Monday 13th of February 2006, 22:27
If Some Day
Like another beautiful poem by Lǐ Bái that I mentioned here a few years ago, I found this poem in an anthology of Greek translations of Chinese poetry. An anonymous poet produced this in the 9th century BCE. The poor translation from Greek to English is all mine.
If some day, along the great road,
Passing, I hold on to your sleeve,
Do not abhor me;
It is hard to forget old habits.
If some day, along the great road,
Walking, I touch your hand,
Do not be vexed by me;
It is hard to forget old loves.
Comments
Sorry about the irrelevant blog on the irrelevat blog but I just spent one hell of a long time reading through PMR and couldn’t stop laughing…. quality!
Thanks OZ..
Still laughing
Nice poem. I like it. :)
Do you have the original poem in Chinese?
No, unfortunately not. As I said, it was found in a Greek translation to begin with. The poet is anonymous, so that has been no help in tracking down the original. I’d be very happy if someone more knowledgable could steer me in the right direction!
Ah, wait. Found it. It is the 81st poem in the Shī Jīng. I also found a more standard English translation by James Legge. (Clearly, the Greek translation I read was not based on Legge’s translation.)
I prefered the 1st version, anyways back to work..
The above comment was by me - not Orestes, he was logged in when i was leaving a comment, sorry dude!
The 2nd translation is the more accurate version.