The Retranslations of Jianjia in the Book of Songs:
A Perspective of Hermeneutic Fusion of Horizons
A Thesis
Submitted to
The College of Distance Education of
Shanghai International Studies University
In partial Fulfillment of
The Requirement for
The Degree of Bachelor of Arts
By
Gu Yiqing
Under the Supervision of Professor Wu Qiyao
March 2011
Acknowledgements
I owe a debt of individuals who have contributed a lot to this
thesis of mine.
First of all, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Wu
Qiyao, who patiently motivated me to conceive and develop the idea
of the thesis. The careful guidance and mentoring he has provided
to me reflect his generous spirit and unending commitment to his
profession. He leaves me a lifetime unforgettable memory of his
erudition, benevolence, patience, intelligence, diligence and a
good sense of humour.
My heartfelt thanks also go to Prof. Wu Yun, who has been a
constant source of support and encouragement throughout this
writing process as well as my entire BA education, which have given
me invaluable enlightenment on the nature of translation. Without
her spurring and inspiring supervision, I wouldn’t have been able
to carry out my research and writing.
I am similarly indebted to Prof. Luo Ping, Doctor Gu Qiubei,
Doctor Liu Siyuan and my friends, Cherry Cai and Elvis Hu, who
either offered me literature assistance or frequently enlightened
me with witty comments and advice. I would also extend my gratitude
to the authors whose studies I have cited and quoted in my
thesis.
Besides, I wish to thank all the professors, lecturers and my
classmates in the Translation and Interpreting Department at
Shanghai International Studies University, for enriching my
knowledge in translation, philosophy and literature.
Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my beloved
parents, whose love, encouragement and patience are what I cherish
the most in my whole life. Once again I’d like to express my
sincere gratitude to many people that have made this thesis
possible. Thank you all for your advice, wisdom and compassion.
Abstract
Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory of “Fusion of Horizons” plays an
inspiring role in both translation practice and theory. Not only
does it offer us a certain methodology leading to reasonable
understanding of the original text and appropriate expression in
the target language, but also it advances us to explain and put
into practice the dialectical unity of the subjectivity in
understanding and objectivity in interpretation.
In the light of hermeneutics, the horizon of a text will never
be fixed. In interpreting the text, different translators will be
inevitably influenced by their distinctive personal endowment,
historical conditions, social ideologies, cultural conventions,
aesthetic psychologies as well as varied expectations of their
readers. The inter-subjectivity of a translator should be brought
into full play to fuse a new horizon which can cover the past and
the present, the self and the otherness. Therefore, the life of the
original text will be transferred and expanded further in the
foreign cultural contexts, starting with a fresh historical record
of reading and acceptance.
As the earliest existing anthology of ancient Chinese poetry,
the Book of Songs ushered in a profound and brilliant landscape of
Chinese literature. Jianjia, one of the most favourable poems in
this classic, reflects fully the sentimentality of Chinese people.
With its ambiguity in characters and subtlety in conception, it has
called upon numerous readers and scholars to look and imagine from
the brief and repeated text to the fullness of its circumstance.
This classical lyric gave rise to a vista of English translations
vastly different in wording, structure and connotation, which
highly suggests the seemingly insurmountable difficulty involved in
its translation.
Taking the approach of a case study, this thesis, in the light
of hermeneutic theory of “Fusion of Horizons”, probes into the
validity of hermeneutic diversity in the four selected English
translations from meaning, rhetoric style and cultural contexts.
This thesis reflects the historicity of understanding and the
significance of retranslation. It also provides a point of
reference in discussing ways of rendering Chinese classics.
Keywords: Hermeneutics, Fusion of Horizons, Book of Songs,
Jianjia, Retranslation
摘要
迦达默尔在哲学诠释学中所提出的“视界融合”理论对翻译实践和理论研究有着极为重要的启示意义，不但为恰当地理解出发语、表达归宿语提供了方法论依据，同时也有助于解释与落实理解的主观性与阐释的客观性之间的辩证统一。
在哲学诠释学看来，文本永远都呈现一个开放的结构，在与文本的对话中，不同译者受到个人修养、历史境遇、社会意识形态、文化陈规、审美心理、期待视野等影响，必然会受到不同程度的主观制约。以此观照，唯有充分发挥译者的主体间性，融合出一个贯通今古、兼顾他人与自我的更大视界，真正做到“从心所欲不逾矩”，才能令异域的文本在新的文化语境中获得新生。
作为中国第一部诗歌总集，《诗经》承载着中华民族的文脉渊源。而《蒹葭》这一“千古伤心之祖”，以其耐人寻味的意蕴、朦胧渺远的意境、深沉低回的情感和蕴含其中对至真至美的向往与精神追求，引发了人们的无限遐思。众多复译版本的陆续出现，不同角度的翻译探索与尝试，以及译本水平的逐步提高，这些都从侧面反映了这首古典诗歌的翻译难度。
纵观《蒹葭》的四个译本，从理雅各对文本训诂的虔诚考证，到阿瑟·韦利对诗歌本质的纯粹探索；从埃兹拉·庞德对异域意象的生动捕捉，到许渊冲对中西差异的深入体察，都各自有其鲜明的特点和存在的合理性，在译介的过程中肩负着不同的历史使命。
本文试用诠释学“视界融合”理论，以《诗经》中的名篇《蒹葭》为个案，探讨和分析不同历史时期和社会背景下产生的四个英语译本对原文的诠释，从语义、修辞风格和文化语境等三个方面，解读不同译本对艺术作品内涵理解多元化的特征及其时代局限，进而印证了理解的历史性和复译的必要性。同时，本文也试图为典籍英译提供具有方法论意义的参照。
关键词：诠释学，视界融合，诗经，蒹葭，复译
