Thanks for the awesome translation, and also for sharing your insights into the original text and other translations.
On the title, I think your translation of 風塵 as "in the world" is clear and nicely contrasts "in a dream". (I also appreciated Hawkes’ "poverty" for capturing one of its meanings well.)
One question, if I may: Did you consider translating names beyond pinyin (e.g., for Jia Yucun)? I understand your commentary clarifies names (and other important details I'd otherwise miss), but I wonder if you’re concerned that a line like "This is why I use names such as Jia Yucun" might confuse English readers without it. To be fair, I don’t know a better solution than commentary.
I've been opting to transliterate the names using Pinyin instead of translating them. I know that this creates issues, since there are at least two characters that have names with the same Pinyin transliteration, yet different characters. My plan has been to use textual notes to explain this, though I might have to insert notes in the text itself to make it clear.
The hard part about translating names is the fact that many of the poems later in the book refer directly to certain characters because of poetic allusions to names. For example, the first prophetic poem we see in Chapter 5 (which I'm translating right now) starts "霽月難逢，彩雲易散," or "Clear moons are rarely met, bright clouds soon scatter." In Chinese, this is an oblique and hard to grasp reference to the maid named 晴雯 (Qingwen): 晴 means "cloudless sky," which is alluded to by 霽月 (a cloudless sky and bright moon after the rain), and 雯 means "colorful clouds," alluded to by 彩雲 (colorful clouds).
David Hawkes translates that poem as "Seldom the moon shines in a cloudless sky, and days of brightness all too soon pass by." The first line is just fine, but the second line changes the meaning of the poem completely. However, Hawkes is forced to translate the second line this way to fit with the name Skybright that he gave to 晴雯.
This is further complicated by Hawkes' insistence on giving the poems rhyming schemes. Sometimes his work is brilliant, but it often means he has to change the basic meaning of the text - which, of course, can be really confusing for anybody who wants to seriously study the book.
Anyway, no matter what we do with the names in English we're going to run into this problem. There's no perfect solution, and so I think the best way is to create a lot of textual notes and commentary posts to explain what is going on.
The more you dig into this book, the more fascinating it is.
Thank you for double checking! Please let me know as you find more of these. I try to check, but there are times where I wind up missing relatively simple things like this.
Interestingly enough, the printed version I have (from 三民書局 in Taiwan) uses 敷衍 instead of 敷演. I'm curious about the textual history behind this change, as well as other changes throughout the book. It also makes me happy that we have high quality scanned copies of the original 程乙本 for the sake of comparison...
An interesting side-note: a dictionary of mine (for literary usage) happens to have separate entries for both 敷衍 and 敷演: under 敷演 one definition given is 陳述並發揮, citing this very sentence from the first chapter of 紅樓夢 as an example.
I also have a printed version from the 三民書局 edited by 饒彬 (perhaps it's even the same edition?) which has 敷衍. The edition is based on the 程甲本 from 1791, but as the scans of the 1791 print have 敷演, I think it‘s probably an editorial change by 饒彬.
Another (ebook) edition I have from the 三民書局 which is based mainly on the 庚辰本 from 1760 (which, as far as I know, is the earliest surviving hand copied source that contains almost all of the original 80 chapters) -- while making emendations from other sources -- has 敷演.
Thanks for the awesome translation, and also for sharing your insights into the original text and other translations.
On the title, I think your translation of 風塵 as "in the world" is clear and nicely contrasts "in a dream". (I also appreciated Hawkes’ "poverty" for capturing one of its meanings well.)
One question, if I may: Did you consider translating names beyond pinyin (e.g., for Jia Yucun)? I understand your commentary clarifies names (and other important details I'd otherwise miss), but I wonder if you’re concerned that a line like "This is why I use names such as Jia Yucun" might confuse English readers without it. To be fair, I don’t know a better solution than commentary.
Thanks again for your excellent work!
Thank you for the note!
I've been opting to transliterate the names using Pinyin instead of translating them. I know that this creates issues, since there are at least two characters that have names with the same Pinyin transliteration, yet different characters. My plan has been to use textual notes to explain this, though I might have to insert notes in the text itself to make it clear.
The hard part about translating names is the fact that many of the poems later in the book refer directly to certain characters because of poetic allusions to names. For example, the first prophetic poem we see in Chapter 5 (which I'm translating right now) starts "霽月難逢，彩雲易散," or "Clear moons are rarely met, bright clouds soon scatter." In Chinese, this is an oblique and hard to grasp reference to the maid named 晴雯 (Qingwen): 晴 means "cloudless sky," which is alluded to by 霽月 (a cloudless sky and bright moon after the rain), and 雯 means "colorful clouds," alluded to by 彩雲 (colorful clouds).
David Hawkes translates that poem as "Seldom the moon shines in a cloudless sky, and days of brightness all too soon pass by." The first line is just fine, but the second line changes the meaning of the poem completely. However, Hawkes is forced to translate the second line this way to fit with the name Skybright that he gave to 晴雯.
This is further complicated by Hawkes' insistence on giving the poems rhyming schemes. Sometimes his work is brilliant, but it often means he has to change the basic meaning of the text - which, of course, can be really confusing for anybody who wants to seriously study the book.
Anyway, no matter what we do with the names in English we're going to run into this problem. There's no perfect solution, and so I think the best way is to create a lot of textual notes and commentary posts to explain what is going on.
The more you dig into this book, the more fascinating it is.
One small correction of the transcription: The facsimile actually has ｢敷演｣instead of ｢敷衍｣ (in ｢我雖不學無文，又何妨用假語村言敷演出來⋯⋯」）
Thank you for double checking! Please let me know as you find more of these. I try to check, but there are times where I wind up missing relatively simple things like this.
Interestingly enough, the printed version I have (from 三民書局 in Taiwan) uses 敷衍 instead of 敷演. I'm curious about the textual history behind this change, as well as other changes throughout the book. It also makes me happy that we have high quality scanned copies of the original 程乙本 for the sake of comparison...
An interesting side-note: a dictionary of mine (for literary usage) happens to have separate entries for both 敷衍 and 敷演: under 敷演 one definition given is 陳述並發揮, citing this very sentence from the first chapter of 紅樓夢 as an example.
Yes, the scanned copies are a treasure indeed!
I also have a printed version from the 三民書局 edited by 饒彬 (perhaps it's even the same edition?) which has 敷衍. The edition is based on the 程甲本 from 1791, but as the scans of the 1791 print have 敷演, I think it‘s probably an editorial change by 饒彬.
Another (ebook) edition I have from the 三民書局 which is based mainly on the 庚辰本 from 1760 (which, as far as I know, is the earliest surviving hand copied source that contains almost all of the original 80 chapters) -- while making emendations from other sources -- has 敷演.