Chapter 4: Three Shi
4.2 Shi Number One
In chapter 22, after Xuanzang takes Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie to be his
disciples, they soon come to the shore of the River of Quicksands 流沙河 where the third disciple, a man-eating river monster, awaits their arrival. It is said that the river not only looks like a vast ocean but nothing, even an object as light as a feather, can stay afloat in the water. A shi is provided in portrayal of the predicament that
Xuanzang and his disciples are faced with in crossing this river before they are able to continue on their journey:
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八百流沙界，三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，蘆花定底沉。
《西遊記》第二十二回頁一
It is explained before the shi that the River of Quicksands is approximately 800 li 里 wide and 3,000 li deep. Whereas every culture has its own various length
measurements, the word li is a cultural specific term that has been used by the Chinese for thousands of years. The precise length of the unit li changed from one dynasty to another, but in general, one li is usually considered to roughly equal to what is 500 meters nowadays. Though, in a modern sense, the River of Quicksands itself is not necessarily 400 kilometers in width and 1,500 kilometers in depth, the phrases 八百 and 三千 simply describe the situation that the river is extremely wide and deep.
Chart 20
Shi Number 1: Timothy Richard’s Translation
八百流沙界，
三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，
蘆花定底沉。
Quicksands 800 li wide, Weak water 3,000 li deep It cannot float a feather,
And a floating reed would sink.
(Richard, p.119)
Timothy Richard’s foreignization strategy of “800 li” and “3,000 li” in the shi reminds the readers that they are reading a translation, and placing numbers directly in a shi is quite strange. Since the word “li” is not a common phrase to English
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readers at all, it may require a note. Though the translation reads well, it is neither impressive nor successful, and it contains a few possible problems. Firstly, if the water does not have enough buoyancy to float any object, then such an object as a
“floating reed” seems illogical. The words “float” and “sink” are so contradictory that the phrase “a floating reed would sink” becomes somewhat of an oxymoronic
statement. In addition, it is odd that the tenses of “cannot” and “would” do not agree, the past tense “would” casts doubt on the certainty of something sinking in the river, which deflects from the source text 定, meaning “definitely.”
Chart 21
Poem 1: Arthur Waley’s translation
八百流沙界，
三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，
蘆花定底沉。
In the Floating Sands, eight hundred wide, In the Dead Waters, three thousand deep, A goose-feather will not keep afloat, A rush-flower sinks straight to the bottom.
(Waley, p.159)
Waley translated 流沙 and 弱水 into the proper names of “the Floating Sands”
and “the Dead Waters” respectively. The phrase “Dead Waters” works better than Richard’s “weak water” not only because weak water sounds strange but also because the phrase “dead waters” creates a spooky feeling, which matches the atmosphere around the River of Quicksands. However, “Floating Sands” contains the similar logical error as Richard’s “floating reed” as explained earlier. Waley’s
implementation of the word “straight” in the last line is a nice take on the word 定
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though it is not precise.
Unlike Richard, Waley chose to leave out the length measurement of li. Though it is tempting to state that without any length measurement, the grandeur of the River of Quicksands is lost in Waley’s translation. But in fact, though Richard’s translation does include the measurement of li, “800 li wide and 3,000 li deep” does not make much sense to an English reader unless a note is provided or a reader has some background trivial knowledge about the concept of li. With that in mind, Waley’s decision to leave out the length measurement may not have so much of a negative effect on a reader’s understanding after all.
Chart 22
Shi Number 1: Anthony C. Yu’s Translation
八百流沙界，
三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，
蘆花定底沉。
These Flowing-Sand metes, eight hundred wide;
These Weak Waters, three thousand deep.
A goose feather cannot stay afloat;
A rush petal will sink to the bottom.
(Yu, vol.1 p.430)
The word “mete” has an archaic meaning of measuring out when used as a verb.
It is not a common word though it can be found appearing a few times in the King James Bible,
“ For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” (Matthew, 7:2) Yu’s strategy to
add the word “mete” into the first verse is quite successful as it gives this shi an
archaic ambience in a way similar to the scriptures in the Bible.
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Yu’s choice of words for his translation of the shi is somewhat identical to Waley’s. Waley translated 蘆花 into “rush-flower,” and Yu decided to keep it in his translation with a slight alteration to “rush petal.” The strategy seems to be laziness on Yu’s part, since there is no such a thing as a rush-flower, a rush petal does not exist either. This is quite astonishing as both Waley and Yu are sure to understand
that 蘆花 are reeds that commonly overgrow the banks of a river so can sometimes be seen flowing down a river.
Chart 23
Shi Number 1: W.J.F. Jenner’s Translation
八百流沙界，
三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，
蘆花定底沉。
Three hundred miles of flowing sands, Three thousand fathoms of weak water, On which a goose feather will not float, And the flow of a reed will sink.
(Jenner, vol.2 p.731)
In Jenner’s translation, the numbers of 八百 and 三千 are converted into “three hundred miles” and “three thousand fathoms” respectively. Even though the
conversions are inaccurate—three hundred miles roughly equals 500 kilometers and three thousand fathoms is only a bit more than 5 kilometers—starting the first two lines with “three hundred” and “three thousand” does provide the poem with a sense of unity. In the third line, the phrase “on which,” referring to the flowing sands and weak water, makes a clear connection between the first two and the last two sentences of the shi. Jenner and Richard are the only ones that translated 蘆花
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correctly into “reed.” Though what exactly cannot stay afloat and sinks right to the bottom of the River of Quicksands is trivial, it is a translator’s job to avoid making obvious mistranslation, especially when it comes to a simple noun phrase like a reed.
