Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese Book

Careful, very clear translations, and done for the best of reasons: to help a very good poet reconnect to his own work. Here Sze moves across the whole range of Chinese verse, from the well known T'ang poems through the centuries to the early 20th century, covering work that I, for one, didn't know. His short introduction to his process of translation is one of the clearest and most honest I have read. I will return to it. Perhaps I might have wanted a few more explanatory notes in a few places, ones that might explain the cultural references buried in the natural images, but I am always willing to go with the natural images in Chinese verse, even when I guess that I am missing things.

One of the added gifts of this little book was an expanded appreciation of what Pound did in his "Cathay" poems. For instance, we always hear, sometimes with a joking tone, about Pound using the notes by Fenellosa on Japanese translations of Chinese poems. So, we say (and I too, in my ignorance, have been guilty of this) that Pound created some lovely poems, maybe his loveliest, but that they bear very little relationship to the Chinese original. But Sze's version of that poem shows how things -- the story in things and some of the telling images -- survive all that transmission. Here is Pound's famous opening to "The River Merchant's Wife"

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 plumes.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

And here's Arthur Sze's version of Li Po's "Song of Ch'ang-kan":

When my hair just began to cover my forehead,
I was plucking flowers, playing in front of the gate.
You came along riding a bamboo stick horse,
circling and throwing green plums.
Together we lived in Ch'ang-kan Village
never suspicious of our love.

Now as much as I admire the directness of the Sze version, I have to admit that the music of the Pound version is so much better. Or am I just reacting to the poem I have known from more than half a century? But, still, it is amazing that the Pound/Fenellosa/Japanese version has kept so much of the Chinese! It's really kind of wonderful, the story of this poem moving around in history and through languages!