Contents
Acknowledgementsi
Abstract (English)ii
Abstract (Chinese)iii
Introduction1
Chapter 1 Theoretical Exploration of Hermeneutics and
Translation2
1.1 Philosophical Hermeneutics and Its Historical Origins2
1.2 Historicity of Understanding and the Significance of
Retranslation3
1.3 Fusion of Horizons and Its Application in Translation5
Chapter 2 Comparison of the Four English Translations of
Jianjia7
2.1 Four Translators and Their English Translations7
2.1.1 A Brief Account of the Four Important Translators7
2.1.2 A Presentation of the Four Translation Versions9
2.2 Different Translation Strategies in the Four Versions12
2.2.1 Different Interpretations on the Theme of Jianjia12
2.2.2 Different Rhetoric Styles of the Four Versions14
Chapter 3 Manifestations of Fusion of Horizons in Translating
Jianjia15
3.1 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Meaning15
3.2 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Rhetoric and Style17
3.3 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Cultural Context18
Conclusion20
Bibliography21
Introduction
Shī Jīng（《诗经》）, known as Book of Songs or the Odes, is the
earliest existing anthology of ancient Chinese poetry and the
oldest cherished literary work in Chinese history. It ushered in a
profound and brilliant landscape of Chinese literature, exerting a
far-reaching influence upon the development of Chinese culture. Its
antiquity and aesthetic value make it a peer of Homer’s epics.
Harvard sinologist Stephen Owen（宇文所安）praised it as “the classic of
the human heart and human mind”. (cf. Waley, 1996:1)
The collection of 305 pieces comprises three genres: “Fēng（风）,
the Airs of the States”, “Yǎ（雅）, the Odes of the Kingdom”, and
“Sòng（颂）, the Temple Hymns”. Jiān Jiā（《蒹葭》）in Qín Fēng, Odes of
Qin（《秦风》）, one of the most favoured poems in this classic, has been
hailed as “the very beginning of tragic expression”（千古伤心之祖）in the
development of Chinese poetry.
Jianjia, in Chinese, means “reed”.（芦苇）French mathematician
Blaise Pascal (1964) once put it, “Man is but a reed, the most
feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.” This statement
can be regarded as the epitome of Western Philosophy that
emphasizing on logical thinking. However, in China, the reed is
emotional, which has been already “planted” in the poem Jianjia
thousands of years ago. The imagery of gradually dried-up and
withering reeds in the autumn depicts one of the traditional
Chinese aesthetic psychologies, reflecting the “will to life” of
Chinese nation as well as its poetic state of existence. Due to its
ambiguity in characters and subtlety in conception, this beautiful
poem has called upon numerous translators and scholars to study and
interpret throughout the history.
This thesis intends to conduct an intensive and effective case
study of the four English translations of the poem Jianjia in the
light of philosophical hermeneutics and Gadamer’s theory of “Fusion
of Horizons”. Meanwhile, this thesis examines the significance and
necessity of retranslation in the process of historical
development.
Chapter One
Theoretical Exploration of Hermeneutics and Translation
1.1 Philosophical Hermeneutics and Its Historical Origins
As an essential part of the scholarly disciplines, hermeneutics
can be generally defined as the study of both theory and practice
of understanding and interpretation.
Hermeneutics has a time-honoured history in the West. The term
“hermeneutics”, a Latinized version of the Greek “hermeneutike”
(ἑρμηνευτική), is possibly originated from Hermes, the mythological
Greek deity whose role is the messenger of the Gods. He is also
considered to be the inventor of language and speech. Hence “the
business of the hermēneús [interpreter] was…translating something
foreign or unintelligible into the language everybody speaks and
understands.” (Gadamer, 2007)
Originally, hermeneutics is designated to govern a valid reading
and explanation of the biblical text and decrees of Omniscience.
The first modern use of the term is in Sacred Hermeneutics, or a
Method of Explicating Sacred Scripture (1654) by Johann Dannhauser.
“Since that time theological-philological hermeneutics has been
sharply distinguished from juristic hermeneutics.” (Gadamer,
2007)
The 19th century witnessed the shift towards “general
hermeneutics”. Expanded by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm
Dilthey, it serves as a methodology for the human sciences that
aims toward understanding in contrast to the methodology of the
natural sciences that aims at explanation. (Vessey, 2006)
Schleiermacher put forward that “every problem of interpretation is
a problem of understanding”. As he believed, the interpreter “must
put himself both objectively and subjectively in the position of
the author. On the objective side by knowing the language as the
author knew it and on the subjective side by knowing the inner and
outer aspects of the author’s life. These two sides can be
completed only in the interpretation itself”. (Schleiermacher,
1988) Therefore, the interpreter’s subjectivity, accompanied by
creativity, is signified in the process of interpretation.
