夜梦上嵩山，独携藜杖出。
千岩与万壑，游览皆周毕。
梦中足不病，健似少年日。
既悟神返初，依然旧形质。
始知形神内，形病神无疾。
形神两是幻，梦寤俱非实。
昼行虽蹇涩，夜步颇安逸。
昼夜既平分，其间何得失？
A DREAM OF MOUNTAINEERING
At night, in my dream, I stoutly climbed a mountain,
Going out alone with my staff of holly-wood.
A thousand crags, a hundred hundred valleys–
In my dream-journey none were unexplored
And all the while my feet never grew tired
And my step was as strong as in my young days.
Can it be that when the mind travels backward
The body also returns to its old state?
And can it be, as between body and soul,
That the body may languish, while the soul is still strong?
Soul and body–both are vanities;
Dreaming and waking–both alike unreal.
In the day my feet are palsied and tottering;
In the night my steps go striding over the hills.
As day and night are divided in equal parts–
Between the two, I get as much as I lose.
At night, in my dream, I stoutly climbed a mountain,
Going out alone with my staff of holly-wood.
A thousand crags, a hundred hundred valleys–
In my dream-journey none were unexplored
And all the while my feet never grew tired
And my step was as strong as in my young days.
Can it be that when the mind travels backward
The body also returns to its old state?
And can it be, as between body and soul,
That the body may languish, while the soul is still strong?
Soul and body–both are vanities;
Dreaming and waking–both alike unreal.
In the day my feet are palsied and tottering;
In the night my steps go striding over the hills.
As day and night are divided in equal parts–
Between the two, I get as much as I lose.
Bai Juyi (772-846) Tr. Arthur Waley
As N gets older our conversations are becoming more interesting. This evening we were discussing the interpretation and analysis of poetry. She's been looking at Emily Bronte, Rossetti and Bai Juyi. The latter in translation. But they used the old Wade-Giles transliteration: Po Chü-i so initially she didn't associate it as being Chinese, once she'd worked that out, of course she went to the original. And then our discussion was about how when you're analysing something in translation and thinking of word choice, does one consider the choice of the translator or of the original. Naturally in an English class that is filled with English mono-linguals at Grade 7 level, the answer is yes, but how does that work out in a multi-lingual / cultural class where at least some of the students would be able to read the poem in the original?
I was telling her how so many of the poets used homonyms to convey a hidden meaning in their poetry and prose, for example if they were criticising the emperor or local war lord or officials, and then one would have to know what stood for what. And in fact, if one reads the introduction and background here, it gives some very interesting context.
