I got a new bookcase in my room tonight. While I was organizing books I came again upon a poem I discovered a couple of years ago. It is by Korean Buddhist Han Yong-un, translated by Kang Young-hil and Frances Keely.
I Do Not Know
There is no wind
yet quietly
the odong tree drops leaves
each leaf is worked around
in scallopped embroidery...
where is the embroiderer?
After long dark rains
the west wind clears
a shining rim
between dark clouds
it is like the smile of a face...
whose face?
This forest is so deep
no flower can grow and yet
about these ancient solitary towers
a sense of fragrance
clings...
whose fragrance?
Brooks of unknown source
and destiny send currents
darting hither and thither
that pick out songs
from roots and stones...
whose song?
At the seaside when
down to the cliffs
the lotus feet rush
and up to the infinite
long jade fingers
point
it is a sunset picture... beautiful...
who is the artist?
In the ash of my lampbowl
old oil spurts anew
my breast not knowing how
to stop burning
trims its watchlight... waiting...
who is expected?
Love it! Here is another translation. I don't like it so well, but the meaning is clearer. (Like reading the KJV, then the NIV!) This was translated by Kim Jai-hiun and Ronald Hatch.
I Do Not Know
Whose step is the paulownia leaf that falls silently in vertical wavelets against the windless skies?
Whose looks are these patches of blue that peep through the cracks in the dark, lowering clouds, driven by the west wind after a long rainy spell?
Whose breath is this subtle scent that wafts through the green moss on an old and flowerless tree to lure the quiet sky above an ancient pagoda?
Whose song is this little brook that continuously runs, no one knows from where, purling over the pebbles?
Whose ode is the flush of sunset that graces the dying day as it steps, soft as a lotus bloom, on the infinite seas and touches the edgeless sky with its delicate hands?
The burnt-out ashes turn to fuel again. Whose little lamp is my heart that burns, flickering all night long, I know not for whom?
WyzardWays has another translation of "I Do Not Know" and discusses it's Korean images and it's historical setting.
2 comments:
This is a great poem, and the two translations are different from one that I know. Your two versions, which you have beautifully documented, illustrate just how hard it is to translate a poem, particularly a Korean poem which can embed so many different meanings simultaneously (from the standpoint of English translation).
Thanks for posting these. You will find the translation I have blogged about at:
http://wyzardways.blogspot.com/
Thanks for commenting. I enjoyed reading your post about "I do Not Know". (I'll add a link to it with my translations!) It gave me a greater understanding of the Korean mindset in reading it.
My translation of "Meditations of the Lover" (the book this poem was published in, also translated "The Silence of Love") by Kang Younghill has a forward where he suggests that the Lover, the mystery, the unknown in these poems is several things, a unified Korea, infinity, and even God. When I read it that last is what I hear.
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