Here is my rendition of another Jinling landscape quatrain by Wei Zhuang entitled "Six Landscapes of Jinling" which I promised in my last post (April 2020) when I posted Wei Zhuang's "A Landscape of Jinling -- The Capital City". You may wish to go to it after this.
You may also wish to spend some time on the Comments made by my friend Ray Heaton on the last poem and my Comments in reply. They may be lengthy but worth the while, particularly on the interpretation of the first 2 lines of this poem.
Here we go. Thank you, Ray.
Wei Zhuang (836-910): Six Landscapes of
Jinling
1
Who says ‘tis really impossible, to portray a grieving heart ---
2
Painters being prone to paint, what the worldly deem as art.
3
O look at these six landscapes of Jinling, her Six Dynasties gone,
4
See dying trees and chilling clouds, all over the city rampart.
Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang
Hongfa) 譯者: 黃宏發
31 October 2019 (revised 1.11.19; 2.11.19)
Translated from the original - 韋莊: 金陵圖
1
誰謂傷心畫不成
2
畫人心逐世人情
3
君看六幅南朝事
4
老木寒雲滿故城
Notes:
*Form, Metre and Rhyme: This English rendition is a quatrain in
heptameter (7 feet or beats) to emulate the original which is a 7-character
“jueju” 絕句 (quatrain). To further
emulate the original, I have given to each of the four 7-beat lines a caesura
(pause) after the first 4 beats. The
rhyme scheme is AAxA
as in the original.
*Title and Line 3: 金陵 (present day: 南京
Nanjing) in the title is rendered simply as “Jinling” in
transliteration. Jinling was the capital
of the 4 successive Southern Dynasties of 宋Song, 齊Qi, 梁Liang and 陳Chen in the 南北朝
North and South Dynasties period (420-581) and their 2
southern predecessors, namely 吳Wu (222-280) and 東晉Eastern Jin (317-420). These
6 dynasties in the South, with Jinling as capital, are collectively known as 六朝 “Six Dynasties” or
as 南朝 “South Dynasties”. Although
referred to in line 3 of the original as “South Dynasties”, it is rendered as “Six
Dynasties” in my rendition in “her Six Dynasties gone” to evoke sentiments of the
decay and fall of dynasties. 圖 in the title is
rendered as “Landscape(s)” to mean landscape paintings. The title of the poem 金陵圖 is, therefore,
rendered as “Six Landscapes of Jinling” as line 3 of the poem clearly refers to
6 paintings: 六幅…事 (six, scrolls, matters). Wei Zhuang
has another poem with the same title of 金陵圖
(with 臺城
added or as an alternative title) which title I have rendered
as “A Landscape of Jinling – The Capital City”.
*Line 1:
誰謂 is translated literally as “Who says”. 傷心
(hurt, heart) is rendered as “a grieving heart”. 畫不成
(paint, not, succeed) is rendered as “… ’tis really impossible
to portray” after considering “… truly/ well/ well nigh impossible …” The line is not a mere question, but a
rhetorical one, to say it is possible to portray a grieving heart, as will be
made clear in lines 3 and 4.
*Line 2:
畫人 (paint, man) is taken to mean “one who paints” and not “to paint
people” and is, therefore, translated literally as “Painters”. 心逐
(heart, pursue) is understood as “the heart is after” and is
rendered as “being prone to paint”. 世人情 (world, men, sentiments)
is understood as “the taste of the worldly people” and is rendered as “what the
worldly (to mean, the worldly people) deem as art”. This line is interpreted as an elaboration and
explanation of why it is so hard to portray a grieving heart, but more
importantly as a rejection of “what the worldly deem as art”.
*Line 3:
君看 (you, look) is rendered as “O look at”, with “O” added to lead on to
the painter’s and poet’s grieving heart brought out by the “dying trees and
chilling clouds” in line 4. 六幅 … 事 (six, scrolls, …
matters) is rendered as “these six landscapes of Jinling”. 南朝
(south, dynasties) is rendered as “her Six Dynasties gone”
after considering “… past”. (Please see
note above on “Title and Line 3”.)
