South-Folk in Cold Country
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he Dai horse neighs against the bleak wind of Etsu,The birds of Etsu have no love for En, in the north,Emotion is born out of habit.Yesterday we went out of the Wild-Goose gate,To-day from the Dragon-Pen.[1]Surprised. Desert turmoil. Sea sun.Flying snow bewilders the barbarian heaven.Lice swarm like ants over our accoutrements.Mind and spirit drive on the feathery banners.Hard fight gets no reward.Loyalty is hard to explain.Who will be sorry for General Rishogu,the swift moving,Whose white head is lost for this province? [1] I.e., we have been warring from one end of the empire tothe other, now east, now west, on each border. * * * * * I have not come to the end of Ernest Fenollosa's notes by along way, nor is it entirely perplexity that causes me tocease from translation. True, I can find little to add toone line out of a certain poem : "You know well where it was that I walkedWhen you had left me." In another I find a perfect speech in a literality whichwill be to many most unacceptable. The couplet is as follows: "Drawing sword, cut into water, water again flow:Raise cup, quench sorrow, sorrow again sorry." There are also other poems, notably the "Five colourScreen," in which Professor Fenollosa was, as an art critic,especially interested, and Rihaku's sort of Ars Poetica,which might be given with diffidence to an audience of goodwill. But if I give them, with the necessary breaks forexplanation, and a tedium of notes, it is quite certain thatthe personal hatred in which I am held by many, and the_invidia_ which is directed against me because I have daredopenly to declare my belief in certain young artists, willbe brought to bear first on the flaws of such translation,and will then be merged into depreciation of the whole bookof translations. Therefore I give only these unquestionablepoems.
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