Up to the 20th century, hermeneutics has been developed from a
methodology of interpretation into a philosophical theory. This
remarkable ontological turn was triggered by Martin Heidegger
whose ideas were mainly recorded in his masterpiece Being and Time
(Sein und Zeit, 1927). Heidegger argued that human beings (or
rather, Dasein) are related to their surroundings through
understanding, and all understanding is interpretive. As Canadian
philosopher Charles Taylor once put it, “we are essentially
self-interpreting beings” (Taylor, 1985). Hermeneutics, then, as
the study of interpretive understanding, becomes both the means for
self-understanding and the model for how humans interact in their
environment (Vessey, 2006).
Heidegger’s achievements were carried on by his student
Hans-Georg Gadamer. In Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode,
1960), Gadamer claimed that “the universal aspect of hermeneutics
as a realm of philosophical inquiry is that language is the being
of everything which can be understood.” According to Gadamer,
language opens up a world to us – a distinctively human world.
Language is neither a tool to be used and discarded nor a stumbling
block between us and reality; rather it is the medium through which
reality comes into focus. (R.Nielsen, 2009) Therefore, as he
maintains, hermeneutics doesn’t merely pay attention to the method
of interpretation but it is an ontological relationship between an
interpreter and a language which is to be interpreted.
Since then, hermeneutics has become a distinguished school in
the humanitarian studies, stirring a favour of it in such
interdisciplinary fields as philosophy, literature, aesthetics,
sociology, laws and translation studies which has deeply changed
people’s minds and outlooks towards the whole world.
1.2 Historicity of Understanding and the Significance of
Retranslation
Gadamer points out that we can never step outside of our
tradition; all we can do is try to understand it. This elaborates
the idea of the historicity of understanding. His notion that each
interpretation is an effect of effective-history gives
philosophical hermeneutics a historical dimension.
Since human beings exist as a historical reality, we are
incapable of escaping the influence of history. The translator, as
an interpreter, understands from nowhere but his own social
background, cultural stance, aesthetic habits, gender identity as
well as personal experiences. Thus his understanding of the
original text is not limited in the mere understanding of
“language” itself.
In the eyes of Gadamer, “a literary work does not pop into the
world as a finished and neatly parcelled bundle of meaning: rather
its meaning depends on the historical situation of the interpreter.
Since the interpreter’s horizon of understanding is not fixed, so
is the meaning of a literary work.”（陈宏川, 2002:51）
Jean-Paul Sartre, the most distinguished French existentialist
philosopher in the 20th century, once put forward a brilliant
statement on the historicity of understanding. In his own words:
(Sartre, 1988:71-72)
Thus, the reader I am addressing is neither Micromégas nor
L'Ingénu; nor is he God the Father either. He has not the ignorance
of the noble savage to whom everything has to be explained on the
basis of principles; he is not a spirit or a tabula rasa. Neither
is he the omniscience of an angel or of the Eternal Father. I
reveal certain aspects of the universe to him; I take advantage of
what he knows to attempt to teach him what he does not know.
Suspended between total ignorance and omniscience, he has a
definite stock of knowledge which varies from moment to moment and
which is enough to reveal his historical character. In actual fact,
he is not an instantaneous consciousness, a pure timeless
affirmation of freedom, nor does he soar above history; he is
involved in it. Authors too are historical. And that is precisely
the reason why some of them want to escape from history by a leap
into eternity. The book, serving as a go-between, establishes an
historical contact among the men who are steeped in the same
history and who likewise contribute to its making.
As for translation, we always cherished a hope that our own
understanding and interpretation was comprehensive and absolutely
perfect by which a total conviction was possible to breed between
the reader and the author. However, the existence of the
historicity of understanding let us be fully conscious for the fact
that no one can create an exception to escape the historical
context and finally leap into eternity. We are destined to be
subject to the time limitation. Each understanding is only based on
a very brief moment of history.
Meanwhile, human language experiences an inconspicuous
historical evolution. It is inevitable that the historical distance
between the birth of the original text and its translation spans a
certain long time. Due to the individual variability of cognitive
structure, the differences behind each social background and
evolving context may result in misunderstanding, leading to the
many difficulties in translation. However, the errors made by our
predecessors should be regarded as signs of times. There is always
something worth learning from the past interpretations and from
past generally. This further clarified the significance and
necessity of retranslation.
Translation, in Qian Zhongshu’s words, is indeed “the
transmigration of souls”. （钱锺书, 1981）In the process of translating,
the linguistic and cultural context on which the original text is
dependent should be reconstructed in another language. Due to the
changes of languages, cultures and readerships, the reconstruction,
undoubtedly, must be faced up to critical challenges from different
aspects, including linguistic distinctions, social and cultural
conventions, and even psychological evaluations, both subjectively
and objectively.
As Jacques Derrida put it, “Even the most faithful translation
of the original is infinitely far from the original, infinitely
different from the original works. Because the translation in a new
body, new culture, open the text of the new history.” (Derrida,
2001) With the publication of each new translation, the life of the
original will be transferred and expanded before each new
readership that are housed in different social institutions, thus
opening a new historical record of reading and acceptance.
For those reasons, retranslation, as a common phenomenon,
deserves to be valued. Each new translation provided us with a new
possible approach towards the original. And hence we ought to adopt
an objective and dialectical attitude in evaluating those pervious
translations.
