Adam Lively: Writer – Literary Mentoring and Coaching

This is my first attempt at a translation from Chinese. A couple of notes below, but first the poem. . .

Zhang Ruoxu, “Moonlight on the Yangtse River”

(Late seventh/early eighth century)

A spring tide fills the river to its brim;

Far out to sea the moon flickers to life,

And ripples in for miles across its surface.

The world is flooded with moonlight.

Where the river winds through the meadows,

Its gleam frosts the tree-blossom

And fills the air with a floating mist,

Veiling the white sandbanks.

River and sky are lit by a single flawless light

While the radiant moon rolls slowly on in its solitude.

Who, I wonder, was the first to look up like this, from this riverbank?

When did the moon first shine down?

Men are born and die, generation upon generation without end,

But the moon stays the same through all the passing years.

I try to imagine the man for whom the moon waits

But can only see the Yangtse, bidding farewell to its ever-flowing waters.

A solitary cloud floats far away into the distance.

Amongst the maple trees, my sadness almost breaks me.

My love will be wondering where I am on my journey –

Perhaps she thinks of me now, standing at a moonlit window.

I imagine the moonlight lingering on her,

Shining on her dressing-table.

When she comes to roll down the blind, it will still shine.

Falling on her fulling-stone, it won’t be wiped away.

We both gaze up, but no words pass between us. I wish

I could be one with the moon’s splendour, and shine on you.

The homebound geese cannot match its reach.

The fish write only ripples on the surface of the water.

Last night, by a secluded pool, I dreamt of falling blossom,

Sad that spring was half-gone and I not home.

The river-water was bearing the spring away,

And over the pool the moon was falling. . .

It’s falling now, sinking slowly into the sea’s mist. . .

Between us the road seems endless.

Numberless are the men homeward-bound through the night.

The falling moon stirs my heart and floods the riverside woods.

*

Classical Chinese being so different from any European language, Zhang Ruoxu’s poem, when turned into an English poem, inevitably becomes something different (though hopefully related in terms of its overall effect on a reader). The original is written in a strict form – seven characters (words) per line, with a regular pattern of rhyme to each four-line stanza. I haven’t attempted to reproduce any of this, in order to focus on the unfolding of image and thought.

Nothing much seems to be known about Zhang Ruoxu, and only two of his poems survive. He wrote during the Tang Dynasty, a few decades earlier than the celebrated Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Du Fu.

I worked from the Chinese text in Archie Barnes, Chinese Through Poetry: An Introduction to the Language and Imagery of Traditional Verse (2007). In this wonderful book (far more than just a language text-book), Barnes urges students following his course to attempt their own literary translations of the poems, as a way of thinking their way into the meaning of these often-elliptical texts. It’s in that spirit that I’ve attempted the translation above, and will attempt more in future.