucker come on mother fucker come on mother fucker come on mother fucker come on mother fucker come on mother fucker come on

i got seven mack 11's,
about eight 38's
ine 9's,
ten mack tens, the shits never ends
you can't touch my riches even if you had mc hammer and them 357 bitches

Is it "about 8 '38's" or is it "[beat rest] 8 '38's"

Moreover: when is Biggie Smalls *wrong*. When are you hearing a better poem than Biggie Smalls wrote.

Shakespeare had his jobsworth days like MacBeth.

[Anonymous No.20864721]

>>20864654
Then send an email San Duanmu (The Phonology of Standard Chinese) and tell him he's a faggot I guess.

[Anonymous No.20864779]

>>20862579
what's that? nigger?

[Anonymous No.20864788]

>>20864779
Yeah you can tell from the evil eyes and the nike shoe on the right foot.

[Anonymous No.20864832]

>>20864788
it looks like how they depict viruses desu

[Anonymous No.20864840]

>>20861500
it's august tho

[Anonymous No.20864851]

>>20861618
why you trying so hard man

[Anonymous No.20864853]

>>20864840
Sep cunts don't understand ball world.

[Anonymous No.20864892]

>>20864832
The first character just means 'black', and the second one means 'ghost/demon'.

[Anonymous No.20866752]

>>20864236
that is the point of the joke anon
the translation takes the pun on the word whore / hoar / frost
reimagines the scene into one of mooning and a courtesan raising their "head" up and down, contemplating the "moon"
The use of that strange mooning phrases comes from Borges on translations and grammatical construction from Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius
don't worry about it if you do not understand, it is just a stupid joke poem lol

[Anonymous No.20866757]

>>20866752
also it works, because light, 光 in modern chinese can mean also barenaked, nude

[Anonymous No.20866810]

>>20861896
To be fair, they used to do the same with mummies. For some reason a great deal of people believed mummies had medicinal properties, including Francis Bacon. He claimed it was good for cuts, bruises and several other injuries

[Anonymous No.20866811]

>>20862787
How about this new variant from the naughty innuendoes of the original. Inject as much Euphuistic embellishment as possible!

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡

Light before the bed's bright mooning
Upon the floor curious, disbelieve the Hoar:
Raise thy Head and gaze upon my Moon!
Now lower thy Head, and weep for home.
...
Before the berth of a bright moon nude
Disbelief of frost upon loam and earth,
The Hoar heaves the crown of tomorrow's glare
And broods upon the sunken face of birth.

[Anonymous No.20866824]

>>20861426
It's good.

[Anonymous No.20866874]

>>20866811
This ancient Chinese poem exemplifies an almost hypermodernist minimalism

the traditional structure is called
起承轉合
arise/introduction
bearing/elucidation
turning/transition
joining/togetherness, conclusion

This poem plays a little with this structure. It conveys a depersonified motion in its cosmogony (raising head in contemplation of heaven, yet sinking back to contemplate earthy, sublunary reminiscence of native birthplace).

The poem sequence begins as
1 observation (moonlight before bed)
2 doubt (mistaken for cold frost)
3 action (contemplate the bright moon)
4 introspection / memory (reminiscence of old home)

It does not need to indulge or expostulate upon unnecessary mise-en-scene ie this is about a wanderer who has journeyed far from where they belong etc.

The poem also adopts a diapassionate, ephectic detachment, suspending judgement or melodramatic conveyance of feeling (the disembodied head merely contemplates home, yet there is not hint of fondness or guilt common to Judaeo-Christian introspection).

The repetition of bright moon, in particular 明, suggests a connection of appearances and deceptions to the Daoist notion of The Great Clarity, as described by Zhuangzi, the ability of Virtue as Power / discernment to traverse the course between Heaven (the bright moon) and one's birth (the native village). The cold frost before the bed reveals the reward of doubt that awaits. In this reverie, the sense of self is almost lost.

[Anonymous No.20866880]

>>20866874
Ancient Gook
>Me see moon
>Me feel sad
Pseud on /lit/
>writes essay

[Anonymous No.20866883]

>>20861426
Why does the poem does not match the calligraphy in the picture?

[Anonymous No.20866893]

>>20866880
did you like the essay? All we are not stares back at what we are.

[Anonymous No.20866899]

>>20866874
Great post, you got a blog or articles that read like this?

>>20866880
Shut the fuck up faggot

[Anonymous No.20866900]

>>20864518

東郭子問於莊子曰:「所謂道,惡乎在?」莊子曰:「無所不在。」東郭子曰:「期而後可。」莊子曰:「在螻蟻。」曰:「何其下邪?」曰:「在稊稗。」曰:「何其愈下邪?」曰:「在瓦甓。」曰:「何其愈甚邪?」曰:「在屎溺。」東郭子不應。

Master Dongguo asked Zhuangzi, “This thing called the Way—where does it exist?”
Zhuangzi, said, “There’s no place it doesn’t exist.”
“Come,” said Master Dongguo, “you must be more specific!”
“It is in the ant.”
“As low a thing as that?”
“It is in the grass.”
“But that’s lower still!”
“It is in the tiles and shards.”
“How can it be so low?”
“It is in the piss and shit!”
Master Dongguo made no reply.

https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=%E5%B1%8E

[Anonymous No.20866906]

>>20866899
I would recommend the Stanford philosophy guide to Zhuangzi.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/
It is very long, but it provides a very detailed background of Chinese philosophy and its dialectical tools and compares them to the Greek counterparts. For example, deictic indexicals (是非) approximately this not-that, the linguistic underpinnings of a philosophical scepticism that doea not require law, principles, propositions of western reasoning etc. If you can understand and contrast this with western philosophy, it expands your appreciation of both ancient approaches

[Anonymous No.20866909]

>>20866906
Already read it. Come on, give me the good stuff

[Anonymous No.20866919]

>>20866893
No I didn't like it at all. It reminds me of much bad lit crit I've had to read. Picking beautiful things apart soils them. It's the complete opposite of how I like to appreciate writing... words -> image -> feel. It's like standing at some beauty spot and some fag comes up and starts explaining why you're moved. The moment's ruined, it's over! Chung-zoo would agree.

[Anonymous No.20866930]

>>20866919
There's nothing like like conducting a live autopsy on a beautiful 23 year old while fucking them.

Increase your aesthetic level.

[Anonymous No.20866947]

>>20866930
Based and profound, but also kind of gay and borderline maudlin at this point. Le aesthetic rape of cartesian boundaries. Absorb Chesterton or shit even Morrison.

[Anonymous No.20866953]

>>20866947
I keep post-graduate aesthetic levels to myself, and only share them with those who can conduct the secret handshake. (Its animated television ponies.)

[Anonymous No.20866989]

Here is an explicitly more emotional poem, with a translation I just did:
(yes, it is probably about courtesans. Maybe you can translate it better?)

重帏深下莫愁堂,卧后清宵细细长。

神女生涯原是梦,小姑居处本无郎。

风波不信菱枝弱,月露谁教桂叶香。

直道相思了无益,未妨惆怅是清狂。

李商隐

Li Shangyin, Untitled no. 5
813-858 CE

Deep swathes enfold the Sorrowless Sanctum
And the slender languor of lengthened nocturne
How the fate of those bewitched resembles a dream -
Beyond the manless chamber where maidens lean

As the tempest distrusts the tender branch
And the moon-dew teaches the fragrant fronds
Until feeling together brings nothing to gain
And anguish harms these foolish bonds.

[Anonymous No.20866994]

>>20866989
so this poem is more verbose, it uses more elaborate imagery and has a slightly decadent Baudelaire type feel. The setting is probably some courtesan pleasure house. But you can see it is weaker than the minimalism of the OP poem. For instance, here is a double negative in the last line
>未妨...是...?

[Anonymous No.20866996]

>>20866989
Hit me with some more of this hypermodernist Tang shit. Love it. So many obscure aesthetics waiting to be mined

[Anonymous No.20867248]

>>20866919
>!

[Anonymous No.20867263]

Unironically the only (modern) chinese lit worth reading.

[Anonymous No.20867295]

Here is a very well known poem I translated.

It is called The Song Of Yue, around 528 BC, of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. Confucius lived around 551-479 BC

This song was set to music and is featured in the 2006 Chinese film The Banquet (a retelling of Hamlet). You can hear the song here on this random youtube link
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b2c4somJbLg
In the film this song is sung twice, once male, once female.

What I did in my translation was to make some of the sounds a bit similar. So the word 兮 is a meaningless expression song exclamation (akin to O, or ah!) But it sounds a little like See. If you listen to the original song in the youtube link, maybe my translation makes a little more sense.

越人歌

今夕何夕兮,搴舟中流。

今日何日兮,得与王子同舟。

蒙羞被好兮,不訾诟耻。

心几烦而不绝兮,得知王子。

山有木兮木有枝,心悦君兮君不知。

Song Of Yue

What eve is this Eve? See
The boat amidst the drifting flow
What Day is this Day? See
The Prince and me together, the boat holds -
Blushes veiled before my beloved; see,
Exhort me not, O scolded shame;
Restless Heart, knows no surcease, see
Until my Prince knows he is adored.
And as trees possess the mountains, see,
And the branches beckon their trees
Bewitched my Heart delights, and sees -
My Prince yet unknown to me.

[Anonymous No.20867331]

>>20861426
i am esl so i had no idea that "august" was an archaic way of saying "mighty"
whenever i read an old text and they used that word, i legitimately thought they were talking about the month. i thought the month of august was super important to ancient cultures...
i only learned about it when i was listening to a podcast and a guy used the word and someone else asked him if he meant the month and he explained it also means stronk.
its a podcast about videogames

[Anonymous No.20867337]

>>20867295
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T-xtntEHHhg
(Tan Dun OST version)
The above version of the female voice is better (the original youtube link seems directly recorded from the accompanied film scenes of The Banquet, the quality is not so good).

If you want to feel gay, here is the same song for the male voice from the film's OST by Tan Dun. When it is sung in the film there is a bamboo ambush martial arts massacre.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8fKvIrqTTM

[Anonymous No.20867344]

>>20867331
Kind of based to begin associating regality and power with the month of August though. ESLs will make English great again

[Anonymous No.20867359]

>>20867344
I think you should focus on mastery of your own language and authors. You should bring them to an international audience. Translate myth and poetry of your own culture.

A lot of the work in English literature has been arguably done, which probably explains the output of a lot of modern publishing these days.

[Anonymous No.20867404]

>>20866893
>All we are not stares back at what we are.
This quote is from WH Auden, The Sea And The Mirror - his response to Shakespeare and The Tempest. I included it just to see if anyone recognised literature.

WH Auden visited China with his homosexual companion Christopher Isherwood during Japanese bombing; he photographed Chinese peasants and generals, and even met Zhou Enlai.

Auden wrote a series of Chinese sonnets and published a 300 page travel memoir with his photographs, though that collection of poetry is omitted mostly from the compilations and authoritative collections of his poetry by his estate - it is a little obscure and hard to find nowadays.

The idea with art is for all cultural history to remain present, to reside where all artists of the past remain alive, talking amongst themselves. WH Auden understood this. It is worth trying to find these other literary voices, listening to see what one can learn.

[Anonymous No.20867437]

>>20867331
>i am esl
>i had no idea that "august" was an archaic way of saying "mighty
Most native speakers also don't know this.

>>20867359
>I think you should focus on mastery of your own language and authors. You should bring them to an international audience. Translate myth and poetry of your own culture.
Not him but apart from maybe French and German most other languages have garbage literary traditions and native authors. Many non English authors who are known in their countries are well known only because the majority of their population cannot read in other languages and are stuck with native garbage

[Anonymous No.20867485]

>>20867437
>>20867404
WH Auden in his Shakespearean lectures explained that the best stories are as myths, the stories that do not exist in words. CS Lewis told an anecdote of how you do not even need to read Kafka The Castle or The Metamorphosis, to understand the point of those stories, the words actually do not add very much at all. Similarly a story like The Tempest or Hamlet could be told in another language which is probably why this Chinese film
>>20867295
>>20867337
adapted Hamlet and set it to traditional ancient Chinese poetry.
So when you are searching for the tales of a culture beyond the familiar, these stories are ones to seek out, the stories that do not need to be told with words.

[Anonymous No.20867519]

>Well known writer Jia Pingwa's daughter Jia qianqian, who is known as a poet and is an Associate Professor, North Western University (Xi’an), recently became popular on the internet for posting her poems, mainly, Lang Lang and My Mother. She was heavily trolled by the netizens for the use of words like, "shit" and "urine" in her poems. Several social media opinion platforms and media commentaries questioned her skill as a poet and accused her of winning favours in terms of literary awards and honours owing to her father's powerful position.

>“Qing Qing yelled / Little Sister is shitting on my bed / yet when we ran there / Lang Lang, poised, already had / a piece of shit in hand / having descended from the bed / appearing like a returned king,” Jia Qianqian writes in her poem “Lang Lang.”

[Anonymous No.20867550]

When I translate poetry for myself, I am constantly thinking of the words spoken by others before, eg by Beowulf, by Shakespeare, by TS Eliot, or WH Auden etc. I am looking for echoes of those other voices. This is why if you read Beowulf you need to read a translation by a poet like Heaney, not an academic in Anglo Saxon literature. The idea is to convey a nuance or mood, less so the absolute exact encumbrance of meaning.

Here for example is my translation of a poem every Chinese child knows from primary school textbooks

I translate it a little differently, splitting the last stanza. Second moon/month obviously refers to February. A more accurate title might be Ode To Willow.

[咏柳]
碧玉妆成一树高,万条垂下绿丝绦。
不知细叶谁裁出,二月春风似剪刀。

Willow Song

Slender as the dressed height of jade
Ten thousand streams of green cascades;
Whence comes the fronds and delicate braids?
Verdant wind, of second moon -
Becomes the scissoring blades.

[Anonymous No.20867562]

>>20866930
i've heard this in a movie sounds gay

[Anonymous No.20867569]

>>20861426
My favorite Koan:
>A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?"
>Zhaozhou said, "Wew”

[Anonymous No.20867679]

>>20867550
Here is another fairly witty Tang Dynasty poem I just translated. A zheng harp is more akin to a 21 or 25 stringed zither. The name of the young lord in the poem is Zhou.

鸣筝金粟柱,素手玉房前。
欲得周郎顾,时时误拂弦

By golden pillars glimmers the harp song
White jade chambers, the hand frets upon
A desiring glance from her lord, stolen
She plucks a harpstring wrong, now and then.

