HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1912
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
_PREFACE_
_The initiative of this little book was accidental. One day in the early
part of last summer, feeling weary of translating commercial documents,
I opened a volume of Chinese poetry that was lying on my desk and
listlessly turned over the pages. As I was doing so my eye caught sight
of the phrase, 'Red rain of peach flowers fell.' That would be
refreshing, I said to myself, on such a day as this; and then I went on
with my work again. But in the evening I returned to the book of Chinese
poetry and made a free translation of the poem in which I had seen the
metaphor quoted above. The translation seemed to me and some friends
pleasantly readable; so in leisure hours I have translated some more
poems and ballads, and these I now venture to publish in this volume,
thinking that they may interest readers in other lands, and also call
forth criticism that will be useful in preparing a larger volume which
I, or some better qualified scholar, may publish hereafter; for it
can hardly be said that the field of Chinese poetry has been widely
explored by foreign students of the Chinese language._
_Many of the translations in this book are nearly literal, excepting
adaptations to meet the exigencies of rhyme and rhythm; but some are
expanded to enable readers to understand what is implied, as well as
actually written, in the original; for, after all, the chief aim of the
translator of poetry should be to create around the mind of the reader
the sensory atmosphere in which the mind of the poet moved when he wrote
the poem. Whether I have attained a measure of success in such a very
difficult task must be decided by the readers of these translations._
_It should be borne in mind by students more or less familiar with the
Chinese language that there are many versions of the stories and legends
related in these poems, and these versions, again, have been variously
interpreted by Chinese poets. A little reflection of this kind will
often save a critic from stumbling into difficulties from which it is
not easy to extricate himself._
_A few notes are given at the end of each poem to explain historical
names, &c., but not many other notes are required as the poems explain
themselves. Indeed, the truth of the saying, 'One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin,' has been impressed on my mind deeply by this
little excursion into the field of Chinese poetry, for the thoughts and
words of such poems as the 'Journey Back,' 'A Maiden's Reverie,' 'Only a
Fragrant Spray,' 'The Lady Lo-Fu, 'Conscripts leaving for the Frontier,'
'The River by Night in Spring,' 'Reflections on the Brevity of Life,'
'The Innkeeper's Wife,' 'A Soldier's Farewell to his Wife,' &c., show us
that human nature two or three thousand years ago differed not a whit
from human nature as it is to-day._
_CHARLES BUDD._
_Tung Wen Kwan Translation Office,_
_Shanghai, March, 1912._