What a lovely ritual that must have been for the poet to observe.
I hold with an observer, not with a participant observing. I’m with you on that.
As one who has spent much time around horses (almost fluent in Horse), I stumbled on the “snickers“ of the mounts.
The word, “snickers” (imho) injects an element of disdain into the poem where I don’t think there should be any disdain. And who would be disdainful of this ancient ritual. Not the horses, unless they were just disdainful of watching pretty girls instead of charging into battle, and certainly not the men, and most certainly not the girls.
* Must ask horse.
Horses, whinny and they neigh, they nicker and they chortle and they snort. They squeal. But most of their communication is nonverbal.
I was just wondering, as a translator, what were your choices based on the Chinese characters you were referencing from the Li Bai original.
Did you mean to inject an element of disdain into this pristine scene?
Huh, thank you. I seem to have got the wrong word there. It seems like the word I was going for was "nicker".
The Chinese term is very general - all horse sounds can be described with this word 嘶, including very loud neighs or whinnies. But whinny seemed a little too loud here. I was imagining just impatient snorts or grunts.
What a lovely ritual that must have been for the poet to observe.
I hold with an observer, not with a participant observing. I’m with you on that.
As one who has spent much time around horses (almost fluent in Horse), I stumbled on the “snickers“ of the mounts.
The word, “snickers” (imho) injects an element of disdain into the poem where I don’t think there should be any disdain. And who would be disdainful of this ancient ritual. Not the horses, unless they were just disdainful of watching pretty girls instead of charging into battle, and certainly not the men, and most certainly not the girls.
* Must ask horse.
Horses, whinny and they neigh, they nicker and they chortle and they snort. They squeal. But most of their communication is nonverbal.
I was just wondering, as a translator, what were your choices based on the Chinese characters you were referencing from the Li Bai original.
Did you mean to inject an element of disdain into this pristine scene?
Huh, thank you. I seem to have got the wrong word there. It seems like the word I was going for was "nicker".
The Chinese term is very general - all horse sounds can be described with this word 嘶, including very loud neighs or whinnies. But whinny seemed a little too loud here. I was imagining just impatient snorts or grunts.
That’s exactly what I thought. That nickering is music to some ears.
Still, I bet those high-class thoroughbreds in the Kentucky Derby et. al, snicker whenever a farm horse walks by.