an anthology of chinese verse. han wei chin and the northern and southern dynastiesby j. d. frodsham

An Anthology of Chinese verse. Han Wei Chin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties byJ. D. FrodshamReview by: D. R. JonkerT'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 55, Livr. 4/5 (1969), pp. 327-332Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4527784 .

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BIBLIOGRAPHIE 327 BIBLIOGRAPHIE 327

The seven translations by John Caimcross, all of them from T'ang originals, make better reading than most of Professor Liu's. There are some inaccuracies. The title of no. 3, Mg,, by Meng Chiao, does not mean "A woman's unruffled complaint", but "Vain complaint"; X is M and means "vain, fruitless".

As a selection of Chinese poems this anthology is conventional, traditional. Its translations are mediocre. The concordance tables, from the poems of this book to other English translations, and the other way round, provided at the end, are useful. This is also true of the bibliography of works in English, though it is not complete. The bibliography of works in Chinese, comprising only I2 titles, has an air of complete arbitrariness. Note e.g.: "The Complete Works Of T'ao Yiian-ming" (IQ HA%f) without any indication of edition, year etc., and Yi Chiun-tso % ; , "History of Chinese Literature" (* S5).

In conclusion it must be said that this anthology cannot be considered as a valuable addition to the body of English translations of Chinese poems. Its inclusion in the Chinese Translation Series of the Unesco is puzzling.

Leiden D. R. JONKER.

The seven translations by John Caimcross, all of them from T'ang originals, make better reading than most of Professor Liu's. There are some inaccuracies. The title of no. 3, Mg,, by Meng Chiao, does not mean "A woman's unruffled complaint", but "Vain complaint"; X is M and means "vain, fruitless".

As a selection of Chinese poems this anthology is conventional, traditional. Its translations are mediocre. The concordance tables, from the poems of this book to other English translations, and the other way round, provided at the end, are useful. This is also true of the bibliography of works in English, though it is not complete. The bibliography of works in Chinese, comprising only I2 titles, has an air of complete arbitrariness. Note e.g.: "The Complete Works Of T'ao Yiian-ming" (IQ HA%f) without any indication of edition, year etc., and Yi Chiun-tso % ; , "History of Chinese Literature" (* S5).

In conclusion it must be said that this anthology cannot be considered as a valuable addition to the body of English translations of Chinese poems. Its inclusion in the Chinese Translation Series of the Unesco is puzzling.


J. D. FRODSHAM, An anthology of Chinese verse. Han Wei Chin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Translated and annotated with the collaboration of Ch'eng Hsi [R W]. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, I967, xxxix + 2 + I98 pp.

The present anthology is the first volume of a projected series of four, entitled "Oxford Library of East Asian Literatures", under the general editorship of Professor D. Hawkes (Oxford). As the translator states in his preface, "it is an attempt to present the first balanced anthology of Chinese verse available in any language outside Japanese". This implies that it is also to be considered as intended to show the development of Chinese poetry throughout the centuries. The three volumes of this series that are to follow will presumably be devoted to later periods of Chinese literature. The translator has not in the first place selected poems of his own predilection or such as are well translatable into English, but he has tried to make a choice of what can be considered representative poetry of this period of about four centuries. The difficult task of

J. D. FRODSHAM, An anthology of Chinese verse. Han Wei Chin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Translated and annotated with the collaboration of Ch'eng Hsi [R W]. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, I967, xxxix + 2 + I98 pp.

The present anthology is the first volume of a projected series of four, entitled "Oxford Library of East Asian Literatures", under the general editorship of Professor D. Hawkes (Oxford). As the translator states in his preface, "it is an attempt to present the first balanced anthology of Chinese verse available in any language outside Japanese". This implies that it is also to be considered as intended to show the development of Chinese poetry throughout the centuries. The three volumes of this series that are to follow will presumably be devoted to later periods of Chinese literature. The translator has not in the first place selected poems of his own predilection or such as are well translatable into English, but he has tried to make a choice of what can be considered representative poetry of this period of about four centuries. The difficult task of



328 BIBLIOGRAPHIE

picking out about 200 poems out of a total number of more than 7000, contained in Ting Fu-pao's Ch'iian Han San-kuo Chin Nan Pei ch'ao shih, was in fact accomplished by his cooperator Mr. Ch'eng Hsi, who went through the whole of this enormous corpus of poetry. Though some of the poems selected have been translated into English before, the majority had not been included in any previous English anthology of Chinese poetry. The translations themselves are preceded by a photostatically reproduced introductory note by Mr. Ch'eng Hsi, a preface, a list of contents, an introduction (2I pages), a table of dynasties and a list of abbreviated titles of Chinese anthologies and collections from which the selected poems have been taken. The introduction provides the reader with a short, lucid sketch of the political and spiritual background of the poetry of this age, its main themes, and its form and structure. All of the 49 poets whose poems have been included are introdu- ced by a short biographical note, which at the same time mostly provides some evaluation of their poetry. The poems themselves have been sufficiently provided with explanatory footnotes.