1.3 Fusion of Horizons and Its Application in Translation
Gadamer uses the concept of horizon to speak of how
comprehension takes place. The “horizon” is defined as, “…the range
of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a
particular vantage point.” (Gadamer, 2004:301)
In the light of hermeneutics, each understanding or
interpretation is mediated by pre-understanding: prejudice, “a
judgement which precedes enquiry” (Kant, 1953). In other words,
understanding always begins with an already given horizon which is
imposed by our historical conditions. Similarly, it’s for sure that
the text itself has its own horizon because it was created by the
author in a certain past moment. In this connection, a dynamic
conversation between the author and the interpreter needs to be
acquired. And this dialogical process results in a fusion of
horizons.
Gadamer (1975:258) asserted that, “Understanding is not to be
thought of so much as an action of one’s subjectivity, but as the
placing of oneself within a process of tradition, in which past and
present are constantly fused.” Through the fusion of horizons, a
new and broader horizon will be generated, thus realising the
dialectical unity of both the interpreter’s subjectivity and the
text’s objectivity.
In terms of translation, Gadamer’s theory of “fusion of
horizons” brings to light a harmonious relationship between the
author, the translator and readers. The process of understanding
and translation can be illustrated as follows:
Author → Original Text → Interpreter (Reader) →
Interpretation
Author → Text (ST) → Translator (Reader A) → Translation (TL) →
Reader B
Generally speaking, despite of the transition from ST (source
language) into TL (target language), translation shares the same
nature with interpretation in regards of process. And, meanwhile,
readers also play an important and even decisive role in the whole
process of translation.
Based on Gadamer’s theory, Hans Robert Jauss, who defined
literature as a dialectic process of production and reception,
proposed the concept of “horizon of expectation”
(Erwartungshorizont). Jauss thinks that readers have a certain
mental set from which perspective each reader, at any given time in
history, reads. For readers of the source language, there exist at
least two horizons, namely, horizon of readers at its first
publication as well as horizon of the current readers. When the
translated text is introduced into target language, also the
horizon of TL readers should not be ignored.
Thus, a translator, as a special reader (Reader A) of an
original text, ought to fuse a new horizon that is broad enough to
coordinate all the horizons of the author, the three different
readerships and him/herself. It is due to this fact that the
philosophical concept of inter-subjectivity has become a guiding
principle in translation studies.
Chapter Two
Comparison of the Four English Translations of Jianjia
2.1 Four Translators and Their English Translations
The four selected versions in this thesis are the most
representative among all the English translations. To some extent,
the four translators with totally different social backgrounds and
cultural identities can comprehensively and chronologically embody
the different interpretations and translation principles applied to
this poem.
2.1.1 A Brief Account of the Four Important Translators
Few scholars would not recognize the name of James Legge (A.D.
1815-1897) （理雅各）, a British missionary who came to China in 1839.
His voluminous translations of the Confucian canon and early
Western sinological sources earned him a reputation as a
world-class Chinese scholar in the nineteenth century.
With his will for scholarly endeavours, he became the first one
that provided the English translation of the Book of Songs in its
entirety. However, both his prose version, The Book of Poetry
(1871, 1879) and metrical version, The Shi King (1876) follows too
strictly to the literal meaning of the original lines of this poem
that fails to keep its poetic beauty.
James Legge’s translated pieces quoted in this thesis are from
The Chinese Classics. vol.4: The Shi King published by Lane
Crawford & Company in 1871.
Arthur Waley (A.D. 1889-1966), widely known for his many
outstanding translations of Chinese literature into English, was
regarded as the greatest English orientalist and sinologist in the
first half of the twentieth century. It was because of his
excellent translations that the Chinese literature became more
easily to be accepted by readers in the West.
Waley’s translation of The Book of Songs (1937) as well as his
opinion on this classic has a significant influence on the
following sinologists and English poets. By adopting the
perspective of cultural anthropology, his understanding of this
book is quite innovative（李玉良, 2008:19）. Not only did he “pay
attention to the aesthetic value of the anthology and expound the
function of it in the ancient times”（陈宏川, 2002:30）, but he also
tried to reflect his exploration on the social reality of the
ancient epoch relying on the poems themselves.
Arthur Waley’s translated pieces quoted in this thesis are from
The Book of Songs published by Houghton Mifflin Company in
1937.
As an avant-garde figure of the Imagist Movement in
Anglo-American poetry, Ezra Pound (A.D. 1885-1972) had made
considerable contribution to the renewal of English literature,
which began with his innovations of the techniques derived from
classical Chinese and Japanese poetry.
The Chinese ideograms most closely met his ideal of representing
“the thing in pictures”. Different from The Cantos (1948), his last
translation work, Shih-Ching: the Classic Anthology Defined by
Confucius (1954), possessed direct expressions and clear languages
ruled by the “ideogrammic” pattern that fully embodied his poetic
aesthetics (Palandri, 1955:91-93).
Pound’s translated pieces quoted in this thesis are from
Shih-Ching: the Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius published by
Harvard University Press in 1954.
The eminent Chinese translator Xu Yuanchong（许渊冲）is equally adept
in Chinese, English and French, and all his works have enjoyed
great acclaim in literary and translation circles. He has been
proclaimed as “the only expert in the world who can translate
Chinese poetry into English and French rhyme”.
Through his endless effort, Xu has achieved a remarkable height
in translation theories as well as practices. His theory of “Three
Beauties (beauty of sound, beauty of form and beauty of
conception)”（三美论）in rendering classical Chinese poetry into another
language marked as a beacon light for the following
translators.
