Brimming Water by Tu Fu

BRIMMING WATER BY TU FU

Years ago I came across Kenneth Roxroth’s translation of “Brimming Water” by Tu Fu. It is one of my favorites, if not my favorite poem.

BRIMMING WATER by Tu Fu

Original language Chinese

Translated by Kenneth Roxroth

Under my feet the moon

Glides along the river.

Near midnight, a gusty lantern

Shines in the heart of the night.

Along the sandbars flocks

Of white egrets roost,

Each one clenched like a fist.

In the wake of my barge

The fish leap, cut the water,

And dive and splash.

The poem was originally published in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, translated by Kenneth Roxroth (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971), page 34.

It is concisely descriptive, vividly evoking an unusually lucid image of the scene. The reality depicted is almost magical.

The American translation is influenced by Imagism, codified in the early 20th century by Ezra Pound.

Tenets of Pound’s Imagist manifesto:

- Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective

- To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation

- As regarding rhythm, to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome

—“A Brief Guide to Imagism” (September 5, 2017) by Academy of American Poets

See: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-imagism

For years I had sought to locate the poem in original Chinese characters, at one point asking my Chinese friends to help me. No such luck.

Fortunately, I was finally able to obtain the original Chinese text, courtesy of Professor Stephen Owen of Harvard University. The original text and Owen’s translation are published in The Poetry of Du Fu, Stephen Owen, transl., compiled by Ding Xiang Warner and Paul W. Kroll (Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), Volume 4, Book 15, page 122.

The Poetry of Du Fu is a six-volume series. Free access to the publication in .pdf format is available at this page in the De Gruyter website:

https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/319782  

Owen is the first to translate into English the complete poems of Tu Fu.

Owen’s translation of “Brimming Water” is different from Roxroth’s. Owen has said that he intended to make his translation of Tu Fu as readable as possible while at the same time helping a person learning how to read poetic Chinese translate the original.

Owen’s title is different from Roxroth’s. The rest of the poem maintains a strong Imagist character.

HAPHAZARD COMPOSITION by Tu Fu

Original language Chinese

Translated by Stephen Owen

The river moon is just a few feet away from me;

a wind-shaken lamp shines in the night, almost the third watch.

Egrets spending the night on the sand, legs bent under, quiet;

at the boat’s stern a leaping fish makes the sound of splashing. 

Moonlit River