Example 烏 夜 蹄 w ū yè tí by Li Yu 李煜

1. Constraint Based Translations: Mimicry as Methodby Jonathan StallingTranslating as 夺胎换骨 “Evolving from Embryo and Changing the BonesHuang Tingjian (黃庭堅) (1045-1105). • I have developed a method of translating Classical Chinese poetry based upon Huang Tingjian’s compositional method that places mimicry in a positive, generative light by making earlier examples into generative constraints to be reinhabited and reinterpreted by later poets. Traditionally a poet follwing this method would follow one of the two options: • 夺胎（evolve from embryo）requires that one use different words to mimic the semantic “content” of an existing poem. • 夺胎可以理解为使用不同的形式或文字来表达前人已有的观点，换句话来说，夺胎是对意义的模仿。 • 换骨(changing the bones) mimics the form and even the words of an earlier poem while altering the original poem’s “content.” (In other words 换骨 mimics the language and form). • 换骨可以理解为用普遍的形式，甚至是先前的诗人的文字来表达更进一步的或者不同的意思，换句话来说，换骨是对语言和形式的模仿。 I argue that all translation is never more than 夺胎 mimicking “content” through “different words” (not translating, transfering or transmitting “content”), and that translation is not the best metacritical concept to frame heterolinguistic productions since it cannot escape vestages of transcendental metaphysics that hypostatizes “meanings” into things moved, not the productions of contextual conditions. • I do not stop with the mimicry of content (traditional translation), however, but construct English translations that adhere to the proceedural contstraints of Classical Chinese corellative cosmological formalism: external rhyme (internal in the case of “ci” forms), tonal harmonics, and metrical (monosyllabic) in order to mimic the source text’s form as well.

2. 林 花 謝 了 春 紅 太 匆 匆 無 奈 朝 來 寒 雨 晚 來 風 胭 脂 淚 留 人 醉 幾 時 重 自 是 人 生 長 恨 水 長 東 Spríngs rēd gròve blooms ēbb pásttòo fāst fāstdáwn wìll bríng chìll raín dǒwnnǐght wínd blāstroùge fāce crymén's gáze sìghtīme píles vàstfròm oùr bírth līfe lǒng deàrthsprǐngs flōw pāst This Poem and method (as well as the transliterative method on the following page) was first published in the magazine CHAIN #10 “Translucinación,” 2003. Example烏 夜 蹄wū yè tíby Li Yu 李煜

3. Transliterative procedurals Excerpt From “Grotto Heaven: A Revised Grammar Book” by Jonathan Stalling Forthcoming from Chax Press. From the first of three sections entitled, “Practical Chinese Reader” 弟 七十二課 Lesson Seventy Two: 明：这是一首用中文写成的英文诗，当朗读它时，英语国家的听众听到的是英语，而中国听众听见的是中文。左边一栏是原诗，中间一栏是英美人听到的诗，右边一栏是对它的翻译。你将发现诗歌存在于两种语言之间的黑暗地带。 • Explanation: The English poem below is written in Chinese, so when it is read aloud, the English speaker will hear an English poem (middle column) while a Chinese speaker will hear a Chinese poem (column on left translated on the following page). On the right is a translation of the poem heard by English Speakers. On the following page is a translation of the poem heard by Chinese Speakers. You may find the poems somewhere between. 課文Text What An English Speakre hears Chinese translation of English outcome fú rèn lán gǔ wéi zhé “弗认兰谷围哲” Foreign Language 外國語 kē lù zī yóu 'ér 'āisī Close your eyes 闭上眼睛 珂露姿犹而哀思 yǐng 'è dá 'ér kè rú mùIn a dark room 一个幽暗的房间 影厄答而克如木 'ōu běn yóu 'ér 'ǎi sìOpen your eyes 睁开眼 欧本犹而霭寺 'òu pén yǒurì 'āisī 'è gǎn Open your eyes again 再睁开眼 怄湓有日哀思厄感 'āo tè sāi dé dì dá 'ér kè rùmùOutside the dark room 幽暗的房间外面 凹特塞德地答而刻入暮 'è fēi sī wò chísī yòu A face watches you 有一张脸，将你凝视 厄飞思卧驰思幼 wò chí yǐng dì dǎ rì ké 卧驰影地打日殼 Watching the dark 凝视黑暗

4. English Translation of the poem a Chinese speaker/reader sees/hears • Jade dew appears as mournful memories • Narrow shadows controlled answer as a forest • Gulls’ origin is a mist-enveloped temple • Frustration overflows a day’s grief as a narrow sensation • Concave particulars are better than virtue, earth replies by carving toward half light • Distressed, flying laying down pining for childhood • resting on flying thoughts earth beats upon the sun’s shell A single transliterative text, therefore, produces two completely distinct interpretive outcomes based upon the reader/listener’s linguistic community and reveals the close relationship between orthography and accent (the English interpretation comes through a Chinese accenting, the Chinese, an English accenting), and open both languages to heterolinguistic textures, new echo chambers within words, resonating vowels, distinct consonant clusters and dramatic tonal topography within a semantically bifurcating single text. In this case translations can be seen as more dependent upon the reader/listener’s interpretive networks than any transcendental “movement of meaning across transparent language systems.”