He applied his ideas to his translation Book of Poetry (1993)
and in turn, testified his theory. He criticized Waley and Pound,
for neither of them knew that beauty in sense could not be
preserved at sacrifice in sound（陈宏川, 2002:30）.
Xu’s translated pieces quoted in this thesis are from Book of
Poetry published by Hunan Publishing House in 1993.
2.1.2 A Presentation of the Four Translation Versions
In the following presentation, the original text goes first.
Then the four translated versions are listed in chronological order
of their publication date.
Poem: 《秦风·蒹葭》
蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜。所谓伊人，在水一方。
溯洄从之，道阻且长。溯游从之，宛在水中央。
蒹葭萋萋，白露未晞。所谓伊人，在水之湄。
溯洄从之，道阻且跻。溯游从之，宛在水中坻。
蒹葭采采，白露未已。所谓伊人，在水之涘。
溯洄从之，道阻且右。溯游从之，宛在水中沚。
Version A: Translated by James Legge
The reeds and rushes are deeply green,
And the white dew is turned into hoarfrost.
The man of whom I think
Is somewhere about the water.
I go up the stream in quest of him,
But the way is difficult and long.
I go down the stream in quest of him,
And lo! He is right in the midst of the water.
The reeds and rushes are luxuriant,
And the white dew is not yet dry.
The man of whom I think
Is on the margin of the water.
I go up the stream in quest of him,
But the way is difficult and steep.
I go down the stream in quest of him,
And lo! He is on the islet in the midst of the water.
The reeds and rushes are abundant,
And the white dew has not yet ceased.
The man of whom I think
Is on the bank of the river.
I go up the stream in quest of him,
But the way is difficult and turns to the right.
I go down the stream in quest of him,
And lo! He is on the island in the midst of the water.
Version B: Translated by Arthur Waley
Thick grow the rush leaves;
Their white dew turns to frost.
He whom I love
Must be somewhere along this stream.
I went up the river to look for him,
But the way was difficult and long.
I went down the stream to look for him,
And there in mid-water
Sure enough, it’s he!
Close grow the rush leaves,
Their white dew not yet dry.
He whom I love
Is at the water’s side.
Up stream I sought him;
But the way was difficult and steep.
Down stream I sought him,
And away in mid-water
There on a ledge, that’s he!
Very fresh are the rush leaves;
The white dew still falls.
He whom I love
Is at the water’s edge.
Up stream I followed him;
But the way was hard and long.
Down stream I followed him,
And away in mid-water
There on the shoals is he!
Version C: Translated by Ezra Pound
Dark, dark be reed and rush,
the white dew turns to frost;
what manner of man is this?
lost?
Gin I rin up,
Gin I go down,
Up stream heavy, there he’d be
In mid water distantly.
Chill, chill be the reeds,
the white dew not yet dry;
What manner of man is he
under the hanging bank?
Up stream heavily,
Gin I swim down,
On tufted isle
Distantly.
Ever falls dew on bright reeds.
What manner of thing is he
who seems to be there on the marge
Up stream, to the West, at large?
Hard to go up, to swim, tho’ he seem
there on the isle, mid-stream.
Version D: Translated by Xu Yuanchong
The reeds grow green;
Frosted dew-drops gleam.
Where was she seen?
Beyond the stream.
Upstream I go;
The way's so long.
And downstream, lo!
She's thereamong.
The reeds turn white,
Dew not yet dried.
Where's she so bright?
On the other side.
Upstream I go;
Hard is the way.
And downstream. lo!
She's far away.
The reeds still there,
With frost dews blend.
Where's she so fair?
At river’s end.
Upstream I go;
The way does wind.
And downstream, lo!
She's far behind.
2.2 Different Translation Strategies in the Four Versions
2.2.1 Different Interpretations on the Theme of Jianjia
The poem Jianjia, in general, is viewed as a song about love
through which a sad heart was in search of a beloved within sight
but beyond reach. Over the water, the longings disconsolate as pain
and the figures mysterious as legend deeply stroked a chord for us
readers. What a graceful, fragile and euphemistic story!
However, there are some people suppose that “yiren”（伊人）is not a
person in reality but a certain or uncertain target of perfection
along the life path. And the poem is all about a philosophy of our
life, conveying some enlightening messages. As the Chinese poet Qu
Yuan（屈原） put it, “I see no ending, yet high and low I’ll search
with my will unbending”（路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索）.
The story is outside the poem or merely hinted at within it and
the body of the poem is given up to an expression of the emotions
it arouses. For this reason it is often possible to say with
assurance that the poem is about a person looking for another one,
but not exactly who are the persons in question and what is their
relation. Hence the poem lends itself to metaphorical
interpretation.（陈宏川, 2002:44）
It is because of its ambiguity in characters and subtlety in
conception that this charming poem has called upon numerous readers
and scholars to look and imagine from the brief and repeated text
to the fullness of its circumstance.
In an overview of the four English translation versions, it’s
obvious that all the translators take it as a lyric about looking
for a person but their interpretations are in varying degrees. The
differences lie essentially in the third line of each stanza:
Original Line
所谓伊人
Chinese as
Foreign Language
Version A (James Legge)
The man of whom I think
Version B (Arthur Waley)
He whom I love
Version C (Ezra Pound)
1) What manner of man is this?
