peoples. When a Korean says to you, "Is not the great man's stomach empty?" it makes you smile, whereas to him it means simply, "Aren't you hungry?"
This is my reason for rejecting all literal translations of Korean poetry. Such translations would not convey to us the same sensation that the original does to the Korean; and, after all, that is what we are primarily after. The first difficulty lies in the fact that Korean poetry is so condensed. A half-dozen Chinese characters, if properly collocated, may convey more meaning than a whole paragraph in English. One song, for instance, states the matter as baldly as this:
This month, third month, willow becomes green;
Oriole preens herself;
Butterfly flutters about.
Boy, bring zither. Must sing.
It cannot be said that this means nothing to us, but the bald translation conveys nothing of the feeling which the Korean experiences when he sees the original. If I have at least partially caught the inner sense of it, the following would better represent what it means to the Korean:
The willow catkin bears the vernal blush of summer's dawn
When winter's night is done.
The oriole that preens herself aloft on swaying bough
Is summer's harbinger.
The butterfly, with noiseless fŭl-fŭl of her pulsing wing,
Marks off the summer hour.
Quick, boy! My zither I Do its strings accord? 'T is well. Strike up,
For I must sing.
Another purely Korean poem that would appear utterly insipid to the uninitiated might be rendered freely:
O mountain blue, |
