The Pavilion at the Lake
Wang Wei
701-761 CE
(translated by William P. Coleman)
A small barge goes to meet my honored guest,
and, in no haste, we come back across the lake.
At the rail we face — with a cup of wine —
while, all around, lotus flowers bloom.
I found the Chinese text and an English translation of this poem — along with the word-by-word literal translation I used to create this one — at Chinese Poems.
The grammar of Chinese allows poets to leave interpretive choices open, and it’s an unattainable ideal of translating to bring out possibilities without closing others. I try to use my sense of English to at least intrigue you. If I’ve succeeded, it’s best — even if you don’t know Chinese, which I don’t either — to follow up at the source I cite above and see the original word-by-word translation from which I worked. It’ll be richer than what I’ve given you. To understand the poem best, try to construct your own translation.
See the FAQ and the external links at Chinese Poems, a beautiful resource with many poems.
More Chinese poetry translations in this blog. Home page for my Wang Wei translations.
That’s pretty. Increasingly I find myself appreciating classical Chinese poetry.
One of these days I gotta get around to actually learning the Hanzi.