Li Duan, Tang dynasty 743-782 CE

[Anonymous No.20867715]

>>20861426
This poem makes a lot more sense if you interpret the "frost" as an act of onanism, certain... bodily emission. Look at the expression upon his face, of utter transcendental contentment. Have you ever experienced self-pleasure whilst contemplating the Moon?

[Anonymous No.20867777]

>>20866900
Here is Zhuangzi explaining his interpretation of Fear And Trembling by Soren Kierkegaarde. The text of Zhuangzi consists of seven inner chapters accompanied by outer chapters and miscellaneous commentary and amendments made by disciples and followers likely over the period
476-221 BCE.

I use the Burton Watson Columbia University 2013 translation. Another interpretation can be found here
https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=%E5%8E%89%E4%B9%8B%E4%BA%BA

厲之人夜半生其子,遽取火而視之,汲汲然惟恐其似己也。

When the leper woman gives birth to a child in the dead of the night, she rushes to fetch a torch and examine it, trembling with terror lest it look like herself.

(The Columbia edition commentary)
>If man would once forsake his habit of labeling things good or bad, desirable or undesirable, then the man-made ills, which are the product of man’s purposeful and value-ridden actions, would disappear, and the natural ills that remain would no longer be seen as ills but as an inevitable part of the course of life. Thus in Zhuangzi’s eyes, man is the author of his own suffering and bondage, and all his fears spring from the web of values created by himself alone.

[Anonymous No.20868092]

>>20867295
>But it sounds a little like See
It didn't when the song was written. It sounded more like "hey", and indeed in more conservative southern Chinese languages it still does. This is where ignoring historical phonology gets you when studying poetry.

[Anonymous No.20868127]

>>20867550
I'll be honest, after repeated reading I find the original clearer than your translation, and I'm a native English speaker.

[Anonymous No.20868698]

I'll again take the opportunity to share one of my favorite Chinese poems:
詠少年
呉均
董生惟巧笑,子都信美目。
百萬市一言,千金買相逐。
不道參差菜,誰論窈窕淑。
願君奉繡被,來就越人宿。
In Praise of a Boy
Wu Jun
Like Dong Xian[1] you have such a lovely smile
Like Gongsun Zidu[2] you have truly beautiful eyes
For a million coins I would purchase one word from you
For a thousand pieces of gold I would buy your company
I will not speak of the duckweed, here long, here short[3]
Who would discuss a modest, virtuous, retiring young lady?[3]
I wish to present to you an embroidered quilt[4]
And let us share the lodging of the Yue boatman[4]
[1] Dong Xian was Emperor Ai of Han's lover; it is said that when he had fallen asleep on the emperor's sleeve, he cut off the sleeve of his expensive robe rather than wake him. Based on this anecdote male homosexuality is traditionally known as 'the passion of the cut sleeve'.
[2] Zidu was the courtesy name of Gongsun Yan, a minster in the state of Yan in the Warring States period, known both for his physical beauty and for his martial skill.
[3] These are references to Guan Ju, the first poem from the Book of Songs.
[4] This is a reference to the Song of the Yue Boatman, which is commonly interpreted as also dealing with the topic of romantic love between men.

[Anonymous No.20868717]

>>20861426
Why did he think of his hometown when he saw frost and moon?

[Anonymous No.20868722]

>>20868092
This is absolutely correct, ancient Chinese pronounciations were different. I just wanted to capture the feel of that song to modern ears.

[Anonymous No.20868724]

>>20868698
And another favorite poem, better-known, also in my own translation:
十年生死兩茫茫,
不思量,自難忘。
千里孤墳,無處話淒涼。
縱使相逢應不識,
塵滿面,鬢如霜。
夜來幽夢忽還鄉,
小軒窗,正梳妝。
相顧無言,惟有淚千行。
料得年年腸斷處,
明月夜,短松岡。
蘇東坡《江城子》(乙卯 正月二十 夜記夢)
For ten years, this abyss between the living and the dead.
It's not that I think of you
so much as I couldn't forget you if I tried.
Your lonely grave a thousand miles away,
I have nowhere to talk about my bereavement.
Even if we were to meet, I don't suppose we'd recognize each other,
my face is covered in dust
and my hair is like frost.

Last night I dreamed that all of a sudden I was back home
and at the window of our little home
you were there, combing your hair, doing your makeup.
We gaze at each other without words,
just a thousand streams of tears.
I suppose it'll continue to be a place of heartbreak, year after year
under the light of the moon,
the hill with the young pine trees.

[Anonymous No.20868740]

>>20868724
Good Chinese poetry makes me sad in a cosmic way. Got any more?

[Anonymous No.20868752]

>>20867404
Brilliant trap for the real pseuds

[Anonymous No.20868753]

>>20867777
Does 厲之人 actually mean leper, or just ugly person? (fierce-looking?) The gender of that expression is indeterminate. I think Burton Watson takes some liberties with the text to improve the meaning of it, his translation style is very colloquial and familiar.

[Anonymous No.20868764]

>>20867344
Octavian is just great at PR not that there is power and regality on the month named after him.

[Anonymous No.20868773]

>>20868740
I found Pipa Xing quite heartrending, though I haven't written my own translation of it. You can probably find a few different translations online to compare.

[Anonymous No.20868790]

>>20868698
>>20868724
Thank you for sharing these poems! I did not know of them.

Yes the Yue boatman song can be made homosexual, just like all of Shakespeare's heroines lol, I just like the modernised female sung arrangement version from the Banquet film better.

When translating a poem, what approach do you take? Do you try to retain meaning, remain faithful to the historic context, or emphasise lyricism? My personal preference is to make the poems as abstract and universal as possible. I would even just drop the names of personnages etc, save them for footnotes, most modern readers would glaze over at who is Lady Li or Duke Wen etc.

[Anonymous No.20868795]

>>20868790
These ones I've mostly tried to retain the meaning but I've thought about writing more poetic translations. I've thought about a few different possible ways to transfer the concept of 平仄 to English.

[Anonymous No.20868858]

>>20867715
Next thing you tell me it reminds him of his wife. Makes sense to me, but takes a lot of assumption. Nothing in the text signifies self pleasure. Its more like homesickness or something in the frost or the moon reminds him of his hometown. The Daoist essay mentioned earlier is my best bet to be honest

[Anonymous No.20868880]

Here is my translation attempt of a very famous poem

春望
国破山河在,城春草木深。
感时花溅泪,恨别鸟惊心。
烽火连三月,家书抵万金。
白头搔更短,浑欲不胜簪。

Spring Lament, Du Fu
(c. 755CE, Tang Dynasty during An Lushan Rebellion)
The country broken, mountains and rivers remain;
When City's Spring wakens, the grass and trees deepen, untamed.
A moment's sorrow, a tear-flecked petal;
A heart's parting regret, a bird startled.
Three month's war-fires warn
For letters home, ten thousand gold forsworn.
White hair unravelled and shorn;
A hairpin lost, almost a wish forlorn.

[Anonymous No.20868950]

>>20867715
>>20868858
Look, I obtained the original version of this poem
It even rhymes in the original Chinese

床前精液光
疑是滴上箱
举茎望淫月
低头屁股香

Before the bed no seed is left
I thought I dripped it onto a chest!
I grasp my "stem" before the wanton moon
And slump my head into a fragrant rump.

[Anonymous No.20869883]

>>20868880
do it again

[Anonymous No.20870394]

>>20862787
>disbelieve the Hoar
Based Chinese

[Anonymous No.20870879]

>>20861472
I don't have to read about such basic shit. I can just think of it myself. This board is fucking retarded.
>>20861503
You wasted your life reading shit books in the wrong way. That's a double whammy. Imagine thinking that Chomksy and Foucault are representative for semiotics and hermeneutics.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/
search for "foucault" or "chomsky"
0 results

[Anonymous No.20870912]

>>20867295
Isn’t this the poem where they think the original language belonged to the tai-kadai family?

[Anonymous No.20870917]

>>20867331
August doesn’t mean mighty

[Anonymous No.20870938]

>>20868724
In feel very close to the one Ezra pound did. Is it the same poem?

[Anonymous No.20870945]

>>20868880
Just imagine these poems in Chinese calligraphy on paper. Total artwork.

[Anonymous No.20871063]

>>20870938
I don't know, what poem by Ezra Pound are you thinking of?

[Anonymous No.20871115]

>>20868724
Roughly accurate, but not very aesthetically pleasing.
>>20868880
Some lines are dubiously translated, especially the last 2. Overall, somewhat accurate, with a loss of subtle imagery however.
>>20867679
Somewhat accurate, but solely judging from your translation, someone might easily misunderstand its meaning.
>A desiring glance from her lord, stolen
Do you mean someone has stolen her lord's glance, which in turn causes her to 'pluck a harpstring wrong'? Since you mentioned the reference to Zhou, I suppose you have done your research and know that it's the exact opposite. Yet your translation can be read that way. >>20867550
Somewhat accurate, with a loss of thematic element. 妝, 絲絛, 裁出, 剪刀 all point to tailoring of female clothes. In other words, there's a deliberate connection with maiden in the poem. It's a bit far-fetch to read this element from your translation.
>>20866874
The connection to 老莊 is novel, I have never seen anyone read it this way. Though I suspect you're over-intellectualizing here. I don't deny everything post AD has something to do with Taoism. After all, Taoism in the traditional sense is so broad that it's practically a dumping ground for anything the Chinese had come up with. Because of that, its influence is deep enough for people to unconsciously incorporate it in their works. Perhaps because we Chinese are so used to it we don't usually notice it ourselves. That is, when we speak of Taoism, we are talking about something very specific, either as a school of thought, or as a practised religion. Our conventional read of the poem is not complicated at all, and your read does sound a bit 'too much'. It's nice to see new things once in a while though.

[Anonymous No.20871132]

>>20861468
Amazing bait, sir.

[Anonymous No.20871134]

>>20870945
Here is a short excerpt of a refrain from a Qin dynasty poem (?) which might help explain the interconnections between calligraphy, etymology and Chinese philosophy and culture.

The phrase is

相其阴阳
观其流泉

or as shown (right to left in traditional nonsimplified characters)

泉流其觀陽陰其相

I translate the phrases as

Face the shadow upon the mountain
Behold the flood of the fountain stream

The first line is one of the earliest references to the concept of yinyang in Chinese culture. If you study and examine the character calligraphy,

陰 yin: resembles the shadow of clouds over mountain peaks
陽 yang: resembles the rays of light emanating from the sun over the mountaintop.

There are other visual resemblances too.
其, an literary Chinese pronoun akin to meaning: "that one, the other thing" resembles a wicker basket - a container that lends and carries easily the meaning of "that other thing".

The characters for 流泉 look a little like streams of flowing water, and perhaps you can see the eyes on the side of the characters 相 or 观

As I understand it, this poem phrase perhaps originally referred to a geomantic application - yin/yang the shadow of the mountain/the bright sun as a means to situate an abode or dwelling upon an auspicious location.

[Anonymous No.20871167]

>>20871115
浑欲不胜
So I have never seen anyone comment on this in all the traditional texts. But look at that phrase. It means, literally:
almost - wish/desire - not - victory
ie, as if winning the war is not worth it...? Yet the addition of the zan / hairpin 簪 word at the end changes the meaning completely, to that of the hair being torn out because of worry or despair etc, unable to contain the hairpin. I think Du Fu chose thst phrasing deliberately - having depicted the despair and grief brought by war and unrest, he questions its worth at the end.

[Anonymous No.20871178]

>>20870945
Here is a short excerpt of a refrain from a Qin dynasty poem (?) which might help explain the interconnections between calligraphy, etymology and Chinese philosophy and culture.

The phrase is

相其阴阳
观其流泉

or as shown (right to left in traditional nonsimplified characters)

泉流其觀陽陰其相

I translate the phrases as

Face the shadow upon the bright mountain
Behold the flood of the fountain stream

The first line is one of the earliest references to the concept of yinyang in Chinese culture. If you study and examine the character calligraphy,

陰 yin: resembles the shadow of clouds over mountain peaks
陽 yang: resembles the rays of light emanating from the sun over the mountaintop.

There are other visual resemblances too.
其, an literary Chinese pronoun akin to meaning: "that one, the other thing" resembles a wicker basket - a container that lends and carries easily the meaning of "that other thing".

The characters for 流泉 look a little like streams of flowing water, and perhaps you can see the eyes on the side of the characters 相 or 观

As I understand it, this poem phrase perhaps originally referred to a geomantic application - yin/yang the shadow of the mountain/the bright sun as a means to situate an abode or dwelling upon an auspicious location.

[Anonymous No.20871200]

>>20870945
>>20871167
Maybe this alternative old calligraphy font can help you discern the eyes 目 (4th, 8th characters from left) the flowing stream (1st and 2nd characters from left) better etc.

[Anonymous No.20871231]

>>20871178
>>20871200
To see the pictographic origin of that character etymology from the poem, look at this pic related period calligraphy for 泉 fountain, stream - it literally looks like a picture of a mouth of a spring or water / riverbank one might inscribe upon the bamboo strip records of that era.

[Anonymous No.20871279]

>>20866874
>>20871115
Here is the famous deictic passage of Zhuangzi where he is explaining the fundamental dialectical method of 是非 (this/not-that, the method of opposing discernment). It is very hard to translate as there are multiple overlapping interpretations. The elusive outcome one seeks to attain is clarity.

物無非彼,物無非是。自彼則不見,自知則知之。故曰:彼出於是,是亦因彼。彼是,方生之說也。雖然,方生方死,方死方生;方可方不可,方不可方可;因是因非,因非因是。是以聖人不由,而照之于天,亦因是也。是亦彼也,彼亦是也。彼亦一是非,此亦一是非。果且有彼是乎哉?果且無彼是乎哉?彼是莫得其偶,謂之道樞。樞始得其環中,以應無窮。是亦一無窮,非亦一無窮也。故曰「莫若以明」。

There is no thing that is not "that", and there is no thing that is not "this". If I look at something from "that", I do not see it; only if I look at it from knowing do I know it. Hence it is said, 'That view comes from this; and this view is a consequence of that:' - which is the theory that that view and this (the opposite views) produce each the other. Although it be so, there is affirmed now life and now death; now death and now life; now the admissibility of a thing and now its inadmissibility; now its inadmissibility and now its admissibility. (The disputants) now affirm and now deny; now deny and now affirm. Therefore the sagely man does not pursue this method, but views things in the light of (his) Heaven (-ly nature), and hence forms his judgment of what is right. This view is the same as that, and that view is the same as this. But that view involves both a right and a wrong; and this view involves also a right and a wrong - are there indeed the two views, that and this? Or are there not the two views, that and this? They have not found their point of correspondency which is called the pivot of the Dao. As soon as one finds this pivot, he stands in the centre of the ring (of thought), where he can respond without end to the changing views; without end to those affirming, and without end to those denying. Therefore I said, 'There is nothing like the proper light (of the mind).'

