Staying Overnight in the Hsu Family Library with my Friend and we are Badly Bothered by the Noise of Rats
(From the Chinese of Mei Yao-che’n, 1002-1060AD)
The lamp-wick blue, the people fast asleep.
Now hungry rats can sneak out from their holes.
A racket – it’s the crash of plates and bowls!
We’re startled by the noise, and all dreams cease.
Oh, fret! – they’ve knocked the inkstand from the desk?
They’re on the shelves, and gnawing books? We’re vexed!
Then that foolish boy starts with his: ‘Miaow’! in mimic of a cat…
A notion really stupid from the start, was that.
(From: ‘Beneath the Silver River’: Translations of Classical Chinese Poetry’)
Note: My translations from Classical Chinese are done on a strict character-by-character basis to convey the meaning / sense of each individual character. They are not free interpretations. With this homely and humorous piece by Mei Yao-che’n, however, allowing a translator’s latitude, I confess to having slightly tweaked the characters which express ‘fretfulness’ / ‘vexation’, rendering them – from a more correct ‘I fret’, and giving a trifle more nuance to being ‘vexed’ – to give an impression of some of the colourful English expressions of the present day. (In Chinese poetry, too, it happens that the character is operational and derived attachments only signaled; e.g., there are few pronouns ever in use). Whatever, your indulgence in a minor literary infelicity of the imagination is here requested.
The above is yet another example of the thoroughly down-to-earth poetry being penned in China over a thousand years ago.
© 2024 Dafydd Hughes Lewis. All rights reserved. 
You may have been vexed,/
And amused by “miaow!”/
But the rats were perplexed/
And wondered “How now?!”
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Hahha! Thanks, Bill. Nice end-rhymed quatrain, there, in the style of the larger part of later Classical Chinese verse! Much appreciated.
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Hello Dafydd, Thanks for this. It’s timely. A reminder I promised the family I’d learn to recite Mulan in the original Chinese (I’ve probably mentioned my son-in-law’s parents were born there.) Hwyl, Eric (Haven’t learned any of the language yet except hong long is red dragon.)
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Thanks, Eric/Red Dragon! I always follow your family connections with China ( and what a story that is about your grandmother’s the Boxer sword!). Hwyl!
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This is hilarious. I love it!
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Thanks, Jen! Have a glut of longer items which I’ll have to get to sometime (soon, I hope, but I despair of approaching the complications involved in the dratted notes), so I’m burrowing for shorter things these days – and it occurred to me that I hadn’t posted a Chinese translation for quite a while.
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What terrific imagery your poem provoked. I loved it!
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Thank you, Viv! Happy that it raised smile! I’ve been wondering for a while how to work this one in, as with the Chinese translations I like to post several poems on a theme, but this time thought ‘What the fret!’ and went ahead. 🙂
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