Xue Tao Moon
October 14th 2007 07:45
Notes on a poem by
Xue Tao Tang Woman Poetess
Xue Tao Tang Woman Poetess
Moon is a four line poem written by Xue Tao also known as Hsueh T'ao.
The chinese text in pinyin is :
( \ = tone 4 - = tone 1 /=tone 2 and ^ = tone 3 )
po\ yi - gou- yang\ xiao^
shan\ zhu/ han/ ji- tuan/
xi\ ying^ jiang - yuan/ zhi \
ren / jian - ji^ lu\ kan \
Paraphrase
Spirit as/like/ hook/crescent (following) pattern small
Fan following (by degrees) Han (style) loom round
slender shadow shall become round sphere (by its inherent) nature
people among how many care for think about (and will ? are ) look at?
The Chinese characters for this came from
XYS a site with no notes or webmaster listed so I couldnt send a thank you note.
The Larsen book I mentioned in an earlier post Two Tang Woemn Poets had a printing error that made some of the characters hard to read.
So how does this read in Modern English?
It was written almost 1500 years in Semi tropicla south western China.
Jeanne Larsen translated it (P.6) as :
Its nascent crescent spirit
takes a hook shape
small
Then a fan
from the Han loom
round.
Sliver of shine:
its nature to wax full
Where on earth can such a thing be seen?
Apparently the poem was first presented as riddle possible to challenge other poets and scholars?
Another translation by Eric Johnson reads :
The crescent, tiny as the curtain hook;
The slender image, its nature, to gain fullness -
Where else on earth is this seen?
How exsperatingly difficult a simple four line poem can be to translate!
My version
A spirit like a small curved hook of metal
Gradually becomes a round Han style silken fan
A slender shadow shall become a naturally round sphere
Amongst humans where do you think this is seen?
Three attempts for you to assess.
If anyone who's far more fluent in Classical Chinese then me comes across this blog feel free to comment on the undoubted inaccuracies but do give me some credit for making an effort and at least providing the text so people can check it for themselves?
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