[Anonymous No.20871283]

>>20871279
Another translation of the same section. Here 明 is translated as clarity, not light / enlightenment of the mind

Everything has its “that,” everything has its “this.” From the point of view of “that,” you cannot see it; but through understanding, you can know it. So I say, “that” comes out of “this,” and “this” depends on “that”—which is to say that “this” and “that” give birth to each other. But where there is birth, there must be death; where there is death, there must be birth. Where there is acceptability, there must be unacceptability; where there is unacceptability, there must be acceptability. Where there is recognition of right, there must be recognition of wrong; where there is recognition of wrong, there must be recognition of right. Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way but illuminates all in the light of Heaven.6 He, too, recognizes a “this” but a “this” that is also “that,” a “that” that is also “this.” His “that” has both a right and a wrong in it; his “this,” too, has both a right and a wrong in it. So, in fact, does he still have a “this” and “that”? Or does he, in fact, no longer have a “this” and “that”? A state in which “this” and “that” no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly. Its right, then, is a single endlessness, and its wrong, too, is a single endlessness. So I say, the best thing to use is clarity.

[Anonymous No.20871345]

To return to the original poem, it is really a detached poem of contemplation.
>>20861448
>>20866874

I deliberately contrasted it with a more explicitly emotional and decadent poem here, the courtesan one
>>20866989
to illustrate how the moonlight poem does not resort to emotional exclamations (what the disembodied head is actually thinking about with regards to his old homeplace is not revealed, neither condemned with guilt nor eulogised with nostalgic praise).

The minimalistic poem is about perception - seeing celestial light from the moon and doubting / confusing it with earthy mundane frost, that triggers memory.

The deictic 是非 shifei section of Zhuangzi
>>20871279
>>20871283
is about perceiving and discernment of opposing otherness in all things. This is perhaps what the yinyang
>>20871178
later became.

To see a thing is to situate yourself in relation to it. There is no Great Authority that provides the One True Way for everyone; you can only try to choose among the paths available to yourself. You are trying to attain the Clarity 明 / Enlightenment, but it is as ungraspable as the fleeting moonlight.

The contemplation of this divide between the heavens and the sublunary realm of home below is what I think is really meant by this simple moonlight poem.

[Anonymous No.20871377]

The discernment of otherness in oneself, as well as oneself in others, what I believe Zhuangzi is describing in his shifei section, connects with this phrase from WH Auden I cited here

>All we are not stares back at what we are.
>>20867404

From the Sea and the Mirror. I wonder if some Chinese philosophy from Auden's Sino-Japanese War travels and his China sonnets diffused into his thinking. For context, here is some of the passage spoken by Auden's Prospero to Ariel

Now, Ariel, I am that I am, your late and lonely master,
Who knows now what magic is:—the power to enchant
That comes from disillusion. What the books can teach one
Is that most desires end up in stinking ponds,
But we have only to learn to sit still and give no orders,
To make you offer us your echo and your mirror;
We have only to believe you, then you dare not lie;
To ask for nothing, and at once from your calm eyes,
With their lucid proof of apprehension and disorder,
All we are not stares back at what we are. For all things,
In your company, can be themselves

[Anonymous No.20871409]

>>20866874
>>20867404
>>20871178
>>20871377
>moonlight, geomancy, yinyang
Prospero the Magician abandons the Sun and Moon, famously delivering his sorcerous books into the dissolution of the Sea at the end of the Tempest. Auden analysed Shakespeare extensively. Perhaps he instinctively felt the connection of the old Chinese sun moon geomancy of light and shadow, mountain and clouds, yinyang, the other and otherness of self given how Shakespeare describes Prospero's magic

PROSPERO.
...
you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war—to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire
...

[Anonymous No.20871426]

>>20871409
Now let us see how Zhuangzi describes magic:

至人神矣,大泽焚而不能热,河汉冱而不能寒,疾雷破山,风振海,而不能惊。若然者,乘云气,骑日月,而游乎四海之外,死生无变于己,而况利害之端乎?

The Perfected One becomes divine. Great lakes might be boiling about him, and he would not feel their heat; the rivers might be frozen up, and he would not feel the cold; the hurrying thunderbolts might split the mountains, and the wind shake the ocean, without being able to make him afraid. Being such, he mounts on the clouds of the air, rides on the sun and moon, and rambles at ease beyond the four seas. Neither death nor life makes any change in him, and how much less should the considerations of advantage and injury do so!'

[Anonymous No.20871450]

So if you examine the sun and moon celestial imagery of these passages, as described by

>>20871178
the ancient Qin text on yinyang geomancy, the light and shadow before the mountain stream

>>20871279
Zhuangzi, the other and otherness of self, that became the discernment of oppositions of yinyang;

>>20871426
the magic (metaphorical, or literal as Daoists came to believe) of heaven and earth of Zhuangzi;

>>20871409
Shakespeare describing the sun and moon powers of Prospero;

>>20871377
Auden, in his modern reimagination and continuation of Shakespeare;

>>20866874
I think you might come to see how the simple moonlight poem possesses some greater meaning.

[Anonymous No.20871480]

>>20861448
you are all disgustingly male-centric this poem is a MENSTRUATION poem moons are menses, bloody menstrual cycles not some beardy chinese man. No men are mentioned in this poem. Menstruation. That is all.

[Anonymous No.20871501]

>>20866880
>>20867715
>>20868950
New interpretation of this poem: it is about the moon goddess Chang'E, she menstruates a puddle of frost. It makes her sad and she thinks about her home on the moon.

[Anonymous No.20871554]

>>20871115
>Roughly accurate, but not very aesthetically pleasing.
Only roughly? What do you think are the main inaccuracies?

[Anonymous No.20871568]

>>20871178
>其, an literary Chinese pronoun akin to meaning: "that one, the other thing" resembles a wicker basket - a container that lends and carries easily the meaning of "that other thing".
What are you talking about? It's just 假借.

[Anonymous No.20871585]

>>20871480
I don't know if you're joking, but the author is a man. Even if he weren't, though, I think your interpretation is a bit of a stretch and I say this even as a fellow woman.

[Anonymous No.20871602]

>>20871568
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B6
The etymology of that character 其, as seen in the form upon the ancient Chinese bamboo scripts, is from a pictogram of a basket, a container for "that thing". Similar etymological analysis shows yin yang as the shadow of occluding clouds / sun rays over the mountain etc, giving meaning to that ancient likely geomantic poem

[Anonymous No.20871633]

>>20868698
So for your homoerotic Yue Song poem, I tried to make it a bit abstract and universal

董生唯巧笑,子都信美目。
百万市一言,千金买相逐。
不道参差菜,谁论窈窕淑。
愿言捧绣被,来就越人宿。

Keen smiles quicken the trustful allure of your eyes
Many words sought for one; countless moments
Cherished for a chance encounter.
...

The last few lines are a bit difficult to understand, not sure exactly the historical context of 参差菜 for example, I am still pondering them.

I favour a sort of abstract universal translation approach, using metonymy / meronymy slightly influenced by the Euphuistic Elizabethab style of concatenated image-metaphors. I try to avoid explicit personalisations he she or him her etc because in the original Chinese they are absent given the brevity and compactness of the form; they are all inferred from the context etc. obviously in my renditions the original meanings are stretched somewhat in their subordination to poetic lyricism. I would leave all names and titles to historical footnotes.

[Anonymous No.20871640]

>>20868698
So for your homoerotic Yue Song poem, I tried to make it a bit abstract and universal

董生唯巧笑,子都信美目。
百万市一言,千金买相逐。
不道参差菜,谁论窈窕淑。
愿言捧绣被,来就越人宿。

Keen smiles quicken the trustful allure of your eyes
Many words sought for one; countless moments
Cherished for a chance encounter.
...

The last few lines are a bit difficult to understand, not sure exactly the historical context of 参差菜 for example, I am still pondering them.

I favour a sort of abstract universal translation approach, using metonymy / meronymy slightly influenced by the Euphuistic Elizabethan style of concatenated image-metaphors. I try to avoid explicit personalisations he she or him her etc because in the original Chinese they are absent given the brevity and compactness of the form; they are all inferred from the context etc. obviously in my renditions the original meanings are stretched somewhat in their subordination to poetic lyricism. I would leave all names and titles to historical footnotes.

[Anonymous No.20871720]

Here is a less gay poem, about a border fortress near the wilderness beyond Lintao

饮马渡秋水,水寒风似刀。
平沙日未没,黯黯见临洮。
昔日长城战,咸言意气高。
黄尘足今古,白骨乱蓬蒿。

Drink, Horse - cross the Autumn water,
Water cold as a wind-whetted blade
Watch the sun, sunken upon the sandy plain
And the shadowed outpost beyond.

And the battles of old, the long wall of slaughter
The spirit once proud upon all men's tongues
Yet now the ancients, scattered to parched dust
Ensnared in wild ruin: in white bones, undone.

Wang Changling
Tang Dynasty
698–756 CE

[Anonymous No.20871728]

>>20871720
Interestingly with the repetition of water/water in that poem, it seems anadiplosis is present in Chinese poetry too.

[Anonymous No.20871876]

>>20871585
Post feet.

[Anonymous No.20871921]

>>20864317
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIkQSuZbbt0

Here's your pure unaltered old chinese

[Anonymous No.20872209]

>>20871876
you get a dainty foot CGI dunhuang dancer concubine. She smells very pleasant and fragrant

[Anonymous No.20872251]

>>20868698
>>20871640
Ok, here is my completed attempt at your poem. I had to look up the botanical plant reference lol.

董生唯巧笑,子都信美目。
百万市一言,千金买相逐。
不道参差菜,谁论窈窕淑。
愿言捧绣被,来就越人宿。

Keen smiles quicken the trustful allure of your eyes
Many words sought for one; moments countless
Cherished for a chance encounter.
Speak not of the floating heart of lotus flowers
Who pleads for the beauty of another;
For bestowed in this embroidered brocade
Is the shelter a ferryman once gave.
...
That botanical reference is apparently to Nymphoides Peltatum, also known as Yellow Floating Heart
参差菜:参差的荇xìng菜。参差cēncī,长短不齐。荇菜,亦作莕菜,别名水荷叶,水生可食。《诗经。周南.关雎》“参差荇菜,左右流之。”

[Anonymous No.20872269]

>>20872251
Yes the original poem may be homoerotic lol, but I just excised the gay, if you want to imagine it as gay, you can do so according to your own proclivities. I changed the reference from Yue boatman to a ferryman at the end - no Western reader will understand what or who that Yue boatman is, but most will probably understand the ferryman (it is death DEATH! DEATH! muahahaha) So if you want to make the translated poem a bit ominous or elegiac, imagine some Baudelaire death and the maiden themes, the interpetation is up to you.

[Anonymous No.20872304]

>>20868880
i'm sorry but this is really bad, you clearly cannot read classical chinese accurately

[Anonymous No.20872307]

>>20872251
A few small amendments. Dropping lotus, it breaks the metre

董生唯巧笑,子都信美目。
百万市一言,千金买相逐。
不道参差菜,谁论窈窕淑。
愿言捧绣被,来就越人宿。

Keen smiles quicken the trustful allure of your eyes
Many words sought for just one; countless
Moments cherished for a chance encounter.
Speak not of the floating heart of flowers
Who pleads for the beauty of another;
For bestowed in this embroidered brocade
Is the shelter the ferryman once gave.

[Anonymous No.20872306]

>>20872269
>(it is death DEATH! DEATH! muahahaha)

[Anonymous No.20872318]

>>20872304
Could you provide your translated version?

As mentioned, I am just translating for myself. I like to convey the feel of the sense impressions, the lyricism of it. I prioritise the aesthetic form of the output, I will sacrifice accuracy and historicity for poetry every time - because that is what I like and prefer.

[Anonymous No.20872357]

>>20872318
I think the reason why Chinese poetry is so inaccessible is it is translated by academics. They emphasise the accuracy and historic nature of it and often butcher the poetry. So for example an academic will probably translate a poem with Lintao, or Dong xian etc, this is correct and accurate but the vast majority of the reading audience will not care about who these people are. For those that care, put this stuff in the footnotes, which you can fill with Chinese historical anecdotes or detailed explanations of plant botanical names. Most people just want to read a pretty poem, it can be gay or not gay, just read whatever you want into it. I structure the format of my translations fairly carefully, if you look at the structure it is intended to evoke some Shakespearean or metaphysical poet / Euphuistic style parallels etc. To make the Chinese poems work in English I think you have to make them abstract and universal, otherwise the eye is caught and entangled in Dong xian or whatever flower cenci exactly is etc. That detail is superfluous to the understanding of the poems aesthetics.

[Anonymous No.20872377]

>>20872251
>>20872307
>>20872307
Of course I am not infallible, if anyone else wants to have a try at translating any of the above poems, I would be very intrigued to see what variations and aesthetic avenues people pursue. I tend to adopt a slightly archaic or affected style lol, I have just read too much Shakespeare, it is what I prefer and reference a lot of verse against

[Anonymous No.20872382]

>>20872357
Post examples of niggas who do it right

[Anonymous No.20872386]

Where did you guys learn your Chinese? I've spent years in 成都 and can talk for hours but this shit is way beyond me.

[Anonymous No.20872451]

>>20872386
How I translate

So to be honest, my ancient Chinese is pretty terrible lol. But what I can do is read modern Chinese, search baike.baidu or ctext.org lol, use a thesaurus and also know some general stuff about English poetry from Beowulf to Shakespeare, Donne to TS Eliot or WB Yeats or Dylan Thomas and WH Auden, Ted Hughes or Sylvia Plath etc.

1/I think the starting point before translating Chinese is actually to first know a lot of English poetry. You need to know a lot of obscure weird English words and also the context of how they are deployed, weird anacolutha or syntactical patterns from different English poems.

2/Then you can read the ancient Chinese poem, and completely not understand it. You probably have to look up the vernacular explanation on baidu or some Chinese academic website or ancient Chinese poetry compilation alongside all the historical references, eg that botanical plant in the other anon's poem, the water flower one.

What I then do is follow Auden's suggestion (maybe he stole it from CS Lewis) what I quoted here:
>>20867485

3/A myth is a story that does not exist in words. You are trying to get the essence of the thing, the sense-images, beyond the word instances of a specific language. Shakespeare's Tempest is a good example, you do not need specific language to see a ship, wrecked by a storm. The Lintao border fortress poem here (it made me think of Conan the barbarian lol)
>>20871720
You do not need to care or know about what Lintao exactly is to see those images of a horse and warrior in a sandy, bone strewn wilderness of ruins.

