Bill Porter's (Red Pine) Translation of Yinyuan's Poems

Bill Porter at University of Arizona Poetry Center, Sept. 23, 2013. Photo taken by Jiang Wu

 

Yinyuan is a very prolific poet. He wrote more than 5,000 poems in his life time. In my book, I translated a few. But translating poems is the least I want to do as a scholar because I lack the sensitivity of a good poem and my use of English vocabulary is clumsy. I asked my friend Bill Porter (比尔波特) to look at my translations. Bill has been translating Chan poems for decades under the name Red Pine. He re-translated all poems. Eventually, I adopted all his translations in my book. Here are the differences in one of Yinyuan's poems on Mount Fuji.

Bill Porter translation

Us both with white hair and me old besides

facing each other we think the same thought

I would say something deep but have nothing to say

I’m relying on you to keep this going forever

My translation

White head and an old man with white head,

Two of us face each other with the same thought.

I want to talk philosophy but have nothing to say,

Relying on you, my teaching propagates forever. (IGZS 8: 3746) 

Chinese original 

其二

白頭以及白頭翁，兩兩相看心事同。

我欲玄談無可說，借君一脈永流通。