A volume like this ought to be judged mainly in two respects: its standard of selection and the quality of its translations. As to the first, it is very hard for a westerner, not so well equipped and wellread as Mr. Ch'eng Hsi, to pass judgment on it. On the other hand, in spite of his excellent qualifications, Mr. Ch'eng's choice must also necessarily remain personal and subjective. However this may be, the generous way in which major poets of this period, so far largely neglected, like Juan Chi (2I poems), Hsieh Ling-yiin (20), Pao Chao (22) and Yii Hsin (I3) have been represented in this anthology, cannot but be gratifying. Moreover, to my taste most of the poems chosen will convince even an uninitiated reader of their intrinsic value.

Some minor objections will, nevertheless, arise, when looking through the table of contents and some of the introductory notes to these parate sections. In the first one ("Early Yiieh-fu (Anon.)"), the famous Nineteen Old Poems have been omitted because they have already been translated before, e.g. by Arthur Waley. I wonder if this can be adduced as a sufficient justification for the omission of these poems which by a Chinese critic have rightly been denominated "the Mother of Poetry" (= f) and in fact mark a major stage in the development of classical Chinese poetry. The adequate, coherent picture of this development, which the anthology



BIBLIOGRAPHIE 329

intends to present to the reader, will of necessity be invalidated by this omission. The same holds true for the section on T'ao Ch'ien, of whom only I2 poems have been included, whilst, as the translator states, according to the principle that the number of poems of a poet included should be in proportion to his importance in literary history, "T'ao's verse would fill a quarter of this volume". Because it is not to be expected that every reader of this book will at the same time have an anthology on his desk in which the space allotted to T'ao Ch'ien is more in keeping with his position "as one of China's greatest poets", his impression of T'ao's poetry obtained from this book will inevitably be incomplete and onesided. Inconsistencies like the above are detrimental to the objective proposed by this anthology of presenting something new and essentially different from former anthologies. However, I should not like to be too severe on the compilers because of these im- perfections: it can easily be imagined that, the book being probably tied down to a fixed number of pages, the compilers in general have preferred to include n e w material.

As to the translations themselves, they can only be said to be of very high quality. As the translator indicates in his preface, he has aimed "at a rendering as close to the Chinese as possible, without ever losing sight of the integrity of the original". In practice this means that he has carefully preserved the imagery of the original poem, at the same time striving to keep some of its rhythm by making the number of stressed syllables in the English line equal to that of the characters in the Chinese original. Because the majority of the poems selected had not been rendered into English before, comparison with former translations can only be done in a very restricted way. To this end we may use two of the cycle of 8i poems by Juan Chi, called Yung-huai 1 4, (Frodsham: "Ex-

pressing my thoughts"), translated here, which have also been

included in the Anthology of Chinese Literature, edited by Cyril Birch (I965). In my opinion, Frodsham's translation of these poems is far superior to that of C. J. Chen and Michael Bullock in the above-mentioned anthology, both in accuracy and correct- ness of rendering, and in conveying the spirit of the original. The

concentration or density of the Chinese poem has also been much better preserved in Frodsham's translation. In order to

illustrate this I shall provide the Chinese text of the first poem of this cycle, the translation by Chen and Bullock, and the one by Frodsham:



330 BIBLIOGRAPHIE

A. k *p 5t; a

,g 2. E

A i, TV 6) \

B. Being sleepless at midnight, I rise to play the lute. The moon is visible through the curtains And a gentle breeze sways the cords of my robe. A lonely wild goose cries in the wilderness And is echoed by a bird in the woods. As it circles, it gazes At me, alone, imbued with sadness.

C. In the deep of night I found I could not sleep, I rose, sat down, and played my singing lute. My flimsy curtains mirrored the shining moon, A pure breeze stirred the collar of my gown. A lonely goose called in the wilds outside, A bird hovered crying over the northern woods. I paced up and down, wondering what I should see, But only sad thoughts came to grieve my heart.

Because this anthology is devoted to the memory of Arthur Waley, it would be tempting to compare its translations to his. However, as already mentioned in the case of the Nineteen Old Poems, which have been omitted just because i6 of them had been translated before by Waley, the number of poems which have been translated by both Waley and Frodsham is very small. One of them is the wellknown poem by Chan Fang-sheng (fl. ca. 385), entitled "Sailing back to the capital" (Frodsham). For a comparison the Chinese text, Waley's translation and the one by Frodsham are given:

A.