4/So once you have those mythopoeic thought images in your head, you can then fiddle around with a thesaurus or rhyme and metre in an attempt to desperately wrestle and contort them upon the imprint of non-native language lol. If you have read a lot of English poetry, the wrestling becomes less violent and more akin to gentle coaxing.

[Anonymous No.20872472]

>>20872318
The problem is not that it's not 'academic', it's that you've misread the poem in the original, and just wrote your own nonsense in the gaps.

>When City's Spring wakens, the grass and trees deepen, untamed
wakens? untamed?? what does it mean for trees to deepen?
>A moment's sorrow, a tear-flecked petal
花 is a verb here. There is also a possible pun on flower, but that's secondary.
>A heart's parting regret, a bird startled
There's clearly a caesura here between 恨别 and 鸟精心, but you just jumbled them up into your own thing. Which might be acceptable as an adaptation if it were good, but
>Three month's war-fires warn
warn??
>White hair unravelled and shorn;
>A hairpin lost, almost a wish forlorn.
what happened to 搔? the image is so subtle in the original, but yours is so burdensome. what happened to 不胜? it's not 'lost'.

>I am just translating for myself
lel

[Anonymous No.20872528]

>>20872472
Your criticisms are valid, but you might convey your preferred ideals better if you just provided your own improved translation.

The idea with poetry is that things are personified. You can use unusual imagery, and yes, if you are shocked by 'trees deepening untamed', a lot of poetry from Shakespeare onwards may truly revolt you!

I am aware of that flower verb thing (hence - flecked) but the imagery is again one of motion. The idea of these poems is disembodied self - yet there is embodiment as the eye moves to the ground (tear falls upon the petal) and the view shifts to the sky (bird startled overhead). I make this imagery interpretation explicit in my translation, whereas in the original it is implied / not so deliberately revealed. As I say, you are of course free to dislike or disagree with its accuracy, but I would like to see your own translated version too, for any of the poems above.

[Anonymous No.20872562]

>>20872472
Have you ever seen Ezra Pound's "Chinese" poetry. If you think even these translations are inaccurate... his may infuriate you

[Anonymous No.20872608]

>>20872472
>Neither Pound nor Fenollosa spoke or read Chinese proficiently, and Pound was working from the posthumous notes of an American who had studied Chinese under a Japanese teacher. Nevertheless, according to Michael Alexander, there are competent judges of Chinese and English poetry who see Pound's work as the best translations of Chinese to English poetry ever made, though scholars have complained that it contains many mistakes.[12] Pound has been criticized for omitting or adding sections to his poems which have no basis in the original texts, though critics argue that the fidelity of Cathay to the original Chinese is beside the point.[13]

>"One can easily excommunicate Pound from the Forbidden City of Chinese studies, but it seems clear that in his dealings with Cathay, even when he is given only the barest details, he is able to get into the central concerns of the original author by what we may perhaps call a kind of clairvoyance."[14] Asian and American literature scholar Steven Yao writes that Pound saw in his lack of formal Chinese training a kind of freedom that allowed him to interpret the Chinese characters in a manner he saw fit, making the work closer to a newly written original piece instead of a mere translation.[15]

[Anonymous No.20872609]

>>20866900
>the ultimate truth?
>it's in piss and shit

[Anonymous No.20872634]

This is correct. The Dao is piss and shit, according to Zhuangzi.
>>20866900
Zhuangzi is actually the original troll, if you read his text it feels a lot like 4chan 2400 years ago. Out of Daodejing (Laozi text) Lunyu (Confucian text) Zhuangzi feels the most realistic - for examlle, he depicts vast swathes of society, kings, lords, scholars; but also frequently - cripples, madmen, the deformed, criminals, the mutilated.

A memorable passage begins with the praise of a butcher, who after decades of skillfully mastering the art of knifework, displays his skills before an observer to illustrate the flawless unconscious flow of innate skill that comes with mastery of the Dao - how easy it is to cut the meat! The next section describes the testament of an old official - he has had his foot amputated (a common punishment for treason / disloyalty etc in ancient China 2400 years ago).

Whether the praise of the butcher's skill and knifework upon the carcass was genuine mastery of the Dao, or a satire of the ministrations of a Tyrant upon the flesh of the populace beneath him, is left to the determination of the reader.

[Anonymous No.20872645]

>>20872609
Did you know that after his Shakespeare lectures and China travels, WH Auden wrote a defecation poem entirely about faeces. Here it is:

The Geography Of The House
(for Christopher Isherwood)

Seated after breakfast
In this white-tiled cabin
Arabs call The House where
Everybody goes,
Even melancholics
Raise a cheer to Mrs
Nature for the primal
Pleasures She bestows.
Sex is but a dream to
Seventy-and-over,
But a joy proposed un-
-til we start to shave:
Mouth-delight depends on
Virtue in the cook, but
This She guarantees from
Cradle unto grave.
Lifted off the potty,
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.
Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Cross-words have been solved there):
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool.
All the Arts derive from
This ur-act of making,
Private to the artist:
Makers’ lives are spent
Striving in their chosen
Medium to produce a
De-narcissus-ised en-
-during excrement.
Freud did not invent the
Constipated miser:
Banks have letter-boxes
Built in their façade
Marked For Night Deposits,
Stocks are firm or liquid,
Currencies of nations
Either soft or hard.
Global Mother, keep our
Bowels of compassion
Open through our lifetime,
Purge our minds as well:
Grant us a kind ending,
Not a second childhood,
Petulant, weak-sphinctered,
In a cheap hotel
Keep us in our station:
When we get pound-noteish,
When we seem about to
Take up Higher Thought,
Send us some deflating
Image like the pained ex-
-pression on a Major
Prophet taken short.
(Orthodoxy ought to
Bless our modern plumbing:
Swift and St Augustine
Lived in centuries
When a stench of sewage
Ever in the nostrils
Made a strong debating
Point for Manichees.)
Mind and Body run on
Different time-tables:
Not until our morning
Visit here can we
Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.
July 1964

[Anonymous No.20872648]

>>20872645
note carefully the positions of the hyphenated words of this poem, and contemplate what is causing those exertions.

[Anonymous No.20872669]

>>20872528
I'm not posting my version as I will hopefully one day publish it as part of a wider history of china through translated verse, but since I see you are an earnest (though absurdly misguided) fellow, I will post a couplet from it for your edification

感时花溅泪 As sighs splash crying, bloomed tears lie
恨别鸟惊心 Where birdplay shocks the heart's sheer rued goodbyes

You will see it is not word-for-word; but it is also a translation, not a reinterpretation.

>>20872562
>>20872608

I'm aware of this argument, but don't accept it. Some rando scholars just reify 'the central concerns of the author' and claim Pound gets at the 'spirit of the originals', all subjective claims that I don't buy,. They often sound good, in English; but they can be bettered, by being both good in English, and actual translations. It was just beyond Pound's ability, since he was in most his interests somewhat of a hack

[Anonymous No.20872670]

[Anonymous No.20872676]

>>20872634
Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui.2 At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee—zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Jingshou music.3
“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wenhui. “Imagine skill reaching such heights!”
Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now—now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop, and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.
...
...
Excellent!” said Lord Wenhui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ding and learned how to care for life!”

...
...
When Gongwen Xuan saw the Commander of the Right (ie his other foot has been amputated) he was startled and said, “What kind of man is this? How did he come to lose his foot? Was it Heaven? Or was it man?”

“It was Heaven, not man,” said the commander. “When Heaven gave me life, it saw to it that I would be one-footed. Men’s looks are given to them. So I know this was the work of Heaven and not of man. The swamp pheasant has to walk ten paces for one peck and a hundred paces for one drink, but it doesn’t want to be kept in a cage. Though you treat it like a king, its spirit won’t be content.”

[Anonymous No.20872695]

nice thread

[Anonymous No.20872709]

>>20872669
I read poems and translated some here for free. They may be good or bad, but I quite like them.

I think if you seek money or renown, investment management may be better than publishing poetry. I would just give poetry away for free.

Since I have my Auden open, here is what he said famously about poems, in his remembrance of Yeats:

***
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
...
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

[Anonymous No.20872933]

>>20872709
What funny about you anon is that from your posts it's clear why your translations are bad; you impute freely and then go off on your own tangents. I say, sincerely and with admiration, you would have made a good court jester, ala Roland

[Anonymous No.20873668]

>>20871602
Yes, but I'm saying that the reason why winnowing basket -> third person possessive demonstrative is because those words were near-homophones in Old Chinese. Even in modern Mandarin, 箕 'winnowing basket' is pronounced jī while 其 'his, her, its' is pronounced qí. (Originally the pictogram stood for winnowing-basket but since it was used as a rebus for 'his, her its' far more often that it was used to describe actual winnowing-baskets people started adding the 'bamboo' radical to specify they actually meant a winnowing-basket.) It's like how pic related is read "I can see you" in English.
>>20871640
>Keen smiles quicken the trustful allure of your eyes
I'm pretty sure 信 just means 'truly' in this context.
>Many words sought for one; countless moments
I must confess I'm not sure what this has to do with the original.
>The last few lines are a bit difficult to understand, not sure exactly the historical context of 参差菜 for example, I am still pondering them.
As I said, it's a reference to 關雎 from the 詩經. A pretty famous poem.
https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/guan-ju
>>20871876
Why would I do that? I'm here to discuss Chinese poetry, not cater to perverts.
>>20871921
In Li Bai's time it would have been Middle Chinese, which sounded rather like modern Cantonese or Hokkien.
>>20872269
>Yes the original poem may be homoerotic lol, but I just excised the gay
But why would you do that?
>>20872357
You could replace them with Western classical references, I suppose, like how what was Jupiter's day to the Romans became Thor's day (Thursday) when our ancestors translated it into their culture.
>>20872386
That's not surprising, even if they're both called "Chinese" Classical Chinese isn't the same language as Mandarin.
>>20872451
>So to be honest, my ancient Chinese is pretty terrible lol.
If you'd like any resources for actually learning Classical Chinese I can suggest some.
>>20872562
His work seems alright as poetry, but quite bad as translations.

[Anonymous No.20873714]

>>20872669
>>20872933
Chinese poetry is a pretty obscure interest over here, so I welcome anything that brings it to new audiences and expands the scope of interest and discourse.

I think apart from your contributions in Chinese I am the only other one (pretty much all the other translations are mine). So I commend you for sharing your poetry, no need to be shy!

People can get very sensitive about poetry, it is like their inner feelings are being reprimanded! Well as I mentioned with the WH Auden link
>>20872709
None of these poems or translations really matter lol, they are just a bit of fun, no need for indignation or even adherence to tremendous accuracy as Ezra Pound woefully demonstrated (though that is not really to my taste either). I was going to translate a Li Yu poem; he was an emperor, and even he realised the futility, even an emperor's poems do not matter.

Here are my thoughts on your translated lines. No need to take them to heart; sometimes, in art, it is better to just stay true to your own way.

>As sighs splash crying, bloomed tears lie
>Where birdplay shocks the heart's sheer rued goodbyes

So splash is an onomatopoeic word. The effect of this makes me think of carefree swimming or paddling pools, the equivalent in Chinese would be closer to 扑哧 than 溅 in English. The word bloomed (as opposed to say, blossoming tears) makes me simply think of the English phrase: bloomin' marvellous! So the choice of these words - to me - feel tonally misplaced.

If you have ever seen those word vectors from machine learning or gpt-3 type stuff, where words are ranked by some cosine similarity to sentiment, I feel words like splash or bloom would be remote from the lamentful or plaintive feel of this poem.

I would probably avoid the word goodbye, use farewell instead. Goodbye is a bit colloquial to me. I think sheer could probably just be omitted for the metre. Rueful is not bad, but birdplay (?) again feels tonally wrong. The birds are personifying grief/distress/worry, just like the blossoming tear-flowers.

I would say your translation is more accurate than mine. But everyone has their own preferences in terms of the aesthetics they like. I wish you all the best for when you publish your work.

[Anonymous No.20873745]

>>20861448
'Fore bed, bright moon light
Might be frost on groun'
Raise head, look bright moon
Drop head, think home town

How'd I do?

[Anonymous No.20873751]

>>20861468
One of their greatest books is completely about individual heroes and their deeds

Another is about individuals trying to reclaim their familial dynasty to their former glory

[Anonymous No.20873865]

>>20873745
This is utter genius! I venerate your tremendous literary prowess, O Great Sage!
As is proclaimed in the Daodejing:
大巧若拙
Great Skill Resembles Retardation
(actually clumsiness, but I am retarded)

[Anonymous No.20873881]

>>20873745
are you Philip Larkin of China? This is what happened to all intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution. They were forced to become Philip Larkin. Except maybe minus the gay

[Anonymous No.20873890]

>>20861448
the terseness of classical chinese can never be captured in english, it's like translating an obfuscated perl one liner into 10 lines of c++ and then criticizing how mundane and prosaic the c++ version is.

Or maybe an elegant recursive solution in a functional language into an imperative paradigm

[Anonymous No.20873898]

>>20873865
For me it's just awkwardness resembling great skill, lol.
>>20873881
I'm not with it on poetry, I just speak Chinese and remember the meter of the poem from hearing it recited to me. Could you explain who Philip Larkin is and why you think I'm like him?

[Anonymous No.20873913]

Current ranking of best poetry translations on this thread:

1st Place
Philip Larkin of China
>>20873745

2nd Place
Moonlight Ejaculation Sonata
>>20868950

(all other entries have been disqualified, too gay)

[Anonymous No.20873949]

>>20873898
Philip Larkin is either a librarian or possibly someone who wrote some phrases in incomprehensible archaic babble from the northern realm. We will skip over the slightly peculiar sexual experiences of his life but many of his poems exhibit this vernacular voice which is echoed in your version of the poem. His poetry is not exactly to my taste, but it is very recognisable when you see it.

The most famous work of Philip Larkin is the Confucian poem

This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse

[Anonymous No.20873986]

Here are some more of Zhuangzi views on women; in general they are not discussed very much though.

麗之姬,艾封人之子也。晉國之始得之也,涕泣沾襟;及其至於王所,與王同筐床,食芻豢,而後悔其泣也。予惡乎知夫死者不悔其始之蘄生乎!

“Lady Li was the daughter of the Margrave (border warden) of Ai. When she was first taken captive and brought to the state of Jin, she wept until her tears drenched the collar of her robe. But later, when she went to live in the palace of the ruler, shared his couch with him, and ate the delicious meats of his table, she wondered why she had ever wept. How do I know that the dead do not wonder why they ever longed for life?"

