If you were a Buddha bead by Pan Zhiyuan

[Lake]

If you were a Buddha bead

Early autumn, a dewdrop
hangs on the nape of a grass blade
and disappears at the touch of
the sunlight’s finger

Oh, little dewdrop
if you were a Buddha bead
what wish should I make
before I pray to you


倘若你也是一颗佛珠
潘志远

一粒初秋的露水
挂在小草的脖颈
阳光的手指
一拈，便没了踪影

挂在小草脖颈上的露水啊
倘若你也是一颗佛珠
念你之前
我该许下怎样的祈愿

[twoleftfeet]

Hi, Lake

Lovely poem.

A couple of points:

I think "grass blade" would be better than "grass".

Also "disappears at the touch.." rather than "disappears with a touch..".

Best wishes
Geoff

[Lake]

Hello Geoff,

Thank you very much for your time to read and make suggestions to this translation.

Your two points are the places I was not sure about. Now you made it clear to me, I'll go and correct it right away.

Hope everything is fine with you.

Best regards,

Lake

PS: Pardon me, once in a while I misspelled your name as Jeff.

[benjamin]

I liked this poem in English a lot, though I can't read the original.

[David]

I agree. It is a lovely poem. There seems to be a measure of serenity that I just can't aspire to.

Cheers

David

[Shi Tong]

一粒初秋的露水
挂在小草的脖颈
阳光的手指
一拈，便没了踪影

挂在小草脖颈上的露水啊
倘若你也是一颗佛珠
念你之前
我该许下怎样的祈愿

This poem is absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for it Lake. This is my effort to translate it, hope you enjoy:

O single dew drop at first sight of autumn,
suspended upon the nape of fine grass,
with one nip of sunshines finger,
you vanish without a trace.

O little drop, suspended upon the nape of fine grass,
provided that you are also a Buddah's pearl,
before I pray to you,
what should I wish for?

I just love some of the words in Chinese- like: 挂, and 拈.. I'm really looking forward to reading more of these Chinese poems too.. I usually find them impossible to find, and here I am stumbling on all this nice work! Thanks Lake!!!

[Lake]

Thank you benjamin and David. Glad to know you both like it.

Hi Shi Tong,

I am so excited to see someone who knows both Chinese and English chime in here. Your translation is very good, in some places more acurate than mine. I enjoy reading your translation and love how you translate 挂, and 拈 which I failed to find an exact word, especially for 拈. The only one word I'm not sure of is "pearl", usually we say " prayer beads" instead. If you like Chinese poems, I'll try to feed you more and hope you can help me with my translaton. Your Chinese is pretty good, I can understand the reply you wrote in Chinese in the other thread. Good luck with your Chinese study.

Thanks much!

Lake

[twoleftfeet]

Lake (and Shi Tong)

I now have a Chinese dictionary, so in your future offerings can you post the pin-yin in addition to the ideograms?

Thanks
Geoff

PS Lake - it's good to see that you now have a partner-in-crime!

[Lake]

Lake (and Shi Tong)

I now have a Chinese dictionary, so in your future offerings can you post the pin-yin in addition to the ideograms?

Thanks
Geoff

PS Lake - it's good to see that you now have a partner-in-crime!

Hi Geoff,

Wow, you have a Chinese dictionary now! If pin-yin helps, I certainly will provide it.
I'm not sure what Shi Tong uses since he writes in the traditional Chinese, while I simplified. He may use zhu-yin symbol. Am I right, Shi Tong?
Now we ride on the troika!

Thank you for your continued support!
Lake

[Shi Tong]

Hello

Thanks very much Lake, glad you liked some of the words I used for the translation. I must say my Chinese is also hugely imperfect- I did a lot of looking in dictionaries. My speaking and listening is a lot more fluent than me writing, but I'm getting better as time passes.

You guessed correctly that I learned my Chinese in Taiwan (or, at least, I did 3 months study there before I taught myself for the following 9 years), and I started learning zhuyin, which I personally really like as a system, but I also know pinyin very well, in fact, I use pinyin to type because I dont have zhuyin characters on my keyboard.

I can understand a lot of simplified characters too, but I prefer traditional and am more used to reading them too.

I can certainly offer a pinyin translation of Chinese poems, though I cant type tone marks over my pinyin!

一粒初秋的露水 yi1 li4 chu1 qiu1 de5 lu4 shui3
挂在小草的脖颈 gua4 zai4 xiao3(2) cao3 de5 bo2 jing4
阳光的手指 yang2 guang1 de5 shou3(2) zhi3
一拈，便没了踪影 yi1 nian1, bian4 mei2 le5 zong1ying3

挂在小草脖颈上的露水啊 gua4 zai4 xiao3 cao3 bo2 jing3 shang4 de5 lu4 shui3 a5
倘若你也是一颗佛珠 tang3 ruo4 ni3(2) ye3 shi4 yi1 ke1 fo2 zhu1
念你之前 nian4 ni3 zhi1 qian2
我该许下怎样的祈愿 wo3 gai1 xu3 xia4 zen3 yang4 de qi2 yuan4

Lake, I bow to your superior authority on "pearl" and "bead" too.. haha! I'm sure you're right

By the way, one of the things I actually like the most about this poem is the use of 啊 there.. it's really as if he's speaking to the dew on the grass, as if it's his friend. There are so many amazing little nuances to these poems that it's so hard to translate.. but it's so beautiful in it's own language.. Thanks so much for these and I will really look forward to the next ones!

[Lake]

Thanks Shi Tong. It's admirable that you know both pin-yin and zhu-yin.
Here is a link that might be helpful for the tones.

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin-editor.html

Lake