BIBLIOGRAPHIE 33I

B. Cliffs that rise a thousand feet Without a break, Lake that stretches a hundred miles Without a wave, Sands that are white through all the year, Without a stain, Pinetree woods, winter and summer Evergreen, Streams that for ever flow and flow Without a pause, Trees that for twenty thousand years Your vows have kept, You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller's heart, And moved his brush to write a new song.

(One hundred and seventy Chinese Poems, p. 82)

C. Famed mountains, soaring a hundred thousand feet, Long lakes, crystal-clear for a thousand leagues. White sands, unsullied till the end of time, Pine-forests, evergreen summer and winter. Rivers, whose streams stay not a moment's space, Trees that stand firm for a thousand years. I lie awake, composing new poems, Suddenly forgetting my sadness at the journey.

(p. 98)

The difference between these two translations is obvious: Waley's is more of a re-creation, Frodsham's has more the character of a faithful rendering. In tenseness of language Frodsham's translation is to my taste not inferior to that of Waley.

I checked the translations of a number of poems, mainly by Ts'ao Chih, Pao Chao and Hsieh T'iao. As far as I could ascertain they are impeccable. Only in perusing those by Pao Chao, I was struck by the fact that in Frodsham's translation the seven-syllable line of the poems of The weary road cycle sometimes has been left intact



332 BIBLIOGRAPHIE 332 BIBLIOGRAPHIE

and in other cases has been split into two. I cound not detect any principle by which the different handling of this line was determined. Apparently it was not done for grammatical reasons. Compare e.g.:

For what will endless grieving Bring you in the end?

(No. II, P. I49)

And:

Of late you have been silent, no news has reached me here. (No. I2, same page)

In view of the intention of the translator to keep as close to the original as possible, it would have been preferable if the seven syllable line would have been consistently preserved in the translation. This minor objection does not, however, affect the exception- ally high standard of these translations, which together with the felicity of choice of still largely untranslated poetry covering a circumscribed period, makes the publication of this anthology an important event in the disclosure of one of the great literatures of the world.

Two final remarks. On p. 9 Ts'ai Yen is said to be the grand- daughter of Ts'ai Yung. However, according to her biography in the Hou-Han shu, mentioned in this introductory note, she was his daughter. As far as I am aware, this information of the Hou-Han shu has never been contradicted. Moreover, the series of eighteen poems mentioned here and attributed to her, the so-called Hu-chia shih-pa p'ai qMr-+pjyf, does not occur in this biography. What occurs in it is the much shorter poem in Sao style. It does not become clear from this note that there are thus three poems on the same subject attributed to her.

On pages I89 a.f. the abbreviation YTSC for Yii Tzu-shan chi (collected work of Yii Hsin) is used. This abbreviation is lacking in the list immediately preceding the translations.


and in other cases has been split into two. I cound not detect any principle by which the different handling of this line was determined. Apparently it was not done for grammatical reasons. Compare e.g.:

For what will endless grieving Bring you in the end?

(No. II, P. I49)

And:

Of late you have been silent, no news has reached me here. (No. I2, same page)

In view of the intention of the translator to keep as close to the original as possible, it would have been preferable if the seven syllable line would have been consistently preserved in the translation. This minor objection does not, however, affect the exception- ally high standard of these translations, which together with the felicity of choice of still largely untranslated poetry covering a circumscribed period, makes the publication of this anthology an important event in the disclosure of one of the great literatures of the world.

Two final remarks. On p. 9 Ts'ai Yen is said to be the grand- daughter of Ts'ai Yung. However, according to her biography in the Hou-Han shu, mentioned in this introductory note, she was his daughter. As far as I am aware, this information of the Hou-Han shu has never been contradicted. Moreover, the series of eighteen poems mentioned here and attributed to her, the so-called Hu-chia shih-pa p'ai qMr-+pjyf, does not occur in this biography. What occurs in it is the much shorter poem in Sao style. It does not become clear from this note that there are thus three poems on the same subject attributed to her.

On pages I89 a.f. the abbreviation YTSC for Yii Tzu-shan chi (collected work of Yii Hsin) is used. This abbreviation is lacking in the list immediately preceding the translations.


YOSHIKAWA K5jiro, An introduction to Sung poetry. Translated by Burton WATSON. Cambridge, Mass., I967; ix + 19I PP.

The Japanese original of the present work, So5shi gaisetsu Z S

YOSHIKAWA K5jiro, An introduction to Sung poetry. Translated by Burton WATSON. Cambridge, Mass., I967; ix + 19I PP.

The Japanese original of the present work, So5shi gaisetsu Z S



an anthology of chinese verse. han wei chin and the northern and southern dynastiesby j. d. frodsham

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