Well, here's my very favorite poem. It was a tough jobtranslating it, and I have to thank my cousin for all her help and suggestions. Thanks.
Here goes, it's still far from perfect, but I guess that's all I can do.
“Remembering the Fair Lady . Reflecting on Ancient Times at Chibi” (1)
The River (2) flows east, washing away the talent of ages past.
On the west of the ancient fort, they say, lies the Three Kingdoms, Zhou-lang, and the battle of Chibi. (3)
The stones of the cliffs climb to reach the sky,
The crashing waves of the river split the earth,
Throwing up foam like a thousand drifts of snow.
Like a painting are the hills and river…
How many heroes gone in a blink of time?
Thinking back to the days of Master Jade, (4)
When Maiden Qiao was first married. (5)
How bright was his bearing:
The feathered fan, the silk turban… (6)
Between his laughing and his speaking,
In flying ash and billowing smoke,
The masts and oars were destroyed by his command. (7)
My thoughts traveling in ancient times, so sentimental…
They laugh, at my white hair acquired so early. (8)
What is life but a dream? (9)
A toast, to the River, and her moon.
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Footnotes:
(1) This is a poem of the Song Dynasty. Like “The Joy of Meeting”, it was also written to music. “Remembering the Fair Lady” is the title of the tune, while the title “Reflecting on Ancient Times at Chibi” was added by the poet, which is the actual name of the poem. Just a note, “Reflecting on Ancient Times at Chibi” was only four characters in Chinese.
(2) Refers to the Yangtze River.
(3) This needs a little historic background. The Three Kingdoms was a period in Chinese History, usually said to be around 200 AD to 280 AD. The number of years are not certain, as everyone has a different definition on when it started. Anyway, it was the last years of the Han Dynasty (202BC-220AD), the king was a kid and not very good at ruling the country, so the Prime Minister Cao Cao held all the power. Two warlords down south weren’t quite happy, one was Liu Bei, in the south west, and the other was Sun Quan, who controlled the south east. The three kept fighting each other, thus, the Three Kingdoms. (technically, Cao Cao died before it started, but Liu and Sun were fighting his sons, so that’s not much of a problem)
Zhou-lang was a scholar strategist of that time, who served Sun. He was known as a great strategist. Sadly, his talent is always overshadowed by Zhuge Liang, who served Liu. (Any 3-year-old in China could tell you who Zhuge Liang was) Anyway, Zhou-lang’s name is Zhou Yu, (Zhou being the family name, and Yu being his name, meaning the light of jade),
lang was a common title referring to men, which is not used anymore. Zhou was also known as Master Jade, see footnote (5) if youu like.
Chibi was a famous battle fought at 208AD. The Sun camp and the Liu camp joined hands to fight Cao. Cao was defeated by Zhou’s great strategies, so Chibi is known as Zhou’s great victory. (Though the novels often say that it was Zhuge’s effort that saved the South from destruction of the Cao army) Anyway, the poem points out “as they say.” The poet was actually nowhere near the site of the battle, and he knew it too, he simply wanted to express himself, so he accepted the saying nonetheless. (By the way, there’s a relatively new movie called Red Cliff, i.e. Chibi, about the battle. It’s actually pretty good if you ignore the blood and don’t mind the fighting too much. )
(4) (Skip this if you want, you don’t need to know) In ancient times, people had two names. At least males did, some girls did as well, but not too many. Boys were give a name at birth, which is the
ming. They were given a second name when they came of age (20 for boys and 15 for girls), which is called the
zi, also known as a courtesy name. The
ming and the
zi were often related, take Mister Zhou for example, his
ming was Yu, meaning the light of jade. His
zi was Gong-Jing.
Gong, which is a common title for males, and
Jing, meaning beautiful jade. There are a bunch of rules on when to use the
ming and when to use the
zi, which I will skip. Chinese people have basically stopped using
zi for 100 years by now, though there are still a few old writers who still have one. I wish I had one.
(5) Maiden Qiao, actually known as Little Qiao, but that does not sound nice so I took the liberty of changing it. She was the wife of Zhou. Qiao was her family name, her sister was known as Elder Qiao, who married Sun Quan’s elder brother.
(6) Silk turban can also be translated as silk scarf.
The whole phrase (including the feathered fan) refers to the ease and natural poise of a scholar strategist, that is, Zhou Yu. (basically a direct quote from the New Age Chinese English Dictionary), Though this phrase is more commonly used to refer to Zhuge.
(7) I found these three lines quite had to translate. It should actually go something like “Between his laughs and his words, the masts and oars destroyed in flying ash and billowing smoke.” However, I am told that that was quite unclear. It actually refers to the battle of Chibi, when Cao’s ships were defeated, more specifically burned, by Zhou’s brilliant strategic skills. This was viewed as Zhou’s greatest victory.
(I really liked those lines, which portray Zhou as a talented strategist, so cool and in charge, you could almost even say charming. )
(8) Chinese poetry neglects pronouns. (Remember Li Bai’s poem? I had to put in basically all the pronouns!) In here, the word “they” was only implied, not referring to anyone in particular.
(9) I took the liberty of making this a question, instead of the statement it originally was.
A little back ground?
Su Shi (1037-1101AD), one of my favorite poets, lived in the Song Dynasty. He is also the most well known poet of that period. Like the Tang Dynasty, poems can roughly be divided into two groups. (I guess you are now hopelessly confused about the Tang and Song Dynasty, sorry about that.
) Anyway, Su Shi is a representative of the
hao fang style. He managed to basically revolutionize poetry of the Song Dynasty. He and his father and brother were known as “The Three Su” (Su’s the family name), they were also three of “The Eight Great Writers of Prose in the Tang and Song Dynasties.” I haven’t read much of his prose, but I love his poems.
In 1097, because of different rumors and conflict between two groups of politics, Su Shi was exiled to Huangzhou, Hubei. I shouldn’t really use the word “exile,” as he was only demoted to an unimportant position. But as I’ve said before, all those poets are real fussy about their jobs. (See footnote 3 and background of “Drinking Beneath the Moon” for more details if you like) This poem was written two years after the demotion, and Su Shi was still unhappy about it occasionally. In the poem he speaks of Zhou Yu, the great strategist of the Three Kingdoms. You could see that Su Shi really admired him. Also, Su Shi was expressing his desire to be able to serve his nation, as Zhou Yu did. Su Shi desired to be able to do a great deed like Zhou Yu did, and serve the nation. Yet while Zhou gained his victory over Cao’s army at the age of 34, Su Shi was already 47, with no record of any noteworthy deed. Also, being demoted to Huangzhou basically took away any chance of doing anything. Thus he calls himself sentimental. So by admiring and praising Zhou, Su Shi was also lamenting his inability to do anything useful and serve his country. In the end he comforts himself by saying that life is no more than a dream. So many ambitions and laments, yet with no one to lend a listening ear, Su Shi could only toast the moon, the eternal companion of the lonely.
There, that's it. What did you think?
j/k)