I think from my notes to the text, this Lady Li is the conspirator behind the attempted poisoning of Duke Xian of the realm of Jin. Essentially this historical intrigue:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ji_Unrest

In 656 BCE, Li Ji started her plot to frame Prince Shensheng. She told Shensheng that he should offer sacrifices to his deceased mother Qi Jiang while he was in Quwo. Moreover, Li Ji suggested that Shensheng bring back some of the sacrificial meat and wine and offer it to his father as tribute. Without the Prince’s knowledge, Li Ji secretly spiked the meat and wine with poison. Before eating the meat Shensheng had brought, Duke Xian gave a piece to his dog which immediately collapsed. Discovering the poison in the food, Duke Xian sent men to Quwo to arrest Shensheng and kill his teacher Du Yuankuan (杜原款). Upon hearing the news, Shensheng escaped to Quwo.

Shensheng was visited by his half-brother Chong'er in Quwo who then advised Shensheng to defend himself in front of Duke Xian by revealing Li Ji's plot. Shensheng replied that he wouldn't like to break his father's heart by revealing Li Ji's plot. When Chong'er advised him to escape, he replied that if he escaped, then it would look like he really planned to kill his father. He said that no one in the world would protect him then. Shensheng then hanged himself on the 7th day of the second month of 656 BCE.

[Anonymous No.20874010]

>>20873949
Shucks, I was just trying to stay within five syllables for each line and preserve some sort of rhyme.

[Anonymous No.20874029]

>>20873986
Does the point here have anything to do with her gender specifically? It's not obvious to me that it does.

[Anonymous No.20874043]

How about some quotations from the Analects. The Master here is of course Confucius. This quote always makes me think of all those fairy tales, fantasy novels or videogames that naively begin with an orphan child (eg Harry Potter kek)

[19-17] 曾子曰。吾聞諸夫子:人未有自致者也必也、親喪乎。』 。

[19:17] Ceng Zi said: “I have heard this from our master: ‘If a man has not yet fully experienced himself, he will when his parents die.’”


[17-23] 子曰。唯女子與小人爲難養也。近之則不孫、遠之則怨。

[17:23] The Master said: “Girls and inferior men are hard to get along with. If you get familiar with them, they lose their humility; if you are distant, they resent it.”

[Anonymous No.20874054]

Y'all niggas bitch about reading works in their original languages but proceed to shill the KJV Bible fan fiction.

[Anonymous No.20874077]

>>20861448
li bai was known for abstaining from sex and masturbation because he thought the sexual tension served as his muse, here he was fantasizing about a childhood lover. he dealth in metaphors because lust was frowned upon in a confucian society

the frost is a euphemism for jizz, it is white and cold due to being spilled outside of a woman's warm sheath. the moon is round and pale like a young girl's breasts, and represents the sacred feminine (Yin) as opposed to the sun's yang

the correct interpretation, which was banned by the communists until now, is:

moonlight at my feet
shine upon my skeet
gaze up at the moon
how i miss her teet

(alternatively "poon" if you want AABB)

[Anonymous No.20874086]

>>20861448
li bai was a huge virgin known for abstaining from sex and masturbation because he thought the sexual tension served as his muse, here he was fantasizing about an unrequited childhood love. he deals in metaphors because lust was frowned upon in a confucian society

the frost is a euphemism for jizz, it is white and cold due to being spilled outside of a woman's warm sheath. the moon is round and pale like a young girl's breasts, and represents the sacred feminine (Yin) as opposed to the sun's yang

the correct interpretation, which was banned by the communists until now, is:

moonlight at my feet
shine upon my skeet
gaze up at the moon
how i miss her teet

(alternatively "poon" if you want AABB)

[Anonymous No.20874101]

>>20874029
So I am not an expert on this era of history, I know that Lady Li (姬 ji is like Consort) was named 一代妖姬 ie Demoness of the Dynasty and was condemned as a wicked woman by other authors. Bear in mind though the events being described occurred 200years before the earliest inner chapters of Zhuangzi, perhaps even 400 years before some of the outer/miscellaneous chapters etc.

In general Zhuangzi tends to advocate for suspension of judgement, akin to what I called the ephectic nature of his text (like Greek Pyrrhonism). Zhuangzi for instance tells us that thieves have Virtue (boldness, daring etc, discernment in deciding who to plunder!) and also describes in a famous section the Benevolence of Tigers And Wolves. He advocates seeing things from the perspective of others, even unconventional ones like dreams or monkeys or other animals etc (everyone knows the butterfly story). If you were to criticise Zhuangzi his philosophy does not really provide answers beyond mild scepticism of all things, perhaps recognition of humility; it is more an attitude and state of mind to suspend authoritative judgement over others, and recognise in all things the opposing forces and contradictions that are also reflected in yourself. Everything is sort of good and bad all at once and remains irreconciliably intermingled and unresolved. If you contrast that with the Analects, every section is passing Judgement and naming Names over others

[Anonymous No.20874226]

I actually think if you compare the Pyrrhonism of Greek philosophy - the works are lost, but as I understand it, mostly summarised by Diogenes Laertius - the ataraxia, desired state of tranquility, is probably not far from the 大明 Great Clarity / Enlightenment of Zhuangzi. Both philosophies essentially advocate the suspension of judgement, though the Greek approach is more rhetorical whilst Zhuangzi is more intuitive / pragmatic. Zhuangzi for example directly asserts that even if you "win" an argument you have not proved any absolutist truth of right and wrong. He affords equal authority in construction to all argument (though it may not be the right one for each individual circumstance etc) Zhuangzi mostly recommends that one appeal to the accumulated authority of one's own experience (Dao as Path, an accumulated momentum of one's life choices and judgement) and this power of discernment is what he calls Virtue - a power of judging right and wrong for one's own Way or Dao. The heavens create the paths / Dao but they can never choose for you. And the idea of Dao is you can transmit it faithfully as skills for others, to show them all the other ways, but let them decide for themselves which way is their own.

From the Stanford philosophy source, Zhuangzi thinking arose in contention with Mohism (I think this was the dominant school of the time, a naturalistic utilitarianism based on a formal realism of the concept of cost-benefit) he is mostly refuting and satirising their sententious moralism and also Confucian Names, rites and social structures etc. Perhaps the most important contribution of Zhuangzi in contrast to Confucian or Daoist thinking is his strong manipulation of metaphor, language and multiple meanings. You can see how the Analects are rigidly itemised, but Zhuangzi is more like anecdotes and strange conversations as well as philosophical precepts. His philosophy endures because it really can be interpreted in so many Ways, which is what I think the Dao intended.

[Anonymous No.20874266]

>>20871063
The one with the sorrowful monkeys overhead... I will come out to meet you as far as cho-fu-sa

[Anonymous No.20874306]

>>20874266
I read the Ezra Pound poems a long time ago, they are interesting but from what I remember they are best thought of as completely his own inventions tangentially inspired or improvised around some vaguely Chinese wording of the original poems. At times they do capture some interesting nuances of feeling and aesthetic ideas compared to a strict academic translation though.

[Anonymous No.20874348]

>>20872209
Dainty Dunhuang Foot Concubine is disappointed no one liked her. She pouts a little and veils her face

[Anonymous No.20874367]

>>20874266
I don't think so. The poem you mention rings a bell but I can't put my finger on it.

[Anonymous No.20874372]

>>20874266
>>20874306
This one by Ezra Pound?
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50155/50155-h/50155-h.htm

The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden,
They hurt me,
I grow older,
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you,
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

[Anonymous No.20874405]

>>20874372
So what you can immediately see from the Ezra Pound poem "translation" is the amount of English self-centered I, you, I you etc. In nearly all Chinese poetry the compactness of form omits all these pronouns which in Chinese can just be inferred from the context. If you read Chinese poetry, there is this sense of disembodied presence, eg that Du Fu poem - tears are falling blossoming like flowers. Whose tears are they? The Li Bai moonlight poem, someone is raising and lowering their head, and thoughts of home villages are being pondered, but none of these events or contemplations or actions are really inhabited by the Western need for a self-centred presence of I and you (this is why I was discussing the Zhuangzi Deictics etc). So if you read Ezra Pound's poems, they are immediately rendered as foreign and not native to the aesthetic thought and structure of Ancient Chinese poetry. That does not mean they are bad or necessarily wrong, just that their aesthetics are very different.

[Anonymous No.20874453]

>>20874405
So you can see Ezra Pound is subordinated to his inevitable constriction of the expressiveness of his native language and thinking, all things must be "possessed", "my hair", "my forehead" etc. All actions must be assigned to individuals: you walked, we went, I married etc.

Now look at the willow poem
>>20867550
It is a metaphor for the willow tree as a maiden at maquillage or adorning herself in Spring raiment, the wind trimming her braids like scissors. Yet it can really be a lot of things. No she, or maidens are mentioned in the Chinese, the likenesses are just made, and the meaning is inferred.

This is why my inclination in translating Chinese poetry is to retain the universal abstractions (even though some poems explicitly do mention I, me you etc or historical places and locations).

The idea of Art is to maximise the interpetative space, so that any audience can find some meaning for themselves in it. Leave the detail to the footnotes and the historians.

[Anonymous No.20874616]

>>20873714
>撲哧

Hilarious, pic related. You are a perfect idiot, Sir. Please learn the difference between modern Mandarin and Classical Chinese

[Anonymous No.20874708]

>>20874616
Are you the translator anon? That is my point of how out of place the word splash sounds in English for a lamentful poem, as I think that word belongs to swimming pools lol. It is just my opinion lol, feel free to disregard it if you do not like it. It is why I take some liberties and translated it as

A moment's sorrow, a tear-flecked petal;
A heart's parting regret, a bird startled.

Because the tone of the poem is solemn or perhaps anxious. Splashing does not really convey it to me. But you can really interpret a poem however you wish, if you are Ezra Pound you can even just use it as a springboard to write a completely different poem lol.

[Anonymous No.20874730]

>>20874708
子曰:「由!誨女知之乎?知之為知之,不知為不知,是知也。」

Anon, please, try to stop being completely wrong all the time!

[Anonymous No.20874735]

>>20874616
Just out of interest, have you read much English poetry? If so what are your influences? Because maybe that explains why you do not see that splashing or blooming are perhaps not tonally appropriate for a solemn poem, even if they are perhaps more accurate to the exact intent of the original poet's language. So yes, in the exact original text, the tears are splashing into flower blooms. But that phrase sounds completely bizarre to anyone who has read Shakespeare or TS Eliot or Auden etc. The imagery is good but that is not how (at least I feel) English poetry would ever phrase or describe it. So my approach generally is if you are going to translate and approximate these poems and make them accessible to a wide English audience, they should resemble what that audience would generally know and expect. Hence I favour Ferryman over Boatman of Yue etc in my translations, if an audience wants to interpret that as Charon or some Greek psychopomp or Stygian analogy they can, if they want to look up the actual historical meaning they can also etc.

[Anonymous No.20874802]

>>20874730
I don't think their contention is that 'splash' isn't a semantically accurate translation of 濺, but that the English word feels tonally inappropriate in the context, which seems much more subjective. I agree they need to learn the difference between Classical Chinese and Mandarin, and realize they're different languages.
>>20874708
If you want to actually learn Classical Chinese, try the wiki page on r/classicalchinese, it has links to some resources. I believe Lexilogos also has some mixed into its general 'Chinese' section, and Lexicity has a (somewhat sparse) section for Old Chinese.

[Anonymous No.20874809]

凡交,近則必相靡以信,遠則必忠之以言,言必或傳之。夫傳兩喜兩怒之言,天下之難者也。夫兩喜必多溢美之言,兩怒必多溢惡之言。凡溢之類妄,妄則其信之也莫,莫則傳言者殃。故法言曰:『傳其常情,無傳其溢言,則幾乎全。』且以巧鬥力者,始乎陽,常卒乎陰,大至則多奇巧;以禮飲酒者,始乎治,常卒乎亂,大至則多奇樂。凡事亦然。始乎諒,常卒乎鄙;其作始也簡,其將畢也必巨。夫言者,風波也;行者,實喪也。風波易以動,實喪易以危。故忿設無由,巧言偏辭。獸死不擇音,氣息茀然,於是並生心厲。剋核大至,則必有不肖之心應之,而不知其然也。苟為不知其然也,孰知其所終!

To transmit words that are either pleasing to both parties or infuriating to both parties is one of the most difficult things in the world. When both parties are pleased, there must be some exaggeration of the good points; and when both parties are angered, there must be some exaggeration of the bad points. Anything that smacks of exaggeration is irresponsible. Where there is irresponsibility, no one will trust what is said, and when that happens, the man who is transmitting the words will be in danger. Therefore the aphorism says, ‘Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration.’ If you do that, you will probably come out all right.
“When men get together to pit their strength in games of skill, they start off in a light and friendly mood but usually end up in a dark and angry one, and if they go on too long, they start resorting to various underhanded tricks. When men meet at some ceremony to drink, they start off in an orderly manner but usually end up in disorder; and if they go on too long, they start indulging in various irregular amusements. It is the same with all things. What starts out being sincere usually ends up being deceitful. What was simple in the beginning acquires monstrous proportions in the end.
“Words are like wind and waves; actions are a matter of gain and loss. Wind and waves are easily moved; questions of gain and loss easily lead to danger. Hence anger arises from no other cause than clever words and one-sided speeches. When animals face death, they do not care what cries they make; their breath comes in gasps, and a wild fierceness is born in their hearts. [Men, too,] if you press them too hard, are bound to answer you with ill-natured hearts, though they do not know why they do so. If they themselves do not understand why they behave like this, then who knows where it will end?

[Anonymous No.20874819]

>>20874453
Have you published your translations? Some of them are very good. I honestly don’t like the rhymey ones but the others are nice.

As for boatman of yue I think it sounds much better than ferryman which has tremendous western baggage which also incidentally is not remotely related to the sentiments expressed in what is essentially a love poem

[Anonymous No.20874872]

>>20874802
Well that would probably be too much effort! But I appreciate the help and links, maybe I will have a look. I am not an academic I am just interested in reading poetry from a wide variety of sources, and I like the challenge of difficult texts and knowing the etymology of things. For example I read three translations of Beowulf (I do not speak Anglo Saxon lol), it is pretty interesting to compare how the differences come out. I quite enjoy the poetry of Edmund Spenser (if some anon can translate contemporaneous Chinese poems into all the Spenser Faerie Queene style whilomes and eftsoones eke archaisms I would be delighted!)

