John Masefield: On Reading "Bridge to Heaven" (1942)

On Reading The Bridge of Heaven  《天桥》written by 熊式一

by John Masefield Oct. 15th, 1942

To Ta Tung, as a boy,

This hope gave gentle joy,

To plant, in some green close,

A plum-tree or white rose,

That, so, in Spring or June

The lamp of the full Moon

Might show to Man the flower

White, in its whitest hour,

That, those who came to seek,

Would whisper: "Will she speak

This Wonder? Will she bless

Our woes to nothingness?

Will she descend the green

Sweet sprays, and be our Queen?

Our Saviour Queen? O, still ...

She moves... She will."

Then, growing-up, be found

No garden-close, no ground,

In all wide China's space

To be a planting-place.

Instead, an iron will

To learn to kill, and kill

The tangle of the weeds

That thwart men's needs.

Thus is Man's youth today,

An April without May,

A May without a June,

Night without Moon.

But Hope from thwarted lives

In unquenched beauty strives

Slowly its glimmer breaks

The darkness of mistakes.

So many million flames

Will burn away the shames;

Ta Tung will surely find

His plot of Peace of Mind;

His blossomed plum will lift

White as the snow in drift,

Under a Moon of Peace

In skies like the still seas.

熊式一《天桥》

史学大师陈寅恪1945年秋到英伦“疗治目疾”时获赠《天桥》，“听读佉卢百感加”，先后“题赠二绝句”和一首七律，其一云：

海外林熊各擅场，卢前王后费评量。

北都旧俗非吾识，爱听天桥话故乡。

陈寅恪祖籍江西南昌府义宁州，少时曾居南昌，与熊式一谊属同乡。诗中把熊式一与林语堂在英语世界的影响相提并论，借用“初唐四杰”中杨炯“愧在卢（照邻）前，耻居王（勃）后”的典故“评量”《天桥》和《京华烟云》，认为自己“不识”林语堂笔下的“北都旧俗”，还是偏爱描写故乡的《天桥》（小说中“天桥”首尾呼应，“楔子”写乡绅李明在南昌城外赣江支流修建新桥，命之曰“天桥”；“尾声”又写李明之子李大同重造新的“既美丽又坚固”的“天桥” ），评价不可谓不高。

世人谁识熊式一？与早已名满天下的林语堂不同，熊式一先生的文学成就，特别是他作为20世纪中国屈指可数的双语作家对中外文学交流所作的贡献，至今鲜为人知。《王宝钏》中英文对照本2006年3月才由北京商务印书馆推出，《天桥》中文本现已经在内地出版。《天桥》1943年英文版伦敦首印后重印十余次，被译为多国文字，畅销海外。时隔近七十年，经外语教学与研究出版社的努力，简体字版首次在中国大陆问世。熊式一与林语堂并称海外的双语作家，在英语世界撰写并执导戏剧的中国第一人。其英文话剧《王宝钏》，连演三年近千场而不衰，轰动欧美。因此，我以为把他晚年所作的《八十回忆》以及《天桥》、《大学教授》中文本序跋等篇章编集出版，以补现代文学史之阙，正其时矣。

source: http://baike.baidu.com/view/4240421.htm

http://character.workercn.cn/363/201603/04/160304164030332.shtml

林语堂英译陶渊明《归去来兮辞》

林语堂英译陶渊明《归去来兮辞》


Ah, homeward bound I go!
Why not go home, seeing that my field
and gardens are overgrown?
Myself have made my soul serf to my body:
why have vain regrets and mourn alone?

Fret not over bygones
and the forward journey take.
Only a short distance have I gone astray,
and I know today I am right,
if yesterday was a complete mistake.

pics

Writing Verse in Classic Chinese

This poem of mine came to me through 'conversational' writing in March 2005 between myself and an unknown netizen who served in Iraqi war.

Writing Verse in Classic Chinese
I was smashed by a pale spirit
out of Bath a misty winter morn
it haunts hours away
from my X-Window frames.
Alas by this end of hours
and by this end of day
oh How i cut and paste
in every way
to restore a dream I've dreamt
yet lost ever since I left.
O blessed is the hours so ardently spent
waiting by wings of angelic forms
whereby beauty and grace behold
a forgotten tongue
a rusty art
of making ancient music
with silent sound
echoing between thousands of years
and thousands of miles around.
[fiveshinylights: comrade, dost you speaketh the china man's tongue?]

Brother 'cool hand luke', yes i do.
now as i remember my mother tongue
endured warring kingdoms hundreds of centuries strong
it is not to speak
but to paint, silently
out of gentle brushes rainfalls of firm strokes
thy worst enemy and thyself's speck of mind
for words uttered always turning into querrels by hauling wind
for words carved into oracles smoked by time and shifted by sand
can mean many things to one eye kings
thus bind thy people with one faith
no words no names
but mixing bloody drops from unquenchable dreams

sciencenet.cn

Winding Up by Derek Walcott

Winding Up
by Derek Walcott

I live on the water,
alone. Without wife and children,
I have circled every possibility
to come to this:
a low house by grey water,
with windows always open
to the stale sea. We do not choose such things,
but we are what we have made.
We suffer, the years pass,
we shed freight but not our need
for encumbrances. Love is a stone
that settled on the sea-bed
＃13
under grey water. Now, I require nothing
from poetry but true feeling,
no pity, no fame, no healing. Silent wife,
we can sit watching grey water,
and in a life awash
with mediocrity and trash
live rock-like.
I shall unlearn feeling,
unlearn my gift. That is greater
and harder than what passes there for life.


 吾将上下而求索

我住在水上，
独处，无妻无子，
弃掉漩生出的各种可能
我成为如今的样子：
一片灰水的一间低矮房子里，
窗户总是敞着
面向无波的海。我们并非选择了这些事，
但最终我们还是从了本来的命运。
遭受，流逝的年岁，
我们卸下负荷 而非对自我的
自怜自爱。爱如石
安置于灰色水域的
河床。现下，我一无所求

真情出嫁于诗境
无怜无名无救。无言的内人
我们一同坐看泉泉的暗流。
和 浮世一生
在庸常和垃圾中
受洗的顽石。
我应该解下感情，
解下天赋。这比当初得到它们可是麻烦多了，
这也比一生随波逐流要好吧。

based on reader azur@douban 's another fine translation  ( without the title and #13 line onwards...)

Tension in contextualized translation...from English to Chinese, wor(l)ds apart... ? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Tension_in_contextualized_translationfrom_English_to_Chinese_worlds_apart [accessed Sep 21, 2016].