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60 Chinese Poems in English Verse 英韻唐詩六十首

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11 March 2008

王維 Wang Wei: 竹里館 House in the Bamboo Grove

I hope you will like my rendition of Wang Wei: House in the Bamboo Grove (王維: 竹里館) in an XAXA rhyming scheme as in the original Chinese:-

Wang Wei (701-761):  House in the Bamboo Grove

1    Alone I sit, in the bowers of the bamboo trees,
2    My zither I pluck, then, long and loud I sing.
3    Deep in the forest, none knows I exist,
4    None but the moonlight, to me, solace you bring.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)     譯者: 黃宏發
18 February 2008 (revised 7.3.2008)
Translated from the original - 王維:  竹里館

1    獨坐幽篁裡
2    彈琴復長嘯
3    深林人不知
4    明月來相照

I have revised Meng Haoran: A Morning in Spring (孟浩然: 春曉) in my February post as follows:

In spring, I sleep, unaware morning is here,
From near then far, trilling songbirds I hear.
In the din of the wind and rain all through the night,
How many blossoms fallen? Not few, I fear!

This follows an AAXA rhyming scheme as in the original Chinese.

The same goes for Li Bai: Downstream to Jiangling (李白: 下江陵) in my January post.

Postscript 24.4.2008):
Now, back to my last (March 2008) post, I have now further revised my translation of "House in the Bamboo Grove" by Wang Wei (701-761) as follows:-

Alone I sit in the shade of the bamboo trees,
My strings I pluck, then long and loud I sing.
Deep in the forest, none knows I exist,
None but the moon, to me she comes a-shining.

Notes:-
*I am grateful to William P. Coleman who recently corresponded with me at length in his blog http://williampcoleman.wordpress.com on his and my versions of the poem. My use of "shade" instead of "bowers" in line 1 and "strings" instead of "zither" in line 2 owe much to his criticism.