庞德译中国古代诗歌《神州集》CATHAY For the most part from the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the Decipherings of the professors Mori and Ariga (1915) Here is the complete text for each of the nineteen poems originally appearing in Ezra Pounds 1915 collection Cathay. Neither rightly translations nor original poems, they are instead an ingenious highbred devised by the young Pound soon after the widow of Ernest Fenollosa appointed him the literary executor of her husbands work. Pound discovered a working manuscript of notes on a series of poems by the Chinese poets Li Po and Wang Wei, among others. (Fenollosa provided the Japanese equivalents of their names, Rihaku and Omakitsu, respectively.) When writing the poems, Pound had little knowledge of either the Chinese language or its ideograms. From the time of their original publication and through most of the 20th Century, Pounds creative explorations provided both a profound inspiration and a source for great debate. The Cathay poems have undergone scrutiny and controversy for nearly a hundred years while at the same time having a profound influence on Western poetry, including major American and European poets throughout the 20th Century. It greatly encouraged and influenced the imagist movement. Its style was easily akin to the straighforward American style of poetry. SONG OF THE BOWMAN OF SHU Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots And saying: When shall we get back to our country? Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, We have no comfort because of these Mongols. We grub the soft fern-shoots, When anyone says \Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty. Our defense is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return. We grub the old fern-stalks. We say: Will we be let to go back in October? There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort. Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country. What flower has come into blossom? Whose chariot? The Generals. Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong. We have no rest, three battles a month. By heaven, his horses are tired. The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them. The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin. The enemy is swift, we must be careful. When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring, We come back in the snow, We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty, Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief? by Bunno — Reputedly 1100 B.C THE BEAUTIFUL TOILET Blue, blue is the grass about the river And the willows have overfilled the close garden. And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth, White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door. Slender. she puts forth a slender hand; And she was a courtezan in the old days, And she has married a sot, Who now goes drunkenly out And leaves her too much alone. by Mei Sheng B.C. 140 THE RIVER SONG This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia, Musicians with jeweled flutes and with pipes of gold Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine Is rich for a thousand cups. We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water, Yet Sennin needs A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen Would follow the white gulls or ride them. Kutsus prose song Hangs with the sun and moon. King Sos terraced palace is now but barren hill, But I draw pen on this barge Causing the five peaks to tremble, And I have joy in these words like the joy of blue islands. (If glory could last forever Then the waters of Han would flow northward.) And I have moped in the Emperors garden, awaiting an order- to-write! I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-colored water Just reflecting in the skys tinge, And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing. The eastern wind brings the green color into the island grasses at Yei-shu, The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring softness. South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and bluer, Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like palace. Vine strings a hundred feet long hang down from carved railings, And high over the willows, the find birds sing to each other, and listen, Crying—Kwan, Kuan, for the early wind, and the feel of it. The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off. Over a thousand gates. over a thousand doors are the sounds of spring singing, And the Emperor is at Ko. Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky, The imperial guards come forth from the goldren house with their armor a-gleaming. The Emperor in his jeweled car goes out to inspect his flowers, He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks, He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new ni。