Poetry Translating as Expert Action
noticeably different from that in other genres); they have some type of regular
linguistic patterning; they exploit the sounds, semantic nuances or associations of
words, and not just semantic meanings; they convey meanings beyond the ‘propo-
sitional content’ (i.e. the surface semantics) of the words and grammar; they can
give intense emotional, spiritual or philosophical experience to their readers and
listeners; and they have high social and cultural status. Of course, not all poems
have all these features, and many non-poems have some of them (intensity of ex-
perience might be gained from a novel or a prayer, say). But the more such features
a text has, the more its readers or listeners will agree that it is a poem. Hence Yù jiē
yuàn’s readers would see it as a poem because of its markedly compressed lan-
guage (just 20 syllables/characters, each a content word), its five-syllable-by-four-
line patterning, its sounds and associative meanings (líng lóng not only means
‘jade-tinkling’, but sounds like it), and its emotional depth beyond the semantics
of the twenty characters (a sense of sadness, waning, waiting in vain). Moreover,
Tang dynasty poetry is valued by Chinese readers as one of the highest achieve-
ments of their verbal culture. Understanding a poem, therefore, presumably in-
volves interpreting the potential meanings conveyed by all these features.
Many have tried to rewrite this poem in other languages. Here are three Eng-
lish rewritings, by Ezra Pound, Arthur Cooper and Xu Yuanchong respectively:
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn. (Pound 1915/2010: 59)
On marble stairs
still grows the white dew
That has all night
soaked her silk slippers
But she lets down
her crystal blind now
And sees through glaze
the moon of autumn (Li Po and Tu Fu 1973: 112–113)The marble steps with dew turn cold,
Silk soles are wet when night grows old.
She comes in, lowers crystal screen.
Still gazing at the moon serene. (Li Po 1987: 96)All three rewritings are identified as “translations” or “translated” on the title page
of their respective collections. There are many points of contact between them and
Li Po’s Chinese text. All involve dew forming through the night on stairs made of
a luxury material and wetting the footwear of someone waiting, some sort of