*Line 4:
老木寒雲 (old, wood, cold, clouds) is rendered as “See dying trees and
chilling clouds”, with “See” added to follow from “O look” in line 3. I suggest reading “See dying trees and
chilling clouds” as 4 iambuses (didum didum didum didum) with “See” read
unstressed. 滿故城 (fill, old, city)
is rendered as “all over the city rampart”.
Posts
4 comments:
Following our brief conversation of this poem previously, I read more about Jinling. Here’s a couple of quotes from that reading:
From “Chinese Imperial City Planning” by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, “The first Sui emperor ordered the systematic and total destruction of all traces of the beautiful Six Dynasties city".
From “Nanjing: Historical Landscape and its Planning from Geographical Perspective” by Yifeng Yao, “...gardens with natural aesthetics based on poems were built. Nanjing [Jinling], as the cultural centre, brought together many scholars. These scholars set the creation of natural landscapes as their highest pursuit and life ideal. They sought to create quiet, elegant, refined and graceful garden landscapes...The Sui ruler...ordered his men to tear down Jiankang [Jinling] city and return it to farmlands, and thus palaces, city walls and even residential buildings were torn down...the capital of the Six Dynasties experienced depression and desolation during the Sui and Tang...”.
I decided to reinterpret this poem before reading your full version (noting that you posted the first two lines last month)! Here’s my final version...I couldn't call this a translation, rather I think of it as an interpretation based on my reading about Jinling. In doing so I constrained myself to seven words per line to reflect the poem's seven character form, and decided to rhyme as couplets (admittedly rather weak rhymes).
They say that artists cannot paint heartbreak
Simply reflecting the desires others may take
But these six scrolls show Jinling’s destruction
Decaying trees, wintry clouds, a city’s annihilation
Line 1: I chose heartbreak primarily as a means of linking the viewing of the painting to the feelings of the poet (and artist).
Line 2: As you say, we disagreed on line two! Though if I accept your interpretation then I think you’ve handled the line well, and I like the additional “...deem as art...”, and as you said in the comments to the previous poem, adding “Most...” at the start of the line clarifies the meaning.
But I've been thinking about this line and have reconsidered my opinion.
Using the medieval meaning (i.e. including late Tang) of 逐 as “to go along with" and taking 心 as “desires" or “thoughts" I get to “artists thoughts go along with the people’s feelings”, not so far from the sentiment expressed in your translation, Andrew! I revised this line a few times before finalising on Simply reflecting the desires others may take after considering And simply reflect the desires of society.
In my line 3, I considered translating 事 a little more strongly, and so I had this line as “You, sir, see the Six scrolls, the Southern Dynasties befallen”. Having read what Jinling was like before the Sui destroyed the city led me to refocus the line on the city itself and removed the reference to Southern Dynasty as superfluous. Not liking “befallen" either, I finished with But these six scrolls show Jinling’s destruction.
In line 4 I decided to emphasise more the desolation of Jinling.
In doing so I recall Liu Yuxi’s poem (and your translation, Andrew) 石頭城/金陵五題 其一 where “Flood tides still storm the empty city",
https://chinesepoemsinenglish.blogspot.com/2018/02/liu-yuxi-stone-city-five-titles-on.html.
I have stretched the meaning of 老木 somewhat, though thought of taking 老 as “overgrown" (as in 老菜 “overgrown vegetables” from “The Chinese Lexicon" authorship shown as Yip Po-Ching), deciding that wasn’t appropriate and chose to relate “old” to “decay”, feeling that more logical in the context of the line and from the readings quoted previously.
It may be of interest that 寒雲 was used prior to Wei Zhuang as an occasional reference when reminiscing over former times, for example Jiaoran (in his poem, 秋晚宿破山寺), where his use was clearly to demonstrate the desire to return : 寒雲夜夜自飛還, roughly, chill clouds every night fly homeward alone.
this is beautiful! I read all your work in one night, thank you for sharing this to the world ! I can't read or speak Chinese hence I really like the culture and the poems, therefore, thank you so much !
Dear Rita, Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you like my renditions. Best wishes, Andrew.
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