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Shreder -> Translations of Chinese Poetry (2/13/2010 2:23:03)
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So I've decided to try something different: I'm going to take well known Chinese poems and (attempts to) translate them into English for my fellow L&Lers to read. Understand, of course, that these translations won't be perfect, and a good deal of the "poeticness" may be lost in translation. Note that I will also be posting the original poems, although these will be in pinyin and not in characters because my computer doesn't really like characters. Any comments can go here.
Anyways to start off, here is a translation of the Chinese poem "Goose" (e, e, e)
Goose
Goose, goose, goose,
You stretch your slender neck to Heav’n and sing,
Your feathers white against the dark green lake.
Your thrusting feet bring forth gentle wavelets.
And here is the original, in pinyin:
E,e,e,
Qu xiang xiang tian ge.
Bai mao fu lu shui.
Hong zhang bo qing bo.
Just a bit of background info: This is one of the most famous poems in China. You would be hard pressed to find a child who has not learned it. It was written by famous Chinese poet Li Bai sometime during the 700s. Here is the Wikipedia page on Li Bai, if anyone would like to read more about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai
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