About a week and a half ago I went on a date to Coex Mall (I posted my impression of this place a while ago). While there, I watched a movie that involved a lot of gruesome deaths, ate a meal that involved a lot of ramen noodles, and walked a kilometer or two underground.
Also, and with more relevance to this post, as I shared a waffle bathed in ice cream with my girlfriend Yuna, I translated a Korean poem into English. Yuna had undertaken a project to illustrate a poem called Green Delight, written by one Hyeon-Jong Jeong. Yuna's illustration of the poem included, of course, a version of the original inscribed in beautiful calligraphy, but she also wanted to add a version in English. Initially, I was just going to check her own translation, but I ended up retranslating it myself.
I would recommend you attribute any felicities in the translation to the grace of the original, any false steps in the translation to the immaturity of the translator.
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Green Delight (in a Forest in the Spring)
by Hyeon-Jong Jeong
tr. by David Carruth
The sun sinks down in waves
of light, overflowing with its own light.
The sun becomes the crown
of all greens and all flowers,
and it beams on the greens and flowers,
which are its crown.
Like the father of allegory,
like a spring of green,
it beams across all the blue expanse of heaven.
The whole of heaven is pure delight-
it is a temple.
Sun, blue heaven,
green delight of the branches
swaying and drunk on the light and air,
on their own sap,
like water floating in the sky.
So also is the dirt, and in deep places
its fragrant eyes search,
and in secret it gives and receives,
and it smiles.
This fragrance,
this fragrance of the smiling dirt,
it seems to be pouring into my nose.
Fragrance of heaven!
Fragrance of the trees!
---
If by chance anyone would like to compare my translation with the original, you can find it here. Of course, unless you're relatively proficient in Korean, it may not be very interesting to you...
4 comments:
permanentbrilliance.com seems catchy but a little full of myself. if only
hehe
but your thinking, keep it up!
I LUV this post! Beautiful poem. Great picture of you. Cool. :)
David,
This is the end of a great quest for me--finding your blog. Though I suppose that I could have checked your Facebook the first time.
Your posts express similar frustrations to what I am experiencing with Faroese, except that you are putting in the effort and actually mastering a new language!
I will check back. It is nice to read about your life.
Abby Kirkbride
David! You have excellent timing, as I've been thinking about you a lot but have not been quite confident enough to try to contact you. This makes it easy.
I really like the poem, especially the image of the drunk trees, which I had never thought of before, the entire sentence/stanza about the frangrant eyes of the dirt, and the idea of the sun being "the father of allegory."
We should stay in touch.
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