2) What manner of man is he
3) What manner of thing is he
Chinese as
Mother Tongue
Version D (Xu Yuanchong)
1) Where was she seen?
2) Where's she so bright?
3) Where's she so fair?
James Legge, sharing the same view with the traditional
commentators, regards this poem as something of a riddle, “Someone
tells how he sought another whom it seemed easy to find, and yet
could not find him.”（许渊冲, 1992:51）Thus he renders the poem into a
narrative dealing with friendship (“The man of whom I think”).
But most of the other translators agree it is a love lyric,
opinions differ only as to whether “yiren”（伊人）, as a beloved person
in reality, is a “he” or a “she”. There seems to be a clear line
between the oriental and western interpretations in deciding
between these two choices. In the mind of western translators
(Waley and Pound), they prefer to believe that the writer is a
woman looking for her lover (“man”, “he”). As for Chinese (Xu),
according to our traditional social concept, it’s more possible and
reasonable for a young man to take the initiative (“she”). Xu
Yuanchong later offered an annotation of this song as follows, “it
is said to be the first symbolic love song in Chinese poetry”.（许渊冲,
1993:239）
This poem is just an example of, as Burton Watson（华兹生）put it,
“often pure vignettes of feeling”. Since there is no clear and
direct dictions in the original lyric refer to love, most of the
translators blur this concept and express it in a euphemistic
manner. Only Arthur Waley renders “yiren” directly into “He whom I
love”. His unveiled translation loses the original mysterious
beauty.
2.2.2 Different Rhetoric Styles of the Four Versions
The original Chinese lyric neatly consists of three stanzas,
each of which is an octave. Except for last line that has 5
characters, the other seven lines each contain 4 characters. The
second and third stanzas are refrained with a few varieties of the
first.
In terms of form, Ezra Pound changes the form dramatically as
usual and Arthur Waley renders the lyric into nine English lines in
each stanza. Only Legge’s and Xu’s versions successfully preserved
its original format of eight lines. Legge, however, used too many
words in English and the longest line in his version contains
thirteen words (“And lo! He is on the islet in the midst of the
water.”). His prose version reads like a scholarly paraphrased
commentary.
When comparing with their sentence patterns, Legge and Xu tend
to preserve the original form of the unchangeable characters in
rendering this lyric. While Waley and Pound seem to be more
flexible on the whole since the beauty of this poem is just shown
in all its minor changes of dictions. For instance, the second half
of each stanza covers a pair of movements that are contrast in
direction:
溯洄从之 (sù huí cóng zhī)
溯游从之 (sù yóu cóng zhī)
James Legge
I go up the stream in quest of him,
I go down the stream in quest of him,
Arthur Waley
I went up the river to look for him,
I went down the stream to look for him,
Up stream I sought him;
Down stream I sought him,
Up stream I followed him;
Down stream I followed him,
Ezra Pound
Gin I rin up,
Gin I go down
Up stream heavily
Gin I swim down
Up stream
Hard to go up
Xu Yuanchong
Upstream I go;
And downstream, lo!
One of another distinctive characteristics applied in this
beautiful Chinese lyric is the auditory enjoyment; e.g., the first
line of each stanza is made up of twin sounds “jiān jiā”（蒹葭）and
reduplicated words “cāng cāng”（苍苍）, “qī qī”（萋萋）, “cǎi cǎi”（采采）.
However, all the three translators except for Arthur Waley use
alliteration and Ezra Pound even adopts repetition “Dark, dark” to
reproduce the original sound:
1) James Legge: The reeds and rushes are deeply green
2) Arthur Waley: Thick grow the rush leaves
3) Ezra Pound: Dark, dark be reed and rush
4) Xu Yuanchong: The reeds grow green
What’s more illuminating is that Xu Yuanchong, as the only
Chinese translator, yet remains the only one that renders this
lyric into English rhyme. He believes “as all classical Chinese
poems are written in rhyme, no English version could reproduce an
effect similar to the original if no rhyme were used. On the
contrary, rhymes or beauty in sound would help to bring out the
beauty in sense.”（许渊冲, 1993:17）Xu used end rhymes on odd lines as
well as the even lines, like “green” and “seen” , “gleam” and
“stream”, “wind” (/waɪnd/) and “behind”. The rhyme scheme of the
original Chinese is AABACACA while his version is ABABCDCD that
sounds more harmonious than the other three versions.
Chapter Three
Manifestations of Fusion of Horizons in Translating Jianjia
In the light of Gadamer’s theory of “fusion of horizons”, the
author’s authority in translation starts to fade away, instead the
translator’s subjectivity significantly comes into display.
Meanwhile, in response to the readers’ varied “horizons of
expectations” as well as the horizons of the author and the
translator him/herself, the manifestation of the translator’s
inter-subjectivity is required.
Facing up to the clashing of different horizons in rendering the
poem of Jianjia, the four selected translators obviously differs in
their translation strategies. And their differences further reflect
the hermeneutic historicity of understanding and elaborate the fact
that new and grander horizons continue to generate as the time goes
by.
