{"id":129553,"date":"2018-09-26T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=129553"},"modified":"2018-09-26T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T14:30:09","slug":"guy-davenports-translation-of-mao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/26\/guy-davenports-translation-of-mao\/","title":{"rendered":"Guy Davenport\u2019s Translation of Mao"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Guy Davenport \/ Poem by\u00a0Mao Zedong<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1979, Guy Davenport\u2019s second book of \u201cstories\u201d appeared: Da Vinci\u2019s Bicycle<\/i>. He was fifty-one. I put quotation marks around the word stories<\/em> because almost nothing happens in any of them. When they\u2019re good, they\u2019re good for other reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Davenport was a disciple of Ezra Pound and James Joyce, and like everyone answering that description, he was a supreme crank. The main problem with all of these guys is that they vastly overestimate the value of literary allusion. And I know all about it, \u2019cuz I was ruined in my youth by these lizard-eating weirdos. Davenport certainly did his part.<\/span><\/p>\n

They were all brilliant. They could write sentences that stick with you forever. Most people never write even one; these guys could practically cut them off by the yard. Yet, none of \u2019em knew when to stop. They always, always got carried away. My hypothesis is that too much of their motivation for writing was to enshrine their crankitudes. They were always trying to get away with something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoom in on Davenport. Let me ask you: How much Chinese do you suppose he knew? I think the smart money is on \u201cvery little.\u201d He probably knew about as much as I do\u2014which is to say, as much as can be learned from one semester of study, augmented by the eager observation of one or two native speakers reciting a handful of classic poems.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But a supreme crank knows how to exploit every little drop of whatever he or she knows. Davenport, who really did know all about poetic meter in English, must have listened very actively when he got somebody to recite Li Bai (or whomever) to him. Davenport knew what he was not<\/i> hearing. Chinese meter was not about vowel quantity, nor stressed and unstressed syllables. What Chinese poetry almost certainly sounded like to him was clusters of five syllables, all<\/i> of them stressed. That\u2019s what mile after mile of Tang- and Song-Dynasty poetry sounds like to an English speaker. <\/p>\n

Armed with this thought, he did a translation of a famous poem by Mao Zedong. The form of his translation is unique in American letters: The text is set up as quatrains (that\u2019s<\/i> normal enough), but the individual lines have only three syllables each. Davenport knew that this did not accurately reflect the original Chinese, but\u2014and this is where the brilliance comes in\u2014it does<\/i> get across (like nothing else available in English) the collapsed syntax and staccato pacing of classical shi<\/i> poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

See for yourself. Below is basically page one of Da Vinci\u2019s Bicycle<\/i>. I cannot bear to leave out the context, which is a deliciously understated spoof on Richard Nixon\u2019s verbal boneheadedness during his historic visit to the People\u2019s Republic of China, February 21\u201328, 1972:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

On the Great Ten Thousand Li Wall, begun in the wars of the Spring and Autumn to keep the Mongols who had been camping nearer and nearer the Yan border from riding in hordes on their przevalskis into the cobbled streets and ginger gardens of the Middle Flower Kingdom, Richard Nixon said:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014I think you would have to conclude that this is a great wall.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Invited by Marshal Yeh Chien-ying to inspect a guard tower on the ramparts, he said:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014We will not climb to the top today.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the limousine returning to the Forbidden City, he said:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014It is worth coming sixteen thousand miles to see the Wall.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Of the tombs of the Ming emperors, he said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014It is worth coming to see these, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014Chairman Mao says, Marshal Yeh ventured, that the past is past.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The translator had trouble with the sentiment, which lost its pungency in English.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014All over?\u00a0Richard Nixon asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We have poem, Marshal Yeh said, which I recite.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n

West wind keen,
\n<\/span> steep sky
\n<\/span>Wild geese cry
\nFor dawn moon.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

For cold dawn
\n<\/span>White with frost,
\nWhen horse neigh,
\nBugle call.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Boast not now
\n<\/span>This hard pass
\n<\/span>Was like iron
\n<\/span>Underfoot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At the top
\n<\/span>We see hills
\n<\/span>And beyond
\n<\/span>The red sun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Richard Nixon leaned with attention, grinning, to hear the translation from the interpreter, Comrade Tang Wen-Sheng, whose English had been learned in Brooklyn, where she spent her childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014That\u2019s got to be a good poem, Richard Nixon said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014Poem by Chairman Mao, Comrade Tang offered.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014He wrote that?\u00a0Richard Nixon asked.\u00a0Made it up?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014At hard pass over Mountain Lu, Marshal Yeh said.\u00a0Long March.\u00a0February 1935.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014My! but that\u2019s interesting, Richard Nixon said.\u00a0Really, really interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

