Re: Online Sheli Poetry Translation
| From: | Sanghyeon Seo <sanxiyn@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, March 16, 2005, 5:11 |
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David J. Peterson wrote:
> Basically, I wrote a poem in Sheli, and I've put resources
> online for anyone to translate it. I've attempted two
> translations, and a friend of mine has done two, as well.
> The page is here:
> Anyway, I invite anyone to translate the poem. And,
> as I say on the page, it doesn't necessarily need to be
> a translation into English.
I spent some time to translate this into Classical Chinese,
also known as Wenyan -- as many characteristics of Sheli
reminded me of Chinese.
Although I have read Analects in the original language and
quite confident in my ability to read and write Classical Chinese,
I'd appreciate any comments from real Chinese people on
the list. I'd appreciate any comments, for that matter.
Here we go!
象牙
四肢厚如木
柔通徐步世
航大洋到岩
寇賣赤牙市
For those who can't read Chinese characters, here are the Unicode
codepoints:
8C61 7259
56DB 80A2 539A 5982 6728
67D4 901A 5F90 6B65 4E16
822A 5927 6D0B 5230 5CA9
5BC7 8CE3 8D64 7259 5E02
The translation is in the form of Wuyan Gushi (五言古詩, Old-style
poem with five syllables). More constrained form is called Wuyan
Jueju, but then I need to account for tones, which I am not familiar with.
Rules for Gushi is simple: five or seven syllables per line, and rhyme
in every second line. Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_(poetry)
My translation meets these criteria. Second and forth line rhyme.
(At least they rhyme in Mandarin: both are shi4.)
You can find out what each character means and how they sounds in
various languages by quering Unihan database:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html
Since that would be tedious, here are Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean
readings and the intended meaning:
Mandarin: xiang4 ya2
si4 zhi1 hou4 ru2 mu4 / rou2 tong1 xu2 bu4 shi4
hang2 da4 yang2 dao4 yan2 / kou4 mai4 chi4 ya2 shi4
Cantonese: jeung6 nga4
sei3 ji1 hau5 yu4 muk6 / yau4 tung1 cheui4 bou6 sai3
hong4 daai6 yeung4 dou3 ngaam4 / kau3 maai6 chek3 nga4 si5
Korean: sang a
sa ci hwu ye mok / yu thong se po sey
hang tay yang to am / kwu may cek a si
Meaning: elephant tooth
four limb thick as tree / soft pass-through slowly walk world
sail great ocean arrive rock / bandit sell tooth market
Seo Sanghyeon
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