Thomas A.

登高

風急天高猿嘯哀,     

渚清沙白鳥飛迴.     

無邊落木蕭蕭下,      

不盡長江滾滾來.     

萬里悲秋常作客,      

百年多病獨登臺.      

艱難苦恨繁霜鬢,      

潦倒新停濁酒杯.  

– 杜甫 (Du Fu)

The Climb

The open sky shimmers as apes howl in the swift winds,

birds are flying back home to the clear white-sand islet.

Boundlessly falling leaves fly rustling down to earth,

The ever-flowing Yangtze River falls swiftly rolling in.

In this bleak autumn, I regret staying so far from home,

Unwell for so long as I ascend the heights alone,

My hair has turned gray, I regret so much looking back.

Rock bottom and nowhere to go - I have to stop drinking.

-Translated from Chinese by Thomas

Ascending the height

The sky so wide, apes howl in the swift winds,

Birds are flying back to the clear white-sand islet.

Boundlessly falling leaves slowly fall to the ground,

The torrent of the Yangtze River comes swiftly rolling in.

In this bleak autumn, I regret staying so far from home,

Sick and tired for so long, I ascend the height alone.

My hair has turned gray with regret and solace,

Down and out, I must stop drinking for the time being.

-Translated from Chinese by Thomas

Translator’s Statement

Du Fu, also known as Du Gongbu or Du Shaoling, was a scholar born in 712 CE and is considered one of the best poets ever known. Born into a scholarly family, Du Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed testing, which eventually caused him to start traveling. It was only during these travels that Du Fu found his real ability in poetry. In 740, he eventually became a high official though his own means but was unable to progress through the ranks, even submitting his literary works to no response. But after this war and famine would come and Du Fu struggled to survive, eventually dying in 770. 

Du Fu’s poetry focused on the beauty of the natural world around him, as well as his own experiences during these times. He speaks on wars going on around him in poems such as “Bingqu xing” (“The Ballad of the Army Carts”), and even luxury in court, seen in  “Liren xing” (“The Beautiful Woman”). But he not only focused on the beauty around him, as throughout his life, Du Fu found compassion for humanity. Through senseless wars and hardships, this meaning connected his poems to others experiences, really letting his poems shine. This wasn’t all that made him such a famous poet, though, as his understanding of Chinese literature was unrivaled, having an intimate relationship with literary tradition and being an expert in many literary genres. 

The poem I chose is titled 登高 (“Ascending a Height”). It describes the scenery surrounding Du Fu, who is depressed he has stayed away from home, isolating him and describing the hardships of his journey. But nevertheless, the beautiful fall scenery still falls around him as he traverses this so-called “height.” This poem is an expression of Du Fu’s circumstances at the time. Stuck in a foreign land, hungry and poor, he truly is “down and out” as described in the poem. This poem is divided into two halves. The first is the description of the fall scenery surrounding him, and the second is about Du Fu’s life experience. These sections are distinct, as the first section is a description, and the second is lyrical. 

My transitions focused on two different things: the first on accuracy to the original and the second on flow and meaning. Each translation is unique, exhibiting a specific part of Du Fu’s poem. 

My first translation is titled “The Climb”. The literal translation is titled “Ascending a Height,” which is grammatically clunky, so I decided to change it to a short and sweet message concerning the poem - The Climb. I go on to interpret each line in the poem to a specific length and meaning, keeping as close to the original meaning while keeping the line length similar. The purpose of this idea is to show what such a poem would sound and look like if it was originally written in English. But each Chinese character has different meanings, as well as different translations in English. Some are longer, and some are shorter, which makes it hard to keep each line a similar length. Because of this, I had to find a length between the shorter and longer lines of the literal translation to keep each one a similar length. This follows one quotation I got from Carina del Valle Schorske: “Letter of Recommendation: Translation,” stating:  “If I translate [ensimismada] as ‘self-involved,’ we lose this music and come face to face with all the negative judgments the music keeps at bay, too close for my conflict to ‘selfish’ and ‘stuck up.’” Following this thinking, I edited each line to fit the “music” of the poem. One example is lines 3-4:

 Boundlessly falling leaves fly rustling down to earth, 

The ever-flowing Yangtze River falls swiftly rolling in.

The literal translation for this section was,

Boundless falling leaves are rustling down

The ever-flowing Yangtze River comes swiftly rolling in

As you can see in the literal translation, line 3 is shorter than line 4. To compensate for this, I added a short section at the end of line 3, “to earth,” to elongate the section while bringing another visual aspect into the poem. I then replaced “comes” with “falls” as the word “falls” is a bit smaller and gives a better representation of a flowing river than simply “comes… in”.

My second poem is titled “Ascending the Height,” similar to the literal translation of the title “Ascending a Height.” Focusing on the meaning of the poem actually posed to be an easier challenge for me than creating a poem with visual accuracy. I suspect this is because the literal translation of the original poem originally holds the most meaning, and adapting this to a poem with more flow only required editing the grammar, punctuation, and wording of the poem. Some lines I even kept  identical, such as line 2, which is the same line in each poem: 

Birds are flying back to the clear white-sand islet. 

I kept this line the same as I already loved how it sounded, using unique descriptors such as “islet” and “clear white-sand,” giving a unique visual spectacle from the wording alone. For other lines, I tried to make each as spectacular as this line. This meant using more descriptive words and being very particular about what words I used, when, and why. One example is line 4”

The torrent of the Yangtze River falls swiftly rolling in.

The literal translation was much too bland for my liking, 

The ever-flowing Yangtze River comes swiftly rolling in,

While the literal translation gives a clear message, “ever-flowing” as well as the use of “comes” makes this scene seem boring. This is why I chose to replace these words with “torrent” and “falls” like my first interpretive poem, where the action of this scene almost allows you to hear the crashes of the “torrent of the Yangtze River.”

My Blackout Poem was made to represent as much of my heritage as possible. Hearing stories of my family really let me know how much history and culture was still hidden from me. This drove me to use as much information as I could. So using each part of my blackout poem, I was able to tell a story based on the answers to the given questions my mom gave to me. This not only let me section off each part based on the questions, but it also let me hear and tell the story of many different parts of my family. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the blackout poem, it was hard to keep all the information I needed while making full sentences. That meant the process I chose made my poem sort of abstract, isolating each word and giving more emphasis on each instead of having one sentence with one meaning.

Bibliography

Britannica. "Du Fu". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Du-Fu. Accessed 24 April 2023.

De Valle, Carina. “Letter of Recommendation: Translation.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-translation.html

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Thomas is a 10th grader currently going to Meridian Academy. He loves to rock climb and 3D print in his spare time. He loves the outdoors and exploring the world.