![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Winter Nights (Translation)
Winter Nights
by Park Yong-Rae*
On sleepless nights the snow shall drift on the garlic patch at home.
On sleepless nights the moonbeams drift under the eaves of home.
Cross the water, bare of feet, to that distant village
The wind shall fall to slumber in the corner yard at home.
* 1925-1980, poet and high school teacher. Recipient of the 1980 Korean Literature Achievement Award. He mainly wrote about the nature and scenery of the countryside where he lived.
겨울밤
박용래
잠 이루지 못하는 밤 고향집 마늘밭에 눈은 쌓이리.
This is one of my fiance Wishsong's favorite poems, translated at his request. It's short and simple, which I have learned does not mean easier to translate. The bit where the poet compared moonlight to snow gave me particular trouble. Maybe I can show the divergence by contrasting a more literal translation, with the ambiguities inherent in the text:
On (this) sleepless night(s) the snow should/would/will/may gather on the garlic patch back home.
On (this) sleepless night(s) the moonlight should/would/will/may gather under the eaves back home.
The distant village where (one) crosses the water with bare ankles
The corner-of-the-yard wind back home should/would/will/may sleep.
The image of moonlight gathering under the eaves like snow is a lovely one, but the best I could do while creating a meter more appropriate for English verse was to use the same verb ("drift") as the snow in the previous line.
The Korean language also allows ambiguities English does not, such as singular/plural and easy omission of the subject from sentences. I chose among the ambiguities as best I could, and recast the third line as either a command or a declarative sentence with the subject dropped.
I also rearranged the words in the fourth line to preserve the rhyming scheme of the first, second, and fourth lines. The rhyming in the original wasn't from repeating the word "home" but rather from the grammatical construct I rendered as should/would/will/may. I hope the repeated invocation of "home" is a serviceable substitute and heightens the feeling of homesickness. And you can see the other liberties I took with that last line.
This poem, published in 1975, is the most recent work I have translated and it's nice to work in a more modern sensibility (though something like, say, The Silence of My Beloved still stands up amazingly well). The poet is also from my region of the country so it was nice to honor a great local writer. I may be translating the more modern works Wishsong and I enjoy, though he's the bigger poetry fan and will probably have more requests down the line.
by Park Yong-Rae*
On sleepless nights the snow shall drift on the garlic patch at home.
On sleepless nights the moonbeams drift under the eaves of home.
Cross the water, bare of feet, to that distant village
The wind shall fall to slumber in the corner yard at home.
* 1925-1980, poet and high school teacher. Recipient of the 1980 Korean Literature Achievement Award. He mainly wrote about the nature and scenery of the countryside where he lived.
겨울밤
박용래
잠 이루지 못하는 밤 고향집 마늘밭에 눈은 쌓이리.
잠 이루지 못하는 밤 고향집 추녀 밑 달빛은 쌓이리.
발목을 벗고 물을 건너는 먼 마을
고향집 마당귀 바람은 잠을 자리.
This is one of my fiance Wishsong's favorite poems, translated at his request. It's short and simple, which I have learned does not mean easier to translate. The bit where the poet compared moonlight to snow gave me particular trouble. Maybe I can show the divergence by contrasting a more literal translation, with the ambiguities inherent in the text:
On (this) sleepless night(s) the snow should/would/will/may gather on the garlic patch back home.
On (this) sleepless night(s) the moonlight should/would/will/may gather under the eaves back home.
The distant village where (one) crosses the water with bare ankles
The corner-of-the-yard wind back home should/would/will/may sleep.
The image of moonlight gathering under the eaves like snow is a lovely one, but the best I could do while creating a meter more appropriate for English verse was to use the same verb ("drift") as the snow in the previous line.
The Korean language also allows ambiguities English does not, such as singular/plural and easy omission of the subject from sentences. I chose among the ambiguities as best I could, and recast the third line as either a command or a declarative sentence with the subject dropped.
I also rearranged the words in the fourth line to preserve the rhyming scheme of the first, second, and fourth lines. The rhyming in the original wasn't from repeating the word "home" but rather from the grammatical construct I rendered as should/would/will/may. I hope the repeated invocation of "home" is a serviceable substitute and heightens the feeling of homesickness. And you can see the other liberties I took with that last line.
This poem, published in 1975, is the most recent work I have translated and it's nice to work in a more modern sensibility (though something like, say, The Silence of My Beloved still stands up amazingly well). The poet is also from my region of the country so it was nice to honor a great local writer. I may be translating the more modern works Wishsong and I enjoy, though he's the bigger poetry fan and will probably have more requests down the line.