A hundred and seventy Chinese poems

Abstract

In making this book I have tried to avoid poems which have been translated before.A hundred and forty of those I have chosen have not been translated by any one else.The remaining thirty odd I have included in many cases because the previous versions were full of mistakes; in others, because the works in which they appeared are no longer procurable.Moreover, they are mostly in German, a language with which my readers may not all be acquainted.With some hesitation I have included literal versions of six poems (three of the "Seventeen Old Poems," "Autumn Wind," "Li Fu jén," and "On the Death of his Father") already skilfully rhymed by Professor Giles in "Chinese Poetry in English Verse."They were too typical to omit; and a comparison of the two renderings may be of interest.Some of these translations have appeared in the "Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies," in the " New Statesman," in the " Little Review " (Chicago), and in " Poetry" (Chicago).CONTENTS PART I PAGE Realizing the Futility of Life Rising Late and Playing with A-ts'ui, aged Two On a Box containing his own Works On being Sixty Climbing the Terrace of Kuan-yin and looking at the City Climbing the Ling Ying Terrace and looking North Going to the Mountains with a little Dancing Girl, aged Fifteen Dreaming of Yiian Chén A Dream of Mountaineering Ease On hearing someone sing a Poem by Yiian Chén The Philosophers Taoism and Buddhism Last Poem PART Iitself.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 névrosité."The Battle," his one thoroughly intelligible poem, has hitherto been only very imperfectly translated.A literal version will be found on page 39.His nephew Sung Yii 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 [pages 76and 77] are both shih; but all the rest might, I think, be [ 27 ] How can I believe that since the world began In every shipwreck none have drowned but rogues?And how can I, born in evil days?And fresh from failure,' ask a kindness of Fate?

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