My interest is as you have primarily guessed English poetry, I like Shakespeare a lot, Thomas Dylan, Auden and Yeats and TS Eliot, and my secret disappointment in this thread is actually how no /lit anons responded to any parallels they could find between say Shakespeare or similar imagery of ancient Chinese texts like I was trying to highlight here
>>20871450
As I said with the Auden poem, I am trying to find the mythopoeic images that exist outside of words, that transcend these cumbersome and contorted translations. Debating how or if splash is an appropriate or accurate rendition of ancient Chinese intent into English is sort of trivial lol, that is not really what the aesthetic appreciation of the poem feelings are about. There is no need to really take it that seriously lol, if a poem translation entertains you or evokes a feeling or sensation you had not imagined before, even if it is an ungainly one like Ezra Pound lol, it is probably worth something.

[Anonymous No.20874937]

>>20874872
>Well that would probably be too much effort!
It would be effort, but it's generally considered to be a good idea to learn a language if you want to translate from it.
>(if some anon can translate contemporaneous Chinese poems into all the Spenser Faerie Queene style whilomes and eftsoones eke archaisms I would be delighted!)
It would only be, like, Qing-era poetry that that would be contemporaneous to. For most famous Chinese poetry, contemporaneous English would be something a modern English-speaker would hardly recognize as English.

[Anonymous No.20874989]

>>20874819
I share all my translations here for free, whatever their worth, and do with them whatever you wish. To be honest I did not spend that much effort on all those translations, I just stream of consciousness did them alongside the thread lol, the other anon is actually mostly correct pointing out some mistakes and all those poem versions probably could be revised further.

On the Ferryman / Yue Boatman, I just like that Charon image personally. If you look at Elizabethan love poetry, they had a lot of fascination with memnto mori type imagery, Death And The Maiden love theme stuff. Here is the outcome of the famous riddle from The Merchant Of Venice:


PORTIA: There, take it, prince; and if my form lie there,
Then I am yours.

[He unlocks the golden casket]

MOROCCO: O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.

[Reads]

All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

Now that Yue Boatman thing may have been historically some homoerotic poem, but why emphasise it? If you want to imagine the song sung by a man or woman, to the other man or woman, that Banquet Chinese period drama film provides two versions!
>>20867295
>>20867337
This is the right idea. If you know the secret historical meaning then wonderful! But I can guarantee you most English readers will not care and if they see a poem filled with Dongxian or Lady Li or cenci or Yue Boatman, they will most likely lose interest. It is partly the reason why I ended up translating these poems for myself, because I could sense there was some poetry and philosophical worth there lol, just ensnared under layers of impenetrable Names.

Zhuangzi is notoriously not too interested in the Confucian obsession with the nature of Names.
名者,实之宾也
The Name is merely the guest of the Real.

[Anonymous No.20875080]

>>20874372
Yes this poem. Any idea which poem
He was working from? The original li bai one

[Anonymous No.20875120]

>>20874989
Some people might say it’s a dis service to the original authors to say you’ve translated them when you really mean you’ve reimagined then in your own way... you’re no different from the translation of the 道德经 which has tractors and trucks in it....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cerH39gy0MM


Why not just call it inspired by the original instead of a translation ?

[Anonymous No.20875241]

Here are some more interesting passages to compare and contrast. I really like the Henriad, the quartet of Richard II, Henry IV parts 1&2, Henry V. Falstaff is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most profound Shakespearean characters created, a fat engorged and debauched drunkard, a thief and a coward barely a knight - yet an entirely compelling and sympathetic character. Self-described as:

(...) I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

Falstaff resembles some of the underclass of thieves and grotesques depicted by Zhuangzi. Interestingly, his historical name was originally Oldcastle, Shakespeare had to change this to avoid some political trouble, again illustrating the Zhuangzi idea of the inconstancy of names. Now compare these two passages:

PRINCE HARRY
Why, thou owest God a death.
Exit

SIR JOHN
‘Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word ‘honour’? What is that ‘honour’ ? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
Exit

And here is Zhuangzi

夫言非吹也。言者有言,其所言者特未定也。果有言邪?其未嘗有言邪?其以為異於鷇音,亦有辯乎,其無辯乎?道惡乎隱而有真偽?言惡乎隱而有是非?道惡乎往而不存?言惡乎存而不可?道隱於小成,言隱於榮華。故有儒、墨之是非,以是其所非,而非其所是。欲是其所非而非其所是,則莫若以明。

Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the chirps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there? What does the Way rely on, that we have true and false? What do words rely on, that we have right and wrong? How can the Way go away and not exist? How can words exist and not be acceptable? When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words rely on vain show, then we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Mohists. What one calls right, the other calls wrong; what one calls wrong, the other calls right. But if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, then the best thing to use is clarity.

[Anonymous No.20875324]

>>20874367
>>20874372
>>20874405
>>20875080
This link here has it.
http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/2017/10/li-bai-river-merchants-wife-longgully.html?m=1
Again, I am not sure I agree with the translation given there either, so many ungainly possessives and pronouns absent in the original Chinese. The idea with the detachment and disembodiment of Chinese poetry is to create that wandering, floating world sensation, where the only attributed actions are from nature, the wind, rains, rivers, flowers and branches, whilst the self drifts and observes all around. Instead of emphasising I did this, you did that; my hand or my hair, your face etc. The Western possessives and pronouns become as cumbersome as pleonasm.


The Original:

長干行
李白

妾髮初覆額,
折花門前劇;
郎騎竹馬來,
遶床弄青梅。
同居長干里,
兩小無嫌猜。
十四為君婦,
羞顏未嘗開;
低頭向暗壁,
千喚不一回,
十五始展眉,
願同塵與灰;
常存抱柱信,
豈上望夫臺?
十六君遠行,
瞿塘灩澦堆;
五月不可觸,
猿聲天上哀。
門前遲行跡,
一一生綠苔;
苔深不能掃,
落葉秋風早。
八月蝴蝶來,
雙飛西園草。
感此傷妾心,
坐愁紅顏老。
早晚下三巴,
預將書報家;
相迎不道遠,
直至長風沙。

[Anonymous No.20875354]

>>20875324
In that case I would say Ezra pounds version is quite felicitous. I expected it to be radically different given what people have said about his level of Chinese fluency.

[Anonymous No.20875360]

>>20875324
On pleonasm and those Western possessive and pronoun heavy translations; imagine if you read a superfluous poem written as

I saw you with my eyes as I walked with my feet and thought with my mind whilst speaking with my mouth and listening with my ears...

This is an exaggerated indication of the unnecessary possessiveness of some of those Western translations like Ezra Pound lol. The original Chinese poem versions eg OP Moonlight Poem often feature minimal or very sparse signifiers of who is even performing those actions at all.

[Anonymous No.20875388]

>>20875241
And of course the most obvious Shakespeare parallel to Zhuangzi
>>20874989
>Zhuangzi is notoriously not too interested in the Confucian obsession with the nature of Names.
>名者,实之宾也
>The Name is merely the guest of the Real.

This one goes without saying, almost too obvious...

JULIET: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

[Anonymous No.20875434]

>>20875360
Leaving out pronouns and possessives works better with haiku. With a longer poem it could lead to a sensation that your are writing in pidgin

[Anonymous No.20875528]

>>20875324
I would have said it's just a matter of the different structure of Classical Chinese and English.

[Anonymous No.20875782]

>>20874043
what if you die before the parents die

[Anonymous No.20875811]

>>20874043
can you break it down word by word por favor

[Anonymous No.20875820]

>>20874809
i'd rather read shit like this than gay poetry desu

[Anonymous No.20876177]

>>20874809
Is this Confucius?

[Anonymous No.20876556]

>>20876177
It is Zhuangzi. You can easily tell, because this sweeping discursive style is uniquely his. Zhuangzi does not really give answers, just debates himself and describes bizarre dreams or situations, with occasional precepts. Some Zhuangzi relates anecdotes (potentially fictional or invented satire) about Confucius or his disciples.

Actual Confucius, eg the Analects, looks like this
>>20874043

[Anonymous No.20876564]

>>20872670
>>20864518
post poems from this series

[Anonymous No.20876584]

>>20875782
The opening paragraph of the Daodejing has the answer. A lot of it is very difficult to understand, but in my occult lyrical mode I would translate this as
玄之又玄
众妙之门
From the Void comes the Void Again
The Dark Gate That Is Legion Of Wonders

[Anonymous No.20876697]

So the Daodejing is beginning to illustrate the concept of 無為 Wuwei often translated as inaction.

But this concept is extremely deep, it can span everything from the yinyang geomantic magic I was citing here
>>20871178
To the Zhuangzi deictic debate of otherness within self and other in opposition
>>20871279

Wuwei is like effortlessness or inaction, but it can be almost surrender/alignment? to cosmic force / nature.

It is why I emphasise the discordant nature of those Western translations, they are all about me, you, they them having possessing thinking being doing things, in contrast to the original Chinese poems where all this occurs yet fades away as drifting actions before the winds and rivers, flowers and branches.

I would translate wuwei as something like Formless Form or Unbecoming and Becoming.

Consider this famous phrase

天地無為也,而無不為也

Heaven and Earth do nothing, and yet there is nothing that they do not do.

It could be also

Heaven and Earth come from nothing, and yet there is nothing that they cannot become.

formed from nothing... nothing they cannot form... etc etc.

This is an entirely different cosmogony to the Judaeo-Christian eschatology, retributive or vengeful god inflicting eternal reward or damnation etc. It actually reminds me more again of the Pyrrhonist ataraxia, and Camus L'Etranger - the tender indifference of the universe. It just is, and is not. There might be owning or possessing or judging, but before Heaven and earth it is transient, fleeting, ephemeral; it does not endure. This is what I think wuwei resembles.

[Anonymous No.20876705]

>>20876697
天下是非果未可定也。雖然,無為可以定是非。至樂活身,唯無為幾存。請嘗試言之。天無為以之清,地無為以之寧,故兩無為相合,萬物皆化。芒乎芴乎,而無從出乎!芴乎芒乎,而無有象乎!萬物職職,皆從無為殖。故曰:「天地無為也,而無不為也。」人也,孰能得無為哉!

The right and the wrong (on this point of enjoyment) cannot indeed be determined according to (the view of) the world; nevertheless, this doing nothing (to obtain it) may determine the right and the wrong. Since perfect enjoyment is (held to be) the keeping the body alive, it is only by this doing nothing that that end is likely to be secured. Allow me to try and explain this (more fully): Heaven does nothing, and thence comes its serenity; Earth does nothing, and thence comes its rest. By the union of these two inactivities, all things are produced. How vast and imperceptible is the process!-- they seem to come from nowhere! How imperceptible and vast!-- there is no visible image of it! All things in all their variety grow from this Inaction. Hence it is said, 'Heaven and Earth do nothing, and yet there is nothing that they do not do.' But what man is there that can attain to this inaction?

[Anonymous No.20876809]

Zhuangzi invents the first mecha anime, a man transformed with a rooster on one arm, a crossbow on another, and chariot wheels on his buttocks.

https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=%E5%BC%B9

子祀曰:「汝惡之乎?」曰:「亡,予何惡!浸假而化予之左臂以為雞,予因以求時夜;浸假而化予之右臂以為彈,予因以求鴞炙;浸假而化予之尻以為輪,以神為馬,予因以乘之,豈更駕哉!

Alas that the Creator should have made me the deformed object that I am!' Si said, 'Do you dislike your condition?' He replied, 'No, why should I dislike it? If He were to transform my left arm into a cock, I should be watching with it the time of the night; if He were to transform my right arm into a cross-bow, I should then be looking for an owl to (bring down and) roast; if He were to transform my rump-bone into a wheel, and my spirit into a horse, I should then be mounting it, and would not change it for another steed.

>ancient Chinese philosophy
>If He were to transform my left arm into a cock
>(maybe it should be translated as rooster)

[Anonymous No.20877247]

>>20871876
>>20872209
>>20874348
Cannot post feet due to shameful post Song dynasty footbinding practices

anons, you must choose:
>Western nu-male eunuch
>Chinese footbinding concubine

[Anonymous No.20877301]

>>20874872
The hidden challenge of this thread was to find sections of ancient Chinese poetry and literature and identify their corresponding western counterparts. My preference is Shakespeare, but really anything will do. I was hoping the Kierkegaarde anon
>>20861503
would actually get this reference lol
>>20867777
maybe not.

I think what is unavoidable is if you discuss stuff like yinyang or Dao, or wuwei it can just conjure up images of /x tier New Age quasi-mystical harmony etc. So it can indeed be that, but also other interpretations. For example look at chapter 5 of Daodejing

天地不仁,以萬物為芻狗;聖人不仁,以百姓為芻狗。

So a rough translation of this by me is is:

There is no Benevolence upon Heaven and Earth, that make of ten thousand things as sacrificial dogs; likewise, the Perfected Sage makes of the populace, as these sacrificial dogs.

(The dogs here refer to straw effigies, offerings cast in rites upon a ceremonial pyre)

This idea of Perfected Sages recalls to me that Nietzsche passage on the Genealology of Morals, that the vast bulk of mankind resembles the dung from which one flower may grow, akin to the precondition of Nietzschean ideals. And there is also that passage of Napoleons and Lice from Dostoeyvsky:
...
“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Porfiry Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it.”

“Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale and grave before him.

“Well, you see... I really don’t know how to express it properly.... It’s a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your article, surely you couldn’t have helped, he-he! fancying yourself... just a little, an ‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a new word in your sense.... That’s so, isn’t it?”

“Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.

Razumihin made a movement.

“And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties and hardship or for some service to humanity—to overstep obstacles?... For instance, to rob and murder?”

And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as before.

“If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with defiant and haughty contempt.

“No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary point of view...”

“Fool! how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with repulsion.

[Anonymous No.20877608]

>>20877247
what are the chances they tried cock binding practices on eunuchs?

[Anonymous No.20877700]

>>20871480
>>20871501
>>20877247
>>20877608
So I do not know that much about the eunuch history, I recall there was some explanation of how Sima Qian (a famous historian eunuch 145-86BCE ) had to urinate through special cups or pipettes and things. Though of course back then, castration was reserved as a court punishment, it was not really eagerly embraced by nu-males doing it to themselves.

There is also this affair I remember in Chinese history 宮女起義 / Uprising Of Palace Concubines
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_plot_of_Renyin_year
Basically some perverted Daoist Jiajing emperor really enjoyed... drinking menstruation. He believed that drinking daily court maiden menses, a vermillion cinnabar elixir 红铅 would give him immortal life.

