Li Bai - Translation

Translation

First information of Li Bai in modern Europe is documented in Jean Joseph Marie Amiot's in his Portraits des Célèbres Chinois of his Mémoires (1776–1797). Further translations into French were accomplished by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys in his 1862 Poésies de l'Époque des Thang.

Joseph Edkins read a paper, "On Li Tai-po", to the Peking Oriental Society in 1888, which was subsequently published in that society's journal. The English-speaking world was introduced to Herbert Allen Giles translations of Li Bai in Gile's 1898 publication Chinese Poetry in English Verse, and again in his History of Chinese Literature, in 1901. The third "old school" translator of Li Bai into English was L. Cranmer-Byng (Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng, (1872–1945), whose Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China appeared in 1909 and whose A Feast of Lanterns was published in 1916 – both volumes featuring translations of "Li Po".

More modern renditions of Li Bai's poetry into English were performed by Ezra Pound (in Cathay, 1915) and Amy Lowell (in Fir-Flower Tablets, 1921), though neither directly from the Chinese: Pound relying on the work of Ernest Fenollosa and professors Mori and Ariga, and Lowell on Florence Ayscough. Witter Bynner with the help of Kiang Kang-hu made some translations (in The Jade Mountain); and, Arthur Waley made a few translations of Li Bai, although not his preferred poet, into English (in the Asiatic Review, and included in his More Translations from the Chinese). Shigeyoshi Obata, in his 1922 The Works of Li Po, made what he claimed to be "the first attempt ever made to deal with any single Chinese poet exclusively in one book for the purpose of introducing him to the English-speaking world. In the 1979 album China, by electronic composer Vangelis, the poem Drinking Alone by Moonlight is re-titled as "Little Fete" and is recited against a background of chimes, flutes and synthesizers.

Li Bai's poem Drinking Alone by Moonlight (月下獨酌, pinyin: Yuè Xià Dú Zhuó), translated by Arthur Waley, reads:

花間一壺酒。 A pot of wine, under the flowering trees;

獨酌無相親。 I drink alone, for no friend is near

舉杯邀明月。 raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

對影成三人。 for her, together with my shadow, will make three people

月既不解飲。 the moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;

影徒隨我身。 listless, my shadow creeps about at my side

暫伴月將影。 yet with the moon as a friend and the shadow as a slave

行樂須及春。 I must make merry before the spring has ended

我歌月徘徊。 to the songs that I sing, the moon flickers her beams;

我舞影零亂。 with the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks

醒時同交歡。 while we were sober, three shared the fun;

醉後各分散。 now, we are drunk, each goes their own way

永結無情遊。 may we long share our eternal friendship,

相期邈雲漢。 and, meet together again in paradise