"The Battle," his one thoroughly intelligible poem, has hitherto been
only very imperfectly translated.
only very imperfectly translated.
Waley - 170 Chinese Poems
Out of the three hundred and five still extant
only about thirty are likely to interest the modern reader. Of these
half deal with war and half with love. Many translations exist, the best
being those of Legge in English and of Couvreur in French. There is
still room for an English translation displaying more sensitivity to
word-rhythm than that of Legge. It should not, I think, include more
than fifty poems. But the Odes are essentially _lyric_ poetry, and their
beauty lies in effects which cannot be reproduced in English. For that
reason I have excluded them from this book; nor shall I discuss them
further here, for full information will be found in the works of Legge
or Couvreur.
_Elegies of the Land of Ch'u. _--We come next to Ch'u Yuan (third century
B. C. ) whose famous poem "Li Sao," or "Falling into Trouble," has also
been translated by Legge. It deals, under a love-allegory, with the
relation between the writer and his king. In this poem, sex and politics
are curiously interwoven, as we need not doubt they were in Chu Yuan's
own mind. He affords a striking example of the way in which abnormal
mentality imposes itself. We find his followers unsuccessfully
attempting to use the same imagery and rhapsodical verbiage, not
realizing that these were, as De Goncourt would say, the product of
their master's _propre nevrosite_.
"The Battle," his one thoroughly intelligible poem, has hitherto been
only very imperfectly translated. A literal version will be found on p.
23.
His nephew Sung Yu was no servile imitator. In addition to "elegies" in
the style of the Li Sao, he was the author of many "Fu" or descriptive
prose-poems, unrhymed but more or less metrical.
_The Han Dynasty. _--Most of the Han poems in this book were intended to
be sung. Many of them are from the official song-book of the dynasty and
are known as Yo Fu or Music Bureau poems, as distinct from _shih_, which
were recited. Ch'in Chia's poem and his wife's reply (p. 54) are both
_shih_; but all the rest might, I think, be counted as songs.
The Han dynasty is rich in Fu (descriptions), but none of them could be
adequately translated. They are written in an elaborate and florid style
which recalls Apuleius or Lyly.
_The Chin Dynasty. _
(1) _Popular Songs_ (Songs of Wu). The popular songs referred to the Wu
(Soochow) district and attributed to the fourth century may many of
them have been current at a much earlier date. They are slight in
content and deal with only one topic.
only about thirty are likely to interest the modern reader. Of these
half deal with war and half with love. Many translations exist, the best
being those of Legge in English and of Couvreur in French. There is
still room for an English translation displaying more sensitivity to
word-rhythm than that of Legge. It should not, I think, include more
than fifty poems. But the Odes are essentially _lyric_ poetry, and their
beauty lies in effects which cannot be reproduced in English. For that
reason I have excluded them from this book; nor shall I discuss them
further here, for full information will be found in the works of Legge
or Couvreur.
_Elegies of the Land of Ch'u. _--We come next to Ch'u Yuan (third century
B. C. ) whose famous poem "Li Sao," or "Falling into Trouble," has also
been translated by Legge. It deals, under a love-allegory, with the
relation between the writer and his king. In this poem, sex and politics
are curiously interwoven, as we need not doubt they were in Chu Yuan's
own mind. He affords a striking example of the way in which abnormal
mentality imposes itself. We find his followers unsuccessfully
attempting to use the same imagery and rhapsodical verbiage, not
realizing that these were, as De Goncourt would say, the product of
their master's _propre nevrosite_.
"The Battle," his one thoroughly intelligible poem, has hitherto been
only very imperfectly translated. A literal version will be found on p.
23.
His nephew Sung Yu was no servile imitator. In addition to "elegies" in
the style of the Li Sao, he was the author of many "Fu" or descriptive
prose-poems, unrhymed but more or less metrical.
_The Han Dynasty. _--Most of the Han poems in this book were intended to
be sung. Many of them are from the official song-book of the dynasty and
are known as Yo Fu or Music Bureau poems, as distinct from _shih_, which
were recited. Ch'in Chia's poem and his wife's reply (p. 54) are both
_shih_; but all the rest might, I think, be counted as songs.
The Han dynasty is rich in Fu (descriptions), but none of them could be
adequately translated. They are written in an elaborate and florid style
which recalls Apuleius or Lyly.
_The Chin Dynasty. _
(1) _Popular Songs_ (Songs of Wu). The popular songs referred to the Wu
(Soochow) district and attributed to the fourth century may many of
them have been current at a much earlier date. They are slight in
content and deal with only one topic.