So the Jiajing Emperor commanded the hoarding of harems of beautiful women to "distil" this menstruation elixir, and the women eventually got annoyed by this, tried to assassinate him to end his maiden menstrual harvesting regime. I think their complot failed and the unfortunate women came to a sad end.

[Anonymous No.20877711]

>>20877700
maybe he wanted to feminize himself and immortal life was just a cop out
retard should've known that it's pregnant horse piss that does that not foid period discharge

[Anonymous No.20877739]

>>20877247
A woeful day for the Chinese foot fetishists

[Anonymous No.20877749]

>>20877700
damm those women got dismembered cartel style

[Anonymous No.20877758]

>>20877739
You get one CGI foot from the courtesan in the poem here (no footbinding during this dynasty)
>>20866989

[Anonymous No.20877763]

>>20877758
Unfortunately, during the Tang dynasty, the ideal woman did not look like these CGI depictions and recreations.

[Anonymous No.20877783]

>>20877763
In the Tang dynasty, the imperial court idolised obese women. Plump, voluptuous, fatty women. They were regarded as ideal beauty

[Anonymous No.20877810]

any poems about slow slicing
must've had some artistic impact

[Anonymous No.20877842]

Imagine if they just bred for small feet like the persian and hews did for big noses.

[Anonymous No.20877908]

My favourite chinese poem

Li Yu (937-978): Lang Tao Sha (Waves Scouring the Sands): Reminiscence

Outside the curtains, a mizzling, drizzling rain,

Spring is on the wane,

The chills of foredawn, my silk quilt cannot long sustain.

In dream unaware I’m none but a guest of the emperor’s, I cling

A while to pleasures vain.

Alone, from gazing afar I must refrain,

Fair is that rivered terrain,

A land I left so lightly, so hard to return to again.

Like blossoms scattered on rippling waters, spring is gone!

May heaven on earth remain!

[Anonymous No.20877952]

>>20877810
So there is a punishment that a lot of people do not know about. If you watch some Chinese historical period dramas maybe you have heard of this. It is called renzhi 人彘 which translates to human pig or human swine. It happened 2200 years ago to the beautiful concubine Lady Qi 戚夫人. Basically, it involves turning a person into a deaf blind living torso. Still living, kept alive. You can read about what happened to her here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consort_Qi_(Han_dynasty)
The Chinese version is here
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%BA%E5%BD%98/5115658

Some other very ancient Chinese punishments I remember include chai?chi 虿池 it is a pit of insects (could be snakes, or just venomous creatures like scorpions)

Interestingly the Viking warrior Ragnar Lodbrok
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Lodbrok
when he was defeated by the English and captured by King Aella of Northumbria in the 9th Century suffered execution in a similar manner by being cast into a snake pit.

[Anonymous No.20877978]

>>20877908
This translation is really good, it is accurate and feels like a true poem.

Li Yu is pretty intriguing, he was the emperor or perhaps more accurately greatly dimimished last ruler of Southern Tang 南唐后主, who was captured by the ascendant Song dynasty, so all he had left to him was writing lamentful poetry.

[Anonymous No.20878033]

Another parallel between Zhuangzi and Shakespeare. Even if you have never read Hamlet, you probably know and can imagine the skull scene:

First Clown: ...
Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.

HAMLET: Whose was it?

First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET: Nay, I know not.

First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET: This?

First Clown: E'en that.

HAMLET: Let me see.

[Takes the skull]

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning?
***
Here is the skull scene from Zhuangzi:

When Zhuangzi went to Chu, he saw an old skull, all dry and parched. He poked it with his carriage whip and then asked, “Sir, were you greedy for life and forgetful of reason and so came to this? Was your state overthrown, and did you bow beneath the ax and so came to this? Did you do some evil deed, and were you ashamed to bring disgrace on your parents and family and so came to this? Was it through the pangs of cold and hunger that you came to this? Or did your springs and autumns pile up until they brought you to this?”
When he had finished speaking, he dragged the skull over and, using it for a pillow, lay down to sleep.
In the middle of the night, the skull came to him in a dream and said, “You chatter like a rhetorician, and all your words betray the entanglements of a living man. The dead know nothing of these! Would you like to hear a lecture on the dead?”
“Indeed,” said Zhuangzi.
The skull said, “Among the dead, there are no rulers above, no subjects below, and no chores of the four seasons. With nothing to do, our springs and autumns are as endless as heaven and earth. A king facing south on his throne could have no more happiness than this!”
Zhuangzi couldn’t believe this and said, “If I got the Arbiter of Fate to give you a body again, make you some bones and flesh, return you to your parents and family and your old home and friends, you would want that, wouldn’t you?”
The skull frowned severely, wrinkling up its brow. “Why would I throw away more happiness than that of a king on a throne and take on the troubles of a human being again?” it said.

[Anonymous No.20878039]

>>20878033
The Zhuangzi skull dream occurs in Section 18 至乐, The Supreme / Perfect Enjoyment
莊子之楚,見空髑髏,髐然有形,撽以馬捶,因而問之曰:「夫子貪生失理,而為此乎?將子有亡國之事,斧鉞之誅,而為此乎?將子有不善之行,愧遺父母妻子之醜,而為此乎?將子有凍餒之患,而為此乎?將子之春秋故及此乎?」於是語卒,援髑髏枕而臥。
夜半,髑髏見夢曰:「子之談者似辯士。視子所言,皆生人之累也,死則無此矣。子欲聞死之說乎?」莊子曰:「然。」髑髏曰:「死,無君於上,無臣於下,亦無四時之事,從然以天地為春秋,雖南面王樂,不能過也。」莊子不信,曰:「吾使司命復生子形,為子骨肉肌膚,反子父母妻子、閭里、知識,子欲之乎?」髑髏深矉蹙頞曰:「吾安能棄南面王樂而復為人間之勞乎?」
https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=%E5%A4%9C%E5%8D%8A

[Anonymous No.20878046]

>>20878033
and yes, this is where David Foster Wallace stole the title for Infinite Jest from. A lot of modern authors steal their book titles from Shakespeare, often without contributing much to their meaning.

[Anonymous No.20878075]

>>20874819
>death
>ferryman which has tremendous western baggage
So I was thinking of some of these analogies between Zhuangzi and Shakespeare
>>20878033
>>20878039
when translating that poem, eg the Skull scene of Hamlet, and the Skull Dream of Zhuangzi. In Shakespeare's time they liked this sort of memento mori imagery, in the centuries before during the renaissance learned men kept paintings of skulls and things, later in centuries after these aesthetics were revived in the Victorian era (pic related). I think a lot of people associate it with some Western Judaeo Christian suffering mortality etc or renaissance man thing, but if you look carefully those exact sentiments on death and ephemerality are in Daoism, they are in Zhuangzi and his Skull Dream too.

[Anonymous No.20878096]

>>20878075
Now in Japan, they had this practice called kusozu, in Chinese it would be 九相图 Nine Image Painting.

As I understand it, there were these monks in Japan, of course it was Japan. Basically, monks cannot... perform self-pleasure, it is very very naughty. How to prevent yourself from doing so?

Well it is simple. You must find something very disgusting, for example a corpse. Then whenever you begin to succumb to erotic temptation, you must think of the Disgusting Unpleasant Revolting Thing. That way you associate the temptation psychologically with the disgusting thing, you will be deterred, right? Right? It must work?!

So they created these Nine Image Paintings in Japan for these monks to stare at a lot, discipline themselves. The paintings depict nine progressive stages of decomposition of a female corpse. Surely if you keep staring at it, eventually you will achieve enlightenment? In no way will you start to associate weird self-pleasure impulses with decomposition and corpses. That will never ever happen...?

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/m4pnfgjd/items?canvas=1

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/04/human-decomposition-in-japanese-artwork.html?m=1

[Anonymous No.20878133]

>>20873668
Eye battery water lamb

[Anonymous No.20878158]

In all editions of Zhuangzi the translators leave the /x paranormal board of 2400 years ago unexplained. No footnotes really as to what this bestiary actually might be (the kui 夔 could be some sort of one-legged demon or dragon related to music?)

Just think, maybe in 2400 years someone will read from the archives whatever you wrote on this thread, and it will look like this

桓公曰:「然則有鬼乎?」曰:「有。沈有履,灶有髻。戶內之煩壤,雷霆處之;東北方之下者,倍阿、鮭蠪躍之;西北方之下者,則泆陽處之。水有罔象,丘有峷,山有夔,野有彷徨,澤有委蛇。」

Duke Huan asked, “But do ghosts really exist?”
“Indeed they do. There is the Li on the hearth and the Ji in the stove. The heap of clutter and trash just inside the gate is where the Leiting lives. In the northeast corner the Beia and Guilong leap about, and the northwest corner is where the Yiyang lives. In the water is the Gangxiang; on the hills, the Xin; in the mountains, the Kui; in the meadows, the Panghuang; and in the marshes, the Weituo.”

[Anonymous No.20878274]

>>20861426
Since we're on the subject of Chinese poetry I recently came across this gem

“Mountain monks sit playing go.
Over the board is the bamboo’s lucent shade.
No one sees them through the glittering leaves,
But now and then is heard the click of a stone.”
-Po Chu-i

[Anonymous No.20878376]

>>20878274
wow, I like that one! It is a really good translation too. Here is the original in Chinese by Bai Juyi, I found it here (2nd page tab thing of his complete works, there are a lot)
http://www.shigeku.com/xlib/lingshidao/gushi/baijuyi2.htm

卷455_22 「池上二绝」白居易
山僧对棋坐,局上竹阴清。
映竹无人见,时闻下子声。

[Anonymous No.20878388]

>>20878274
>>20878376
>>20878376
so I think following on from the anons who studied actual ancient Chinese, and have better knowledge of it than I do, this Bai Juyi poem no longer rhymes when pronounced in modern Mandarin qing 清vs sheng 声 etc. It would be interesting to reconstruct how those words sounded to fit the original rhyme, or perhaps it still retains the rhyme in other Chinese dialects?

[Anonymous No.20878401]

>>20878274
also anon, I very much admire your wojak chainmail, please accept this maiden knight bosom armour in tribute

[Anonymous No.20878407]

>>20878388
wiktionary has pronunciations for characters for different dialects including reconstructed middle and old chinese

[Anonymous No.20878436]

>>20878407
ah ok, I will check that out. Maybe the poem still rhymes in Japanese (found that source on a Japanese website) I think 清 can be pronounced sei and 声 is koe, so maybe it rhymes there

[Anonymous No.20878453]

>>20878274
>>20878376
The really impressive thing about this poem (similar to the OP moonlight poem) is it is very easy to understand and again possesses that clean hyperminimalistic feel. You don't need elaborate ancient Chinese syntax or phrasing knowledge to understand this one. Hence it has that mythopoeic quality, the story images that transcend words I was looking for. Many thanks for sharing it!

[Anonymous No.20878561]

>>20877783
I wouldn't be surprised, a lot of cultures before the industrial revolution and modern agriculture did, because it was a reliable signal of wealth.

[Anonymous No.20878582]

>>20878436
'Koe' is kunyomi. It's onyomi is sei.

[Anonymous No.20878653]

>>20878582
Ah thank you anon, I do not speak Japanese. I looked up this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8D-on
The Tang dynasty import sound of that era, qing was apparently pronounced 清, shin using that Japanese Tang pronounciation then, so maybe that is closer to what Bai Juyi imagined.

[Anonymous No.20878694]

>>20878653
I don't think tou'on is actually from Tang times, despite the name. In fact, the article directly says "during and after the Song dynasty". Most of it is basically early Mandarin. Of course, I've noticed that sound changes often happened earlier than one realizes, so who knows, maybe his pronunciation was closer to that than we'd think.

[Anonymous No.20878776]

古之善为道者,非以明民,将以愚之。民之难治,以其智多。故以智治国,国之贼;不以智治国,国之福。知此两者,亦稽式。常知稽式,是谓玄德。玄德深矣,远矣,与物反矣,然后乃至大顺。

I posted a lot of Zhuangzi, here is Laozi and the Daodejing, this is the core Daoist text.

The passage above is one of my favourites describing the policy of 愚民治, or as I like to call it: Governance Through Retardation.

You must make the entire population retarded. The populace that is clever or too intellectual becomes unmanageable. The skilful Sage Philosopher nurtures retardation amongst the denizens of his realm. If you try to use intellect to govern, you will become the Scourge of the people / a Tyrant. This Governance Of Retardation is known as the Mysterious Excellence (Dark Virtue? 玄德) and creates the Great Conformity 大顺

https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&id=11656

[Anonymous No.20878785]

>>20877783
Those court women were depicted as they were not as they wanted them to be.

[Anonymous No.20878798]

>>20878694
ah dammit anon you are correct I somehow missed that Song dynasty thing in my own article and did not even read that correctly. I have clearly become a devoted follower disciple to the Daoist governance method of retardation

[Anonymous No.20878804]

>>20878798
Honestly, though, if you want to hear it as Li Bai wrote it just learn reconstructed Middle Chinese. I have a friend who unironically taught himself Classical Chinese that way.

[Anonymous No.20878805]

>>20878804
>I have a friend
norman alert

[Anonymous No.20878810]

>>20878805
An online friend, not a real life one.

[Anonymous No.20878860]

>>20878776
It is sort of interesting to think of all the passages like
>>20878776
>>20877301
From the Daodejing and also Zhuangzi, who (satirically?) praises the virtue of thieves and brigands, the Benevolence Of Tigers and Wolves etc. It reminds me of Machiavelli though it has been some time since I read the Prince, I no longer remember the relevant passages and structure of his work too well. I know in Zhuangzi and Daoist thought a key element in the Discernment Virtue-power of choosing the right path for oneself is ke 可 translated as permissibility, or admissibility etc. This really emphasises the difference between this Chinese philosophy and Greek or Judaeo-Christian perspectives - imagine a morality constructed not based upon Right or Wrong, God, Order, or Law, but on What Is Permitted? Whatever Heaven and Nature has made available? It reminds me of Machiavelli, but I cannot quite find or remember a good section of his work to compare it to. This idea of permissibility is quite a modern concept to me (I don't think I can think of another philosophical perspective of that era that possesses it) and so I think it might be quite unique to Zhuangzi and the finding of Paths.

