TRANSLATED BY
CHARLES BUDD
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1912
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
The initiative of this little book was accidental. One day in the earlypart of last summer, feeling weary of translating commercial documents,I opened a volume of Chinese poetry that was lying on my desk andlistlessly turned over the pages. As I was doing so my eye caught sightof the phrase, 'Red rain of peach flowers fell.' That would berefreshing, I said to myself, on such a day as this; and then I went onwith my work again. But in the evening I returned to the book of Chinesepoetry and made a free translation of the poem in which I had seen themetaphor quoted above. The translation seemed to me and some friendspleasantly readable; so in leisure hours I have translated some morepoems and ballads, and these I now venture to publish in this volume,thinking that they may interest readers in other lands, and also callforth criticism that will be useful in preparing a larger volume which[4]I, or some better qualified scholar, may publish hereafter; for itcan hardly be said that the field of Chinese poetry has been widelyexplored by foreign students of the Chinese language.
Many of the translations in this book are nearly literal, exceptingadaptations to meet the exigencies of rhyme and rhythm; but some areexpanded to enable readers to understand what is implied, as well asactually written, in the original; for, after all, the chief aim of thetranslator of poetry should be to create around the mind of the readerthe sensory atmosphere in which the mind of the poet moved when he wrotethe poem. Whether I have attained a measure of success in such a verydifficult task must be decided by the readers of these translations.
It should be borne in mind by students more or less familiar with theChinese language that there are many versions of the stories and legendsrelated in these poems, and these versions, again, have been variouslyinterpreted by Chinese poets. A little reflection of this kind willoften save a critic from stumbling into difficulties from which it isnot easy to extricate himself.
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A few notes are given at the end of each poem to explain historicalnames, &c., but not many other notes are required as the poems explainthemselves. Indeed, the truth of the saying, 'One touch of nature makesthe whole world kin,' has been impressed on my mind deeply by thislittle excursion into the field of Chinese poetry, for the thoughts andwords of such poems as the 'Journey Back,' 'A Maiden's Reverie,' 'Only aFragrant Spray,' 'The Lady Lo-Fu, 'Conscripts leaving for the Frontier,''The River by Night in Spring,' 'Reflections on the Brevity of Life,''The Innkeeper's Wife,' 'A Soldier's Farewell to his Wife,' &c., show usthat human nature two or three thousand years ago differed not a whitfrom human nature as it is to-day.
Tung Wen Kwan Translation Office,
Shanghai, March, 1912.
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