Of course, the adventurous young men from the frontier provinces want to go out into the wild. And, like most efforts to find adventure, and to leave what we know behind, they simply end up with a routine life of a different sort, in a different place. They grow old in the desert, rather than growing old at home.
They leave the tedium of the settled lands where grain is grown, for wide spaces where the horses are bred. The horses of central Asia were imported into the civilized lands on the periphery. This is a line of business that went on for literally thousands of years. As late as 1900 we can read in Kim by Rudyard Kipling of his wily horse trader Mahbub Ali bringing his horses across the mountains through Afghanistan, and down into the plains of Hindostan to sell. The horse traders live a wild, free, risky life, which the settled people of the plains romanticize and admire, but don’t adopt for themselves.
The strange mixing of the seasons, where the cicadas of the summer are somehow heard in the autumn of the year, suggests that the writer is mixing up his memory and his feelings about the incidents which he has seen, and perhaps participated in.
I work on that but I don't have the perfect solution yet. Did you read my substack where I translate Nalan Xingde into French (les rimes du mandarin) ? In French I play with the syntax to give back the (2+2+3 or 2+3) and the tonal aspect specially when it is contrasted. In English it needs to be different of course. But I know some scolars in the US trying to mimic the tonal pattern.
Of course, the adventurous young men from the frontier provinces want to go out into the wild. And, like most efforts to find adventure, and to leave what we know behind, they simply end up with a routine life of a different sort, in a different place. They grow old in the desert, rather than growing old at home.
They leave the tedium of the settled lands where grain is grown, for wide spaces where the horses are bred. The horses of central Asia were imported into the civilized lands on the periphery. This is a line of business that went on for literally thousands of years. As late as 1900 we can read in Kim by Rudyard Kipling of his wily horse trader Mahbub Ali bringing his horses across the mountains through Afghanistan, and down into the plains of Hindostan to sell. The horse traders live a wild, free, risky life, which the settled people of the plains romanticize and admire, but don’t adopt for themselves.
The strange mixing of the seasons, where the cicadas of the summer are somehow heard in the autumn of the year, suggests that the writer is mixing up his memory and his feelings about the incidents which he has seen, and perhaps participated in.
I should get to read some Kipling. Time to take up the reading man's burden.
Kim is uniquely great. Recommend that one, for fiction.
Poetry, lots of it is good. I love a bunch of them.
I'll limit myself to one, "The Lost Legion."
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/lost_legion.html
Phenomenal poem and great background. Thank you!
Glad you like it!
it is really good. I like the way you suppress verbs and particles to mimic the Chinese concision. What do you do with the tone pattern? Thierry
Thank you! The tone pattern or the melody is often lost in my translation. I wish I had a way to show it.
I work on that but I don't have the perfect solution yet. Did you read my substack where I translate Nalan Xingde into French (les rimes du mandarin) ? In French I play with the syntax to give back the (2+2+3 or 2+3) and the tonal aspect specially when it is contrasted. In English it needs to be different of course. But I know some scolars in the US trying to mimic the tonal pattern.
I need also to learn from you
Oh I will check your work and see what I can learn from it. Merci beaucoup.