On a side note, “flowing sands” is a direct translation of 流沙 and it brings the image of a wind-blown sand dune rather than the flowing of a river. And the main weakness in Jenner’s translation is in the final sentence, since the word “flow” is a repetition of the “flowing sands,” and the actual meaning of “the flow of a reed will sink” becomes confusing, does it mean that the reed will sink into the sand?
Chart 24
Shi Number 1: David Kherdian’s Adaptation
八百流沙界，
三千弱水深。
鵝毛飄不起，
蘆花定底沉。
On these Floating Sands, eight hundred wide Weak waters flow, three thousand deep.
On its surface not a goose feather floats While rush petals quickly sink to the deep.
(Kherdian, p.134)
David Kherdian, a poet himself, produced a shi that reads smoothly, with the implementation of rhymes of “deep” and “deep.” There may be a different choice of word to avoid using “deep” twice in this shi, it works nonetheless, and it is the only version of the five poems that rhymes. With thorough comparison, it becomes obvious that Kherdian based his rendition of the poem more on Yu’s translation than on Jenner’s. However, Kherdian changes Yu’s “flowing sand” into “floating sands” and with weak water flowing on top, he manages to turn the River of Quicksands into a
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floating river, which strays far from the source text. This is another proof that since Kherdian does not read in Chinese, he bases his adaptation not on the source text but on previous translations as well as his own interpretation or sometimes misinterpretation of these translations, and periodically, errors occur.
Considering that a detailed description of the River of Quicksands is provided before and after this shi, the author of this research holds the opinion that the translation of the verses should be kept as concise as possible. The translators opted for different strategies in translating the cultural specific term 里. Richard used pinyin
“li” in his translation of the poem, Jenner used the modern British measurement of
“miles” and the nautical measure of “fathoms,” while the other translators decided to leave the unit out altogether. This leads to an interesting topic of translating culture specific terms.
Cultural specific terms, such as the length measurement of 里, present special challenge to all translators alike, and they can be found in abundance throughout the story of Xiyouji. In chapter 12, when Kuanyin 觀音菩薩 and her disciple Hui’an 慧岸 first arrive in the Tang Capital of Chang’an in search of a scripture seeker, she offers for sale the cassock and the staff that the Buddha himself presented to her. Although still in much debate, the value of 一兩銀子 at the time of Tang Taizong’s Zhenguan 貞 觀 Era, one of the most economically prosperous golden ages in Chinese history, had
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potent purchasing power and is calculated to equal to approximately what equals to US$600 nowadays. There is little wonder that when Kuanyin demands 五千兩 for the cassock which is worth around US$3 million now, and 兩千兩 for the staff which is about US$1.2 million now, the prices are considered insanely outrageous.
Chart 25
菩薩道:「袈裟五千兩，
錫杖要兩千兩。」
《西遊記第十二回頁十三》
For the embroidered cassock they asked 5,000 taels, and for the nine ringed pastoral staff 2,000 taels. (Richard, p.104)
‘Five thousand pounds for the cassock and two thousand for the staff,’ said Kuan-yin. (Waley, p.114)
“I want five thousand taels for the cassock,” said the Bodhisattva, “and two thousand for the staff.”
(Yu, p.269)
“I want five thousand ounces of silver for the cassock and two thousand for the staff,” said the Bodhisattva. (Jenner, p.405)
“Twelve thousand gold coins for the cassock,” said the Bodhisattva, “and five thousand gold coins for the staff.” (Kherdian, p.96)
The English word “tael” comes from the Malay word “tahil,” meaning “weight.”
Since it is frequently used to refer to the Chinese system of weights and currency, Richard’s and Yu’s strategies in translating 五千兩 and 兩千兩 into five thousand taels and two thousand taels respectively can be said to be quite safe. However, the word
“tael” is such an uncommon word to English readers that the feeling of the high prices of the staff and cassock may be lost in both Richard’s and Yu’s translations. It is
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worth mentioning that Richard’s strategy is to turn the dialogue into narration, which is quite typical of his translation—few conversations are preserved throughout his version of the story.
Waley and Jenner, on the other hand, opted to translate 兩 into “pound” and
“ounce of silver”, respectively. The word “pound” not only adds a sense of British modernity to Waley’s translation but it also provides the readers a specific referential value of the items to be sold. And the same applies to Jenner’s translation of 5,000 thousand ounces of silver, because 5,000 pounds as well as 5,000 ounces of silver can easily be converted into US dollars or other currencies nowadays. However, neither “pounds” nor “ounces of silver” succeed in conveying the wow factor of the high prices.
In Kherdian’s adaptation,五千兩 turns into “twelve thousand gold coins” and 兩 千兩 turns into “five thousand gold coins.” His strategy is distinct with the
combination of boosted numbers and gold coins that appear to be strange and inaccurate at first sight but actually transcribe perfectly the idea of the outrageously high prices Kuanyin stipulated for her cassock and staff. In terms of conveying the idea of overpricing, Kherdian’s strategy of using gold coins is the most successful one of the lot.
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