My God! Lesson to learn!
星期一 二月 25, 2008 11:25 am
My God! Lesson to learn!
When I tried to translate John .B. Lee's poem "The Bare facts of Morning", I had a few lines stumbled.
So I discussed them with Ram who teaches in College. He read it a few times, then began his explanation.
He dramatically interpreted the poem and repeated the most easy part. I pointed the line which really puzzled me.
"Accept the mind is such a muscle
to go flexing in the dark
like wingless beetles in a high dish."
I asked why the beetle is wingless, what did they imply? why are they in high dish.
Alas, he asked if we eat wingless beetles. I said some Chinese may do, but the poet is not Chinese.
I didn't think here he mentioned to eat them. Ram replied to me, " high dish is tasty dish."
I said I was really confused, I would ask the poet himself.
Now I am glad I did it. Here is John .B. Lee's answers to my two questions:
1. Why do you write it? What is the background of it?
the poem appeared originally in my book, Variations on Herb, a verse
biography of my paternal grandfather Herb Lee. The poem amounts to
something of an invocation of the muses. In it I express the desire for a
pure view of the external world without the corruption or contamination of
the transformative spoliation of the mind.
2. The line: "Like wingless beetles in a high dish", what do you mean?
the beetles are wingless and therefore they cannot fly beyond the rim.
They must crawl. And their perceptions are limited to the circle of the
bowl. This is their entire horizon. unless they escape.
Now I know how people read poems so differently and sometimes so wrong!
I am glad most of my translations are confirmed with the poets. When I have doubt, I always tried to ask them to explain to me,
In this way I hope I don't mislead the readers by my translation.
I wonder why people don't show their courage to admit that they don't understand what they read.
I don't know if I should told Ram the poet's reply or not.