[Anonymous No.20878938]

the only poetry the west should have is the Limerick.

everything else is garbage

[Anonymous No.20878993]

Thread theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkbfapn-I4

[Anonymous No.20879110]

Just an excerpt from Outlaws Of The Marsh, my favourite character, the enormous muscular monk Sagacious Lu (Lu Zhishen) sometimes called the Flowery Monk because of his tattoos, and who wields a large solid iron bladed Monk Spade. He introduces himself with the immortal words,
>I decided to become a monk because I killed a lot of people.
I read an English picture book version of this as a child, his story with Lin Chong / Panther Head in the White Tiger Sanctum, it was really memorable to me. The stories have a completely different morality and narrative pattern to what you expect from Western tales, there is a fight but things sometimes are not resolved, and the story just moves elsewhere. It somehow makes it feel more realistic than the fairytale endings we now expect from videogames and films.
***
Everyone knelt down and said: “We’ve always lived here. We make our living by gambling and begging. This garden is actually our rice-bowl. The temple has tried giving money to get rid of us, but it doesn’t work. Where are you from, Your Reverence? You’re incredible! We’ve never seen you before at the temple. From now on we shall be only too happy to serve you!”
“I served as commandant of the Yanan garrison in Guanxi, under Field-Marshal Zhong the Elder,” Zhishen said. “I decided to become a monk because I’d killed a lot of people. I came here from Mount Wu Tai. My family name is Lu, and my religious name Zhishen. Twenty or thirty villains like you don’t mean anything to me. If an army of thousands came at me, I could fight my way out.”

那張三李四並眾火伴一齊跪下,說道:「小人祖居在這裏,都只靠賭博討錢為生。這片菜園是俺們衣飯碗,大相國寺裏幾番使錢,要奈何我們不得。師父卻是那裏來的長老,恁的了得!相國寺裏不曾見有師父,今日我等願情伏侍。」智深道:「洒家是關西延安府老種經略相公帳前提轄官,只為殺的人多,因此情願出家,五臺山來到這裏。洒家俗姓魯,法名智深。休說你這三二十個人直甚麼,便是千軍萬馬隊中,俺敢直殺的入去出來。」

[Anonymous No.20879801]

>>20878993
This song is clearly required after the appearance of all the concubines
>>20866989
>>20872209
>>20877763

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahqDyJ7w9w4

北方有佳人
绝世而独立
一顾倾人城
再顾倾人国
宁不知倾城与倾国
佳人难再得

The Northern Realm possesses a Beauty
Unmatched and exquisite stood She
One look overthrows a City
Another glance overwhelms the Land!
Dare not the ruin of realms and cities
Should such Beauty never again appear!

[Anonymous No.20879836]

What I find amusing is that the somehow anons chose this:
>>20861548
and horrifyingly this???
>>20871921
kek to represent Chinese instead of all the concubine songs
>>20867337
>>20867295
>>20879801
These films are not that obscure, I think most anons with a passing interest in Chinese literature would probably know of them.

[Anonymous No.20879876]

Some xianxia mystical sounding terms I encountered in Zhuangzi, these are all authentic

天钧 Tianjun Lathe Of Heaven I think lathe is actually 车刀, wheel-blade, but 钧 might be also an ancient potter's wheel of some sort? Not sure if this is the translator Burton Watson (2013) exercising some leniency and malleability of meaning. In the text it sounds quite fearsome, people who are unworthy and attempt to access Dao beyond their attainment are utterly destroyed by this Lathe Of Heaven. In some other translations I have seen this given as 天均 instead, the Equalisation of Heaven.

灵台 Lingtai, Spirit Tower. From the notes, Daoist nomenclature for the Mind.

Nine Names Of The Abyss 九名渊 This occurs in a mysterious section with an actual wizard, a Shaman named Jixian 季咸 Is this name a pun on seasons? Salt Season? Flavour puns have a philosophical meaning in the Dao, eg 恬(甜 pun?)淡 ie inclination to live in contentment. The Wizard reveals three names of the Nine Named Abyss to Liezi who as a result becomes overwhelmed with despair, and retreats to a hermit life feeding pigs (it is implied he ends himself soon after). Not sure what this entire section is about, there is some strange magic.

Reeds Of Heaven Tianlai 天籁 celestial bamboo pipes divine music instrument? Some sort of complex metaphor about how the human voice can command winds and changes, ten thousandfold transformations. Maybe the paragraph is about music itself, or the art of music-making? It seems very mystical.

[Anonymous No.20881202]

>>20866930
Anon, you're either a homo or a narcissist; your aesthetic sense is stunted and always will be.

[Anonymous No.20881235]

>>20874348
>bare feet
I know nothing about China but bare feet seem un-Chinese. Chinanons please confirm my impression that Chinese people do not go around bare-footed dancing or otherwise man or woman.

[Anonymous No.20881267]

>>20877952
idk weather i'm disturbed or aroused

[Anonymous No.20881537]

>>20881267
that is ok anon, was it the Viking warrior man or the pit of centipedes scorpions and snakes that did it for you?

[Anonymous No.20881549]

>>20881537
the lezdom live fuck doll transformation

[Anonymous No.20881681]

>>20881235
So the difference between China and Japan I think is that because of all the dynasties barbarian invasions and unifications and dissolutions and reunifications etc China had a lot of dramatically varying aesthetics. The courtesan and concubine stuff here
>>20866989
>>20872209
>>20877763
as well as the dance costume in the youtube here
>>20879801
look a bit high Tang dynasty (AD618-907) influenced to me. Basically by late Tang, Chinese culture had become quite decadent.

Nearly all of the translated poetry in this thread comes from this Tang era, as the poetry then was considered the zenith of aesthetic achievement and later poets endlessly emulated the style and copied it.

A lot of fashion in Late Tang was influenced by foreign barbarian styles, hufu or foreign clothing, all the women began wearing less and less, there is some famous painting which is like a woman in gossamer silks with exposed cleavage.

A lot of Islamic influenced art was I think also quite fashionable, there are scrolls of Arabic and Chinese calligraphy together, the Chinese art showed Persian influence in weaponry, apparel, porcelain. I think in Chinese history there was also Indian influence, for example Ne Zha (youth who flies on magic fire wheels) and Sun Wukong monkey king legends all are believed to perhaps have been influenced by India.

The dress style in Tang was women trying to show their suppleness by pleating their skirts and raising the waistline all the way up to under the armpits, to reveal their "body contours". So the costume and that dance in the youtube link above is probably not too fanciful, quite probably close to something seen in pleasure houses of late Tang. Later on by the Song dynasty China became very Confucian and conservative, the footbinding started happening and women I think no longer wore as alluring and revealing garments.

[Anonymous No.20881699]

>>20881681
>>20877783
Just to ruin all the alluring courtesan imagery a reminder that the Tang dynasty idolised obese women, fatty women. This is the most beautiful woman of China.

[Anonymous No.20881765]

>>20872209
So Dainty Foot concubine above was probably based on this

[Anonymous No.20881768]

>>20861426
seems like a comfy poem to me

[Anonymous No.20881777]

>>20881765
All these computer generated recreations are derived from Dunhuang dancer murals

[Anonymous No.20881796]

>>20881768
Most Beautiful Woman Of China Refuses White Balls

[Anonymous No.20881833]

>>20881699
tang were degenerate multiculturalists that's why they were fat

[Anonymous No.20881855]

>>20881796
>you don't have to tell me what happened but you have to eat this

[Anonymous No.20881914]

>>20881855
She is just a little sad because she was inappropriately accosted by this trustworthy Daoist. By coincidence, he is The Most Handsome Man Of China

[Anonymous No.20882333]

>>20866900
>>20879801
Because ancient Chinese did not have the tones of modern mandarin, this old Chinese song was actually a mistranslated copy of an original Western orison. You can sing along to this

北方有拉人
撅屎而毒立
一股倾人城
再股倾人国
宁不吃倾城与倾国
拉人难再恶

There was a Lady Lesbian of the North
Squatting to shit she poisoned those that stood forth
One gust from her tilted the City
Another gust and the entire Land was destroyed
I would rather not eat than destroy land and cities
Such a lady could not produce so much vomit

[Anonymous No.20882406]

>>20878274
>>20878376
山僧鸡巴坐,局上竹淫情。
硬柱无人见,时闻下子生。

A mountain monk sat on his phallus
Lascivious feeling shadowing the bamboo
No-one witnessed the "hardened pillar"
Sometimes smell the birth of "fallen sons"

[Anonymous No.20882480]

What's the go-to for learning about chink history? Preferably something shorter than The Cambridge History of China but more detailed than cramming 4000 years of history in to one book

[Anonymous No.20882518]

床 is probably the railing around a well (in the courtyard of the place he is staying), not a bed.

Both usages were current in the Tang dynasty, but Li Bai uses 床 to mean well elsewhere (郎騎竹馬繞床弄青梅), and the well is traditionally associated with family and home.

[Anonymous No.20882690]

>>20882518
That is very interesting anon! I never heard that poetry phrase before, the well / courtyard explanation does make sense. I suspected 床 did not mean literal be but more some resting place / place of stay etc, which is why I used berth back here
>>20866811

[Anonymous No.20882720]

>>20882480
Black Cat Policeman. He is Judge Dredd of China
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cat_Detective

[Anonymous No.20882725]

>>20882720
If you look at this picture he sort of looks Chinese

[Anonymous No.20882756]

>>20879110
Outlaws Of The Marsh would look different if it were set upon the Cursed Earth of Megacity One

[Anonymous No.20882777]

It feels like the sort of thing Japan would do. Post-apocalyptic dying earth 水浒 Outlaws Of The Marsh? Sci-fi intergalactic 三国演义Three Kingdoms space opera? Feel like someone should write and make those

[Adam Smith No.20882787]

Just picked up on the fact that this highlights Shaanxi Province, Xi's hometown. Not a coincidence. Xi is right that hard work, as he has quoted many times, is the best solution to a more prosperous life. Thank you to CGTN for the making of this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BM4B9tjRAk

[Anonymous No.20882800]

okay way to kill 50 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwvBoBdLUzk&t=235

[Anonymous No.20882871]

>>20861426
>>20882720
>>20882725
>>20882756
>>20882777
I wonder if I can make the OP poem cyberpunk. It is more difficult than just going through the poem and replacing word sounds with penis

窗前冥月光
一式抵闪光
巨头亡明月
低头祀古商

The glow of underworld moons before the viewport
Mark One Anti-Laser Array: Activated
Megacorporation magnates destroy the moons of tomorrow
Techno-enslaved perform rites to ancient merchants

低头,低头族 "lower head" translates to "lowered head clan" ie some Chinese slang for smartphone addicts, techno-enslaved populace

[Anonymous No.20882913]

>>20873745
You forgot to attach an apu picture

[Anonymous No.20883157]

>>20882871
Is there a William Gibson of China?

[Anonymous No.20883212]

>>20882480
I read an academic essay once that explained that China was never really a feudal society. Think about this: in England France etc you had knights and lords. In Japan there were samurai, daimyo etc. In China...? There is no word. What you had were soldiers and some bureaucrats and also border lords or wardens and margraves under the emperor. Also think how you have castles in England, France. You have castles in Japan. In China you have some watchtower fortification things but not really the medieval feudal castle equivalent.

Underpinning all this is the idea that there was never really an enfeoffed feudal warrior class in China. You had warriors and soldiers, but not really this knight or samurai concept, that would form a levy of fighting men from the peasantry to defend their feudal demesne etc.

In ancient China the four classes were 士农工商
士 shi aristocratic scholar sage class
农 nong ironically 2nd highest class, peasants. In reality they had no power or prestige due to poverty
工 gong artisan class the reason why craftsmen had low status is because they were often landless peasants who had to sell their own labour to others. Theoretically a peasant who could retain the surplus of their own agriculture could become very wealthy as a landowner, whilst craftsmen were always subservient to patrons and masters
商 shang merchants, lowest status class but in reality often very wealthy and influential

So there is not really a prestigious knight feudal warrior class incorporated into this structure. The Chinese Confucian and Daoist texts or possess great disdain for fighting and bloodshed (the reality though often quite different). Even the Chinese war treatises like Sunzi Bingfa (Sun Tzu) emphasise logistics, and the superiority of subduing without fighting, there is not as much chivalrous veneration of bloodthirsty combat. I remember Sunzi Bingfa opening sections being like: War, it is really expensive! Do not fight! lol.

Correct me if I got any Chinese history wrong here anons but my impression is there is not really a Chinese parallel to knights or chivalry battlefield glory or Valhalla lol, everyone really just wanted to take exams and become a government bureaucrat or scholar-sage.

[Anonymous No.20883237]

>>20883212
explains the lack of epics I guess
or maybe it's the other way round

[Anonymous No.20883273]

>>20883212
孙子曰:凡用兵之法,驰车千驷,革车千乘,带甲十万,千里馈粮,则内外之费,宾客之用,胶漆之材,车甲之奉,日费千金,然后十万之师举矣。
其用战也胜,久则钝兵挫锐,攻城则力屈,久暴师则国用不足。夫钝兵挫锐,屈力殚货,则诸侯乘其弊而起,虽有智者,不能善其后矣。故兵闻拙速,未睹巧之久也。夫兵久而国利者,未之有也。故不尽知用兵之害者,则不能尽知用兵之利也。

善用兵者,役不再籍,粮不三载;取用于国,因粮于敌,故军食可足也。国之贫于师者远输,远输则百姓贫。近于师者贵卖,贵卖则百姓财竭,财竭则急于丘役。力屈、财殚,中原内虚于家。百姓之费,十去其七;公家之费,破车罢马,甲胄矢弩。戟楯蔽橹,丘牛大车,十去其六。

The very second chapter of Sun Tzu Art Of War (Sunzi Bingfa). It emphasises heavily how expensive war is, how it burdens the peasants in the state with costs of chariots, armour, small items like glue and paint, etc.
夫兵久而国利者,未之有也。
There is no instance of a state having benefitted from prolonged warfare.
国之贫于师者远输,远输则百姓贫。
Poverty of the State Exchequer arises from the maintenance of expeditionary warfare at a distance; distant warfare impoverishes the people.

So I think the ethos in China (at least from the writings) never really venerated the warrior culture unlike say knights and samurai etc. I cannot really think of any Chinese texts which exalt it. The military texts like Art Of War are mostly focused on stratagems, terrain, ambush, logistics, deception etc.

[Anonymous No.20883390]

>>20882871
I never liked the way cyberpunk got phonetically translated into Chinese
赛博朋克
cyberpunk:
saibo pengke (why friendly? for punk? it sounds like friendly guest)

why not
载波庞客/克
cyberpunk:
zaibo pangke
庞 means vast, colossal but sometimes could suggest disordered like 庞杂
zaibo is like carrier wave in telecommunications or even download-wave etc.

This makes so much more sense. Who is responsible for these translations, I am very angry

[Anonymous No.20884409]

>>20874086
I appreciate your version, Anon.