it is interesting to see how, by just mainly changing "one character" in this the shortest of chinese "ci"s, the theme of the poem is also changed. ... <" 十六字令" 開首一字乃是詞主，其餘十五字皆為她效勞，> ...
《十六字令 ‧ 蠻》 七月星/九鳥
蠻，
驟雨狂風萬變間，
聲雷動，
急把北門關。
TUNE: Shí Liù Zì Lìng: "16-Character Ci "
TITLE: Mán: "Barbaric"
-- by 七月星/九鳥
'Seven Moon Stars'/'Nine Birds'
-- Translated by Frank C Yue
Barbaric --
The showers and howling winds will
come as they must,
In the midst of countless changes of
the weather.
Loudly roars a rolling thunder --
Quickly, I have the north-facing door shut.
Hi Frank,
ReplyDeleteAllow me to render mine. I hope you don't mind. This one actually is very difficult.
I have made it rhythumic from line 2 to line 4, but not the first line.
蠻，
驟雨狂風萬變間，
聲雷動，
急把北門關。
Barbarous,
Sudden rain, howling wind, changing any time now,
Thunders roaring loud,
Hastily I close the North gate(door) some how!
translated by Alan Ma, Jan. 23, 3014.
Email: omega@hkftp.com
My blog: http://walk-with-the-creator.blogspot.hk/
Hi Frank,
After reading many of your work from you blog and also from Andrew WF Wong's blog, you guys really recall my passion for bilateral translation for Chinese/English.
I have therefore reopen my blog. Do give me comments. I hope to learn from you guys. I am an amteur.
Have you ever read YK Kwan poem translation. He is my friend. I respect him very much in poem translation. He has published a book of his translation work for poems of Tang and Sung dynasty. the book is available from book store. I am not sure if it is on Internet.
Have a good day!
My real name is Alan. I use omega and cyberman2046 for anything on Internet since 1998.