There is a problem, though. And it\u2019s not that shi<\/i> poetry has five syllables per line and not three. It\u2019s that the original poem is not a shi<\/i> poem. It\u2019s a ci<\/i>. (Pronounce it \u201ctsr.\u201d I know, just trust me: tsr<\/i>.) Here\u2019s the original:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\u897f<\/span>\u98ce\u70c8\uff0c<\/span> \u957f\u7a7a\u96c1\u53eb<\/span>\u971c\u6668\u6708<\/span>\u3002<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u971c\u6668\u6708<\/span>\uff0c<\/span> \u9a6c\u8e44\u58f0\u788e\uff0c<\/span> \u5587\u53ed\u58f0\u54bd\u3002<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u96c4\u5173\u6f2b\u9053\u771f\u5982<\/span>\u94c1\uff0c<\/span> \u800c\u4eca\u8fc8\u6b65<\/span>\u4ece<\/span>\u5934\u8d8a<\/span><\/span>\u3002<\/span>
\n<\/span>\u4ece<\/span>\u5934\u8d8a<\/span><\/span>\uff0c<\/span> \u82cd\u5c71\u5982\u6d77\uff0c<\/span> \u6b8b\u9633\u5982\u8840\u3002<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

That\u2019s right: the whole thing is just four lines, and the parts are of irregular lengths. Moreover, there\u2019s a nifty little hand-off repetition thing going on there, a bit like American blues, or at any rate, like a song\u2014which is what a ci<\/i> poem is supposed to be. I\u2019ve marked the repetitions in blue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are two other translations of the same piece, either of which might have been at Davenport\u2019s elbow when he made his version. The first is from The Poems of Mao Tse-Tung<\/i> (1972), translated by Willis Barnstone in collaboration with Ko Ching-Po:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

A hard west wind,
\nin the vast frozen air wild geese shriek to the morning moon,
\nfrozen morning moon.
\nHorse hooves shatter the air
\nand the bugle sobs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

The grim pass is like iron
\n<\/span>yet today we will cross the summit in one step,
\ncross the summit.
\nBefore us green-blue mountains are like the sea,
\nthe dying sun like blood.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cShatter the air\u201d is a bit much, but all in all, the above is a lot closer in meaning to what the forty-one-year-old Mao Zedong wrote. Alternatively, look at this anonymous translation from Mao Tse-Tung Poems<\/i>, published by\u00a0Foreign Languages Press, Beijing in 1976:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Fierce the west wind,
\n<\/span>Wild geese cry under the frosty morning moon.
\nUnder the frosty morning moon
\nHorses\u2019 hooves clattering,
\nBugles sobbing low.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Idle boast the strong pass is a wall of iron,
\n<\/span>With firm strides we are crossing its summit.
\nWe are crossing its summit,
\nThe rolling hills sea-blue,
\nThe dying sun blood-red.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

But there\u2019s the pity of it, Iago! Davenport\u2019s version is misleading, damnably misleading, if our object is to \u201cwork towards the Chairman\u201d and his particular poem. But! If we want to be led to a more general truth about what most<\/i> Chinese poems were bound<\/i> to sound like, both to Nixon and to Davenport as native speakers of English, then \u201cWest wind keen, \/ Up steep sky \/ Wild geese cry \/ For dawn moon\u201d blows the other translations out of the water.<\/span><\/p>\n

See how these bums operate? They don\u2019t know Chinese, but they know something<\/i>. They always know something, and they make that something seem like everything. And then you wind up using their<\/i> versions in the classroom, because what are you gonna do, choose the less-exciting poem? Not gonna happen. And you know what? That would be fine<\/i>\u2014except for one thing. The perpetual American vindication of \u201cgetting away with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before you say \u201cOh, c\u2019mon,\u201d I ask you to look around, friends. Look forward, look back; look left, look right.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Take care of yourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anthony Madrid lives in Victoria, Texas. His second book is\u00a0<\/em>Try Never<\/a>. He is a correspondent for the\u00a0<\/em>Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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