Wang Wei: Frasi in inglese
“Fighting single-handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.”
"Song of an Old General" http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/wang_wei/poems/11147.html (老将行)
"Bamboo Grove" (竹里馆), as translated by Arthur Sze in The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese (2013), p. 19
Variant translation:
Lying alone in this dark bamboo grove,
Playing on a flute, continually whistling,
In this dark wood where no one comes,
The bright moon comes to shine on me.
"In a Bamboo Grove" in The White Pony, ed. Robert Payne, p. 151
"Deer Fence" (鹿柴), trans. Burton Watson
Variant translations:
No one is seen in deserted hills,
Only the echoes of speech is heard.
Sunlight cast back comes deep in the woods,
And shines once again upon the green moss.
Translated by Stephen Owen
On the empty mountain, seeing no one,
Only hearing the echoes of someone's voice;
Returning light enters the deep forest,
Again shining upon the green moss.
Translated by Richard W. Bodman and Victor H. Mair
"Written Crossing the Yellow River to Qing-he" (渡河到清河作)
“The bright moon shines between the pines.
The crystal stream flows over the pebbles.”
"Autumn Twilight in the Mountains" (山居秋暝), trans. Kenneth Rexroth
"A Song at Weicheng" (送元二使安西), as translated by Witter Bynner in Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty
Variant translations:
Wei City morning rain dampens the light dust.
By this inn, green, newly green willows.
I urge you to drink another cup of wine;
West of Yang Pass, are no old friends.
Mike O'Connor, "Wei City Song" in Where the World Does Not Follow (2002), p. 119
No dust is raised on pathways wet with morning rain,
The willows by the tavern look so fresh and green.
I invite you to drink a cup of wine again:
West of the Southern Pass no more friends will be seen.
Xu Yuan-zhong, "A Farewell Song" in 150 Tang Poems (1984), p. 29
Light rain is on the light dust.
The willows of the inn-yard
Will be going greener and greener,
But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure,
For you will have no friends about you
When you come to the gates of Go.
Ezra Pound, epigraph to "Four Poems of Departure", in Cathay (1915), p. 28
"On the Mountain Holiday Thinking of My Brothers in Shan-tung" (九月九日忆山东兄弟), trans. Witter Bynner
Variant translation:
To be a stranger in a strange land:
Whenever one feasts, one thinks of one's brother twice as much as before.
There where my brother far away is ascending,
The dogwood is flowering, and a man is missed.
"Thinking of My Brother in Shantung on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Moon", in The White Pony, ed. Robert Payne
“In the mountains a night of rain,
And above the trees a hundred springs.”
As quoted in Lin Yutang's My Country and My People (1936), p. 247