3.1 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Meaning
In the canonical theory of Chinese poetry, the “Great Preface”
to the Book of Songs（《〈诗经〉大序》）, poetry is defined by the
distinction between what lies inside and what appears outside the
human creature…Literature remains a painful evidence of our fallen
state: as Han Yu（韩愈）says, “an outcry from some
disequilibrium.”（物不得其平则鸣）(Owen, 1986:132) In many ways, the poem
Jianjia sums up to be the best representation of this literary idea
by depicting an act of unremitting but fruitless searching. The
obscurity of wording and the complexity of exegesis in interpreting
this ancient classic make its translation an extreme
difficulty.
James Legge honoured the Book of Songs as one of the Confucian
classic, thus as a missionary, it’s more significant for him to
faithfully render the thoughts and content behind this lyric rather
than pay attention to its literary value. Historically speaking,
the nineteenth century marks the beginning of the systematic
translations of Chinese works into Britain. At that precise time,
the application of positivism was dominating over the western
academic circles. Focusing on the investigations of its historical
facts and previous Confucian interpretations in details, Legge
tried his best to preserve the moral and political meanings imposed
by previous Confucian scholars. As Confucius said: “Don’t think in
an evil way（思无邪）,” Legge rendered this lyric into a narrative
dealing with pure friendship. And what’s more, he did the
translation word by word in an extremely close and faithful manner.
Barely did he realize it’s the unique effect of vagueness in
expressions that contributes to the elegant aesthetic conception of
this poem. He externalized many vague expressions. For instance,
“宛在水中央” denotes an uncertain position among the centre of the
river, while it was clearly translated into “right in the midst of
the water”; “从之” doesn’t mean follow exactly at every trace with a
determined target, however, “in quest of him” makes the poet like a
detective. Legge “mixes up the Chu His（朱熹）interpretation with that
of the Han commentators and dilutes both with suggestions of his
own, so that today his translation serves no useful
purpose.”(Waley, 1937:337) Therefore, it can be said that the
horizon applied in his translation is, without regard to the
readers’ expectations, strictly limited in the academic atmosphere
of prudent investigations at that time.
Arthur Waley, however, was fully aware of the inevitability of
loss in the original meanings during translation, as he once put
it, “It isn’t likely that we can create all the mental associations
of people in China three thousand years ago.” (Waley, 1937:17) The
most obvious example is that he translated “伊人” directly into “he
whom I love”. Though it is more readable for English readers, but
it has destroyed the imaginary conception in the original Chinese.
Similarly, the line “… it’s he!”, repeated for three times, seem to
be too bald in expressing the poet’s feeling which is out of
harmony with the original. Waley disengaged himself from the
limitations of Chinese culture and catered to the horizons of the
western readers by understanding this poem purely as poetry, thus
his translation can’t truly reflect its intrinsic quality in
Chinese.
It is universally acknowledged that the Ezra Pound’s translation
is not reliable in interpreting meaning. As the leader of the
Anglo-American Imagist Movement, Pound was inspired by the classic
poems of Chinese and established new poetic forms and values in
English though his well-motivated mistranslations. His translation
of Jianjia, to some extent, can be viewed as his own creation of
poetry which blends the horizons of Chinese readers in their
original aesthetic experience with his new poetic concepts.
For the moment, the Chinese translator Xu Yuanchong can be
identified as the most excellent model in rendering the poem
Jianjia. He realized that there are many strained interpretations
in the traditional commentaries which should be given up and this
lyric should be sincerely treated as a folk-song and a masterpiece
of literary work. Meanwhile, he carefully reread, reviewed and
revised all the interpretations from a rich inheritance of previous
translations. It can be said that Xu’s version has fused all the
possible horizons of past and present, the oriental and the
western, commentators and translators, author and readers.
Therefore, his translation of Jianjia provided us with a much
closer interpretation in meaning of the original.
3.2 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Rhetoric and Style
In addition to weighing all the words and phrases, how to
reproduce the original writing style by means of rhetoric is also a
very great concern, for poetry in particular. In this respect, the
four versions remain far more diverse.
Zhu Guangqian（朱光潜）(1997:23) defined poetry as “the pure literary
work that has musicality.”（诗是一种有韵律的纯文学）Harmonious rhymes act to
heighten the atmosphere, intensify the motion and portray the
characters. André Lefevere (1992:80) thinks that “one of the first
principles of art of translation is that a poem should be recreated
with the same rhyme, as far as the nature of the language
allows.”
As mentioned before, Legge’s and Waley’s versions have their own
weaknesses in rhyme. Focusing on interpreting the meaningful
contents, Legge paid less attention to the rhetoric style of the
original. Waley didn’t use rhyme in his translation, for he
believes “it is impossible to produce in English rhyme-effects at
all similar to those of the original.” (Waley, 1920:20) Pound,
however, used his translations with irregular syntactic and
rhythmic patterns in order to
throw down the gauntlet to metrical poetry that
had dominated the western literature for thousands of years. Only
Xu’s version effectively reproduces the original metrical structure
in English rhyme schemes. To some extent, this fact elaborates how
broader and effective their fusion of horizons on rhetoric
varieties between this two different languages.
As for sentence patterns, it’s easily notice that the English
versions seem to be more flexible in using punctuation marks. In
fact, ancient Chinese has no punctuation marks, instead, there
existed “jù dòu”（句读）to serve as a sign of pause in a sentence.
Thus, Chinese holds a paratactic tradition that the connection of
each sentence realises without the help of the language form but
the logical meaning of the words or phrases. But English belongs to
hypotaxis that requires largely morphological properties. Thus, if
a translator wanted to achieve the fusion of horizons in terms of
rhetoric, he has to invent a new way to settle this unbridgeable
difference between English and Chinese.
