前赤壁赋 A Drink in the River Moon at Red Cliff

前赤壁赋

原作: 苏轼（字子瞻, 号东坡居士; 11世纪北宋）

英译: 闵晓红(2024.05)

壬戌之秋，七月既望，苏子与客泛舟游于赤壁之下。清风徐来，水波不兴。举酒属客，诵明月之诗，歌窈窕之章。

少焉，月出于东山之上，徘徊于斗牛之间。白露横江，水光接天。纵一苇之所如，凌万顷之茫然。浩浩乎如冯虚御风，而不知其所止；飘飘乎如遗世独立，羽化而登仙。(冯 通：凭) 

于是饮酒乐甚，扣舷而歌之。歌曰：

“桂棹兮兰桨，

击空明兮溯流光。

渺渺兮予怀，

望美人兮天一方。

... ...”

客有吹洞箫者，倚歌而和之。其声呜呜然，如怨如慕，如泣如诉；余音袅袅，不绝如缕。舞幽壑之潜蛟，泣孤舟之嫠妇。

苏子愀然，正襟危坐而问客曰：“何为其然也？”客曰：“‘月明星稀，乌鹊南飞。’此非曹孟德之诗乎？西望夏口，东望武昌，山川相缪，郁乎苍苍，此非孟德之困于周郎者乎？方其破荆州，下江陵，顺流而东也，舳舻千里，旌旗蔽空，酾酒临江，横槊赋诗，固一世之雄也，而今安在哉？

“况吾与子渔樵于江渚之上，侣鱼虾而友麋鹿，驾一叶之扁舟，举匏樽以相属。寄蜉蝣于天地，渺沧海之一粟。哀吾生之须臾，羡长江之无穷。挟飞仙以遨游，抱明月而长终。知不可乎骤得，托遗响于悲风。”

苏子曰：“客亦知夫水与月乎？逝者如斯，而未尝往也；盈虚者如彼，而卒莫消长也。盖将自其变者而观之，则天地曾不能以一瞬；自其不变者而观之，则物与我皆无尽也，而又何羡乎！

”且夫天地之间，物各有主，苟非吾之所有，虽一毫而莫取。惟江上之清风，与山间之明月，耳得之而为声，目遇之而成色，取之无禁，用之不竭。是造物者之无尽藏也，而吾与子之所共适。”(共适 一作：共食)

客喜而笑，洗盏更酌。肴核既尽，杯盘狼籍。相与枕藉乎舟中，不知东方之既白。

A Drink in the River Moon at Red Cliff

--A prose poem

Chinese original: Su Shi (11th AC, social name 'Zizhan', art name 'Dongpo')

English version: Julia Min (May 2024)

It was a clear autumn night in 1082, just after the full moon. I took my friends for a drink on a boat at Red Cliff. The Yangtze River seemed to doze into a peaceful slumber under the cool, silver moonlight. I raised a toast, and soon we began to hum and chant the famous moon poems from The Book of Ancient Songs, picking up the tune of the first lyric: "Her graceful charm is adorned."

Soon, the fair Moon, free of clouds, had ascended well above the skyline of the rolling eastern hills, gracefully taking her place between the Dipper and the Hunter. We let our boat float freely across a sea of gleaming waves that joined the sky beyond. Before long, our spirits started riding high and breezy like wings riding the wind, roaming in the dome of firmament, as if we had entered the dream world of Heaven.

On and on we toasted with drinks while tapping the boat sides to the rhythm, on and on we sang the famous romantic hymns:

“On a cinnamon boat with magnolia oars,

we row and row.

Floating on the moonlight ripples,

upstream we go and go.

My yearning has been soaked in the song,

so deep and long.

Roaming in poetry motion,

my beauty’s above and beyond.

… …”

Then one friend began echoing the song with his flute. The music touched a deep sentiment, full of yearning and longing, as if weeping or sighing. When he finished, the rhymes and vibes, like an unbroken thread, lingered on, rippling in the air across the dreaming river. Should there be a dragon living in a deep ravine, it would rise to dance in the sky. Should there be a widow alone in a boat nearby, she would surely be touched and cry.

I was a bit lost in the shift of mood, becoming curious at the same time. So I sat up straight and asked my friend, “Why on earth did you pick such a sad tune for such a beautiful view?”

He looked up and replied:

“Just look beyond, in the expanse amidst the waters, ‘To the south the black crows fly,/ Through dimming stars in moonlit sky.’ Is this place a perfect match for the verse of Mengde? And over there, west and east, are Xiakou and Wuchang facing each other, with lush green hills rolling down both banks of the River. If this is not where Mengde was trapped by General Zhou, where could it be?

The great and mighty general, who conquered Jianglin after taking Jingzhou, and down to here, he followed the Yangtze’s flow. His great fleet was said to cover hundreds of miles end to end, like a moving great wall holding up the sky with flags and sails. There he paused on the riverside, wielding a long spear in one hand, holding wine in the other. He chanted his “Short Verse Song”, pouring out wine to honour the roaring river.”

My friend sighed and continued: “Nonetheless, as heroic and powerful as he was, where is he now? Even he could lose his mark in the running tides of time, so where could you and I stand in the long river? We are just a bunch of fishermen enjoying a drink on a leafy boat, and leading a life by the river with elk, fish and shrimp, with a lifespan as short as a mayfly compared with the ever-present Nature, and a role as teeny tiny as a drop in the ocean. I can’t help but grieve that our human lives are but a moment, while the Yangtze flows without end. How I wish to be a celestial, roving the earth to the end in the company of the fair Moon. But it’s a dream that will never come true, so here I send all my sorrow through my flute to the cool wind.”

