Thanks, Mei. I'm a little bit anti pinyin for Tang poems, because of course they weren't written in modern Chinese, and would have sounded quite different in the Middle Chinese that people spoke back then. If you'd like to hear this poem read in modern Chinese, there are lots of versions on YouTube. This one has a nice slow pace, that matches the feel of the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7uieau3Bfs
But this is definitely a song, and if you can find a tune to sing it to yourself, I think that would be much more true to the source - even if you're singing in English! Wang Wei wrote it to sound like someone singing to himself as he floated down the river, so it should have a regular lilt to it, in the tradition of a boatman singing as he rows or punts (even though I doubt Wang was punting as he wrote it).
I can't find a Tang-dynasty pronunciation version of this online, but I will for my next one.
If only we knew what Tang music sounded like! We can get an idea from its descendants, but it's all very blurry. And music was important. A *lot* of poems talk about music, or are named for the tune that they're sung to, or are clearly meant to be songs. Historians know that there was an influx of Central Asian influences at this time, with a lot of new music, and it must have been part of the cultural explosion that produced Tang poetry. It's suggestive to me that the 5-syllable and 7-syllable lines that dominate Tang poetry are both common time, 4-beat forms (two bars per line, in each case). But exactly how it sounded, how much it swung... that must have varied hugely from place to place and artist to artist. We can only speculate.
Thank you for bringing to life this wonderful poetry in your beautiful translations. Would it be possible to add Pin Yin for the "sound" of it, too?
Kindest regards
Mei
Thanks, Mei. I'm a little bit anti pinyin for Tang poems, because of course they weren't written in modern Chinese, and would have sounded quite different in the Middle Chinese that people spoke back then. If you'd like to hear this poem read in modern Chinese, there are lots of versions on YouTube. This one has a nice slow pace, that matches the feel of the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7uieau3Bfs
But this is definitely a song, and if you can find a tune to sing it to yourself, I think that would be much more true to the source - even if you're singing in English! Wang Wei wrote it to sound like someone singing to himself as he floated down the river, so it should have a regular lilt to it, in the tradition of a boatman singing as he rows or punts (even though I doubt Wang was punting as he wrote it).
I can't find a Tang-dynasty pronunciation version of this online, but I will for my next one.
In the meantime, for any Chinese text, you can always put a pinyin plugin on your browser, like this one for Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/pinyin-reader/hledmlpbeiablkglomlminfemnepgjlp
I like the idea of swing -- but intensely individual/personal. You might find the discussion here interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uGDYs__ZP8
If only we knew what Tang music sounded like! We can get an idea from its descendants, but it's all very blurry. And music was important. A *lot* of poems talk about music, or are named for the tune that they're sung to, or are clearly meant to be songs. Historians know that there was an influx of Central Asian influences at this time, with a lot of new music, and it must have been part of the cultural explosion that produced Tang poetry. It's suggestive to me that the 5-syllable and 7-syllable lines that dominate Tang poetry are both common time, 4-beat forms (two bars per line, in each case). But exactly how it sounded, how much it swung... that must have varied hugely from place to place and artist to artist. We can only speculate.