Example: 所谓伊人
1) James Legge: The man of whom I think
2) Arthur Waley: He whom I love
3) Ezra Pound: What manner of man is this?
4) Xu Yuanchong: Where was she seen?
Actually, “所谓” in ancient Chinese, as Legge renders, refers to
“whom I think”（所念想的）. However, it also mingles with a tone of
uncertainty. Obviously, the rhetorical question in English
represents better in both its original meaning as well as the
linguistic function. The question mark at the end vividly
reconstructs the scene that the poet is indeed at loss and
reproduces his/her feeling of confusion and doubt. With the fusion
of horizons, the sentimental meaning behind the original Chinese
has been fully regenerated in English.
3.3 Fusion of Horizons in Terms of Cultural Context
Translators are always confronted with the hardship on account
of the trickiness of cultural differences. Since the cultural gap
is an unavoidable difficulty a translator is obliged to face,
horizons of different texts with their readerships should be fused
to narrow the gap, or say ‘distance’ between the source and target
languages.
Culture is closely connected with images. The cultural image, in
Xie Tianzhen’s (谢天振, 2003:99) remark, is the crystal of a nation’s
wisdom and the sediment of its culture and history. In this poem,
“the autumn stream”（秋水）stands out to be the most important visual
image carrying the common memory of Chinese sentimentality.
To my surprise, when I examine carefully on Pound’s translation
and put its lines horizontally, I suddenly notice an interesting
phenomenon that his version is so vivid as if there was a picture
depicting the story in the original:
Dark, dark be reed and rush,
the white dew turns to frost;
what manner of man is this?
lost?
Gin I rin up,
Gin I go down,
Up stream heavy, there he’d be
In mid water distantly.
Chill, chill be the reeds,
the white dew not yet dry;
What manner of man is he
under the hanging bank?
Up stream heavily,
Gin I swim down,
On tufted isle
Distantly.
Ever falls dew on bright reeds.
What manner of thing is he
who seems to be there on the marge
Up stream, to the West, at large?
Hard to go up, to swim, tho’ he seem
there on the isle, mid-stream.
The space remained between each half of the three stanzas looks
like a winding stream flowing through the lines. The position of
“lost?” is so extraordinary that it can possibly be viewed as where
“he/she/…, etc”（伊人）is. From three different angles, the poet (in
the second half of each stanza) carried out his searching. Perhaps,
this is what Pound had seen and felt from this beautiful lyric. As
Edwin Gentzler suggested in his Contemporary Translation Theories
(1990), “what was stable, in Pound’s mind, was the form in which
language and objects combined. That which Pound was trying
deliberately to fix was not an ‘idea’ or ‘image’, but the very
material existence of the energy of the object in language, the
‘form’.” (Gentzler, 1990:41)
Pound’s translation lends a strong tonal quality to the
chronological cohesion of the piece, as produced in the original
Chinese of three neatly-arranged stanzas, and betrays subtly the
melancholy mood of this anonymous poet. Though his “creative
treason” (Escarpit, 1958) in translation, Pound led his readers to
walk freely inside the exotic conception of Chinese classics beyond
the boundaries of different cultural backgrounds and aesthetic
psychological structures. Pound’s poetics fused his horizon on
contemporary western literary condition together with those
meaningful images in Chinese characters and their aesthetic
conceptions through which he broke down into pieces the
long-established poetic tradition in the West. Simultaneously, he
explored a brand new possibility of the acceptance of Chinese
literature for the western readers.
Conclusion
Since Jianjia, in Book of Songs, was first translated into
English, many aspirant translators had been attempting to render
this sentimental lyric out of their different fusion of horizons.
As Gadamer put it, “Every age has to understand a transmitted text
in its own way, for the text belongs to the whole tradition whose
content interests the age and in which it seeks to understand
itself. The real meaning of a text…is always co-determined also by
the historical situation of the interpreter and hence by the
totality of the objective course of history.” (Gadamer, 1975:296)
Each translation fully unfolds the translator’s particular
historical condition and cultural convention. Hence their varied
distinctions should be reflected reasonably in the light of their
times.
The four selected translations, born in different eras, vary
remarkably in wording, structure and connotation. James Legge took
this classic as a scared book of religion and politics, thus he
faithfully conducted a prudent investigation on each single words
in this lyric. Arthur Waley, however, purely explored the nature of
poetry without regard to cultural condition of the original text to
comprehensively reflect its folkloric customs. Ezra Pound’s vivid
recreation of Chinese imageries contributed to his new poetics
during the Imagist Movement. Xu Yuanchong, as a Chinese translator
in the cultural stance of Chinese nation, gave consideration to
both its original poetic beauty and the expectations of western
readers under the circumstance of globalization.
The infinite possibility of interpretations in varied historical
contexts makes this charming lyric accessible to many different
translations. And each of them plays an indispensable role in the
cultural communication in the different historical period. During
this course, the horizon of the translator has been continued to
expand and regenerate according to the historical conditions and
the development of readerships.
The growing diversity of horizons extends the life of the
original text in different languages. In the light of this fact,
latter translators of Chinese classics should lay vastly great
emphasis on their “fusion of horizons” and try to provide western
readers with new possibilities to get closer to the rich
inheritance of Chinese literature.
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