Forked Tongues

This is from a book I have called 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, edited by Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz. The book features an 8th Century Chinese poem called "Lu Chai" by Wang Wei, commonly translated into English as "Deer Park" or something along those lines. It then includes 19 different translations of the poem along with explorations of the differences between the translations.



My favorite translation, though, belongs to editor and Literature Nobelist Octavio Paz.

En la Ermita del Parque de los Venados

No se ve gente en este monte.
Sólo se oyen, lejos, voces.
Por los ramajes la luz rompe.
Tendida entre la yerba brilla verde.

And here's a good one in English, by Burton Watson

Deer Fence

Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.

ETAAnd just for marina, a French translation by G. Margouliès

La Forêt

Dans la montagne tout est solitaire,
On entend de bien loin l'écho des voix humaines,
Le soleil qui pénètre au fond de la forêt
Reflète son éclat sur la mousse vert.