… “Fishing in Autumn,” A Poem in Translation

The  mischievous U.S. poet Billy Collins, our former poet laureate, likes to poke fun at just about everything, including Chinese poetry.  In his quite funny poem called “Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire The Length And Clarity Of Their Titles” (see the poem here) he expresses some admiration for the way Chinese poets use titles to draw people into their imaginary landscapes.  He writes “How easy (the poet) has made it for me to enter here,/to sit down in a corner,/cross my legs like his, and listen.”

Nguyen Khuyen, With Nails and Tea

Though the Vietnamese poem translated below lacks the long title, its setting on a pond in the fall, with the author floating along in a small boat while fishing, passes the “Billy Collins test,” i.e. it seems it would be a nice place to be sitting in a cross-legged position with the writer of the poem, listening to the sounds of nature.

It is called “Fishing in Autumn,” (“Thu Điều,” in the original) by Nguyễn Khuyến, a 19th century Vietnamese poet. It is part of a cycle of three poems called  “Poems of Autumn.” Any doubt at all that these three pieces of writing were composed by a Vietnamese poet can be eliminated when one considers the titles: “Fishing in Autumn,” “Drinking Rice Wine in Autumn,” and “Writing Landscape Poems in Autumn.” I suppose he could have written one about the woman  who left him in autumn or one about missing Hanoi in autumn.

From a western perspective, what I find most interesting in regards to this form is that the first person singular does not appear. In fact, there are no personal or other kinds of pronouns in this poem and many others like it. No I, he, she, it, they, we etc.  There are only verbs, prepositions, nouns and adjectives. (In Vietnamese, adjectives can be verbs.) For example, the poem’s first line says “Ao thu lạnh lẽo nước trong veo,” which means “autumn pond | cold| cheerless | water | transparent.” The most direct translation here “The autumn pond is cheerless and cold, the water is transparent,” but there is no verb equivalent to “is” nor is there a person who is observing the situation. This means the poem and others like it are refreshingly absent of self-referential discussion (as Billy Collins would say, poems with titles like “The Horn of Neurosis,”) and very high on direct, clear imagery.

Here is the translation, which tries (once again, see last attempt) to preserve rhyme, and a consistent syllable count (nine versus the original seven). This is followed by a review of the poetic form in use in the poem, and a gloss of the original Vietnamese, tone placements and literal meaning.

What is the poem about? I think that its meaning can be found in the last two lines but I will let you sit cross-legged with the poet and decide for your self what he may be feeling. (Hint: The nibbling fish are a metaphor for…?)

_________________________

Fishing in Autumn

by Nguyen Khuyen

The fall pond cheerless, the water clear

I fish from a small boat drifting here.

Tiny blue ripples roll through the mist

The wind, the leaves fly past with the year

From a deep blue sky hang rows of clouds

On a bamboo path, no one appears

Knees to chest, I can’t put down this pole,

Many  fish tug at the duckweed here.

___________________________

Technical Issues (for poetry nerds only).

The poem comes to us in one of the most common forms used in Tang Dynasty China, known as “dường luật” in Vietnamese, which means literally “Tang era rules.” (“Rules” as in conventions, not as in “governs.”) It is a very tightly controlled form, and includes restrictions on the placement of rhyme, the placement of different tone marks, the placement of certain opposing types of imagery, and of course, more basic constraints such as the number of lines (four or eight, there are two options) and syllables per line (only one option: seven).

Fishing, Maybe in Autumn

The rules governing the placement of rhyme are simple enough: A_A_b_A_c_A_d_A. In this poem the “A” sound is “veo” which sounds like what we use in the U.S. on bologna sandwiches: “mayo.” In the orginal, it creates a kind of echo through out the poem, as it is repeated every second line. I chose the sound “_ere” to replace it, which hardly captures the original.

Seccond, the placement of tone marks is shown in the chart to the left (BTBB etc.) In classical Vietnamse poetry, tones are grouped into “bang” and “trac” and then arranged likes notes. (See post). The tone of the second syllable of the first and last line define whether the poem is a “bang” or a “trac” poem in general. This is a “bang” poem. Third, the rules governing the placement of imagery require the poet to create contrast between couplets – the second couplet and the third couplet. This is often done by juxtaposing “heaven and sky” in one couplet against “earth and rivers” in the other.  The technical term for this in Vietnamese is “luật đoi,” or law of opposition. I don’t know if it has a name in English. Finally, there are seven syllables per line which I have altered to include nine syllables per line for reasons having to do with “syllabic density” Vietnamese. (See same post.)

Tang Dynasty “Dường Luật” Poetic Form

Thu Điều

By Nguyễn Khuyến

Ao | thu | lạnh lẽo | nước | trong veo

Pond | autumn | cold and cheerless | water | transparent

_B_T_BB

Một | chiếc thuyền câu | bé tẻo teo

One | fishing boat | very small

_T_B_TB

Sóng biếc theo làn hơi gợn tí

Wave | blue/green| follow| mist | ripple | small

_T_B_TT

Lá vàng trước gió sẽ đưa vèo

Gold leaves | before the wind | fall | fast

_B_T_BB

Tầng mây lơ lửng trời xanh ngắt

Layers | clouds  | float suspended | sky | deep blue

_B_T_BT

Ngõ trúc quanh co khách vắng teo

Path | bamboo  |   winding  | has people | deserted | totally

_T_B_TB

Tựa gối, buông cần lâu chẳng được

Leaning | knees | leave | pole | long time | cannot

_T_B_TT

Cá đâu đớp động dưới chân bèo.

Fish |  everywhere | bite/snatch | under | legs| water fern

_T_B_BB

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