I smiled and replied: “Do you truly understand the river and the moon?

“The river flows on, yet the water still exists further beyond. The moon appears to wax and wane, yet unchanged its essence remains. If you look at the world through the lens of change, the earth and the heavens cannot stay the same for even a moment, but if you observe the world from a constant viewpoint, all things, including us all, are eternal.

“So why should we hunger for anything beyond our means? The world changes, but the rule of change doesn’t change. Every experience in our lives is governed by this law, defining each individual’s fate with an accurate score, not a penny less, not a penny more.

And, the breeze on the river is known as the breeze as it reaches your ear. The moonlight is defined as moonlight as your eyes pick up its pleasant beams. Such treasures of Creation are boundless since ancient times, shared by you and me alike. They stay full all the time, never run dry, never decline.”

My friend broke into an understanding smile, then rinsed his cup in the river for a new round of wine. We finished every dish, leaving the tables littered with empty cups and plates. Before long, the Moon found us reclining on each other, sinking into oblivion of dreams, unaware that dawn was already breaking in the east…

Notes:

1. The Book of Songs: the first collection of lyric poems printed in China. If I may, I’d translated it into ‘The Book of Song Lyrics’ to convey its nature as sung verse.

2. “On a cinnamon boat …”: a lyric with the subject and expressions borrowed from the poems of Qu Yuan (c. 339 – 278 BC), a great patriotic poet-statesman of the Chu State during the Warring States period.

3. ‘in the expanse amidst the waters’: An expression I borrowed from Genesis 1:6-8 “God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters:…”

4. ‘To the south the black crows fly,/ Through dimming stars in moonlit sky.’: verse from Cao Cao’s heroic poem “Short Verse Song”. Cao Cao (social name Mengde, 155–220 CE) was one of the greatest generals of the late Han dynasty.

5. General Zhou (175–210 CE), social name Gongjin, was a military general under the warlord Sun Ce in the Eastern Han dynasty. Please refer to Su Shi’s famous poem I translated: “Meditating on the Past at the Red Cliff” （《念奴娇. 赤壁怀古》）https://www.rhymesandvibes.com/post/meditating-on-the-past-at-the-red-cliff-1

6. Jingzhou … Jianglin: Jingzhou, a state of eight districts (covering areas in today’s Hunan and Hubei Provinces; Jianglin City was its administrative seat.

7. Xiakou and Wuchang: Xiakou is today’s Wuchang, while the Wuchang of Su Shi’s time is today’s E’zhou, both in Hubei Province.

8. a drop in the ocean: borrowed from the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi – "you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop."

9. not a penny more, not a penny less: borrowed from Jeffery Archer’s novel— a localisation in translation.

For Appreciation:

This is a travelogue in the form of prose poetry. Su Shi's original calligraphy remains well preserved at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Both the poem and the script help us sense the man himself: the bold, running strokes of his brush, the quiet defiance behind his exile, the river and moon that kept him company in his loneliness.

There are many sources available online today introducing this famous work, both on the prose poem and on the calligraphy, since both have been regarded as landmark works in the history of prose poetry and Chinese calligraphy. I shall add only my views on the philosophical insights in the concluding paragraphs.

It’s clearly influenced by Zhuangzi’s Daoist ideas. One might say that Daoism worked best for Su Shi or Dongpo during his days of banishment in Huangzhou, Huizhou, and Danzhou. His literature during these periods highlighted an unconventional, detached mindset that went with the flow or ‘Dao’ for a natural balance. In Daoism, everything is energy, so whatever happens in your life is generated by the flow of your own energy. By following that flow, one leads a happier life, accepting that whatever comes is one's own doing. Su Shi went to the roots of this dynamic and static world to explore the natural laws behind all things. Humans are but a living form of Nature, by Nature, and for Nature. The river flows and yet remains; the moon waxes and wanes and yet is never diminished. These are not mere consolations. They are, for Su Shi, the very structure of reality.

The Song dynasty embraced a reserved, modest, and simple taste, in contrast to the romantic and extravagant Tang dynasty. One might say the Tang sang, while the Song reflected. Su Shi mastered both modes, but in this piece, reflection prevails. This rational, philosophical shift was typical of the Song dynasty, influencing writings, calligraphy, paintings, and music—and even everyday objects such as mirrors, which might bear a poem reminding that "appearance is only skin deep."

I have approached this translation as a work of poetic reimagining. The original prose poem or ‘fu’ moves between verse and prose, between description and philosophy, between elegy and consolation. My task has been to carry that movement into English without losing its rhythm or depth.

Where cultural references would stop the reader cold —for example, the July full moon that is not July in the English world, ‘August’ is used; for the Ox constellation that is not Orion, ‘Hunter’ is chosen. I have adapted freely, not to betray the text, but to welcome the English readers into it. Where a single word could do the work of a footnote, I have chosen the word. "Adorned" carries the causal link between a lady's grace and a gentleman's pursuit. "Paused on the riverside" gives Cao Cao a moment of stillness. "Known as the breeze" and "defined as moonlight" restore the perceptual immediacy of Su Shi's argument.

This is not the only way to translate literature. But it is mine.

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Reference:

1.     baike.baidu.com;

2.     Pictures from Google;