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Can Chinese regulated verse be translated?
In a strict sense, a regulated verse cannot be translated without losing some poetic elements. For one thing, there is no way to translate the sounds and musicality that have become an integral part in Chinese regulated poetry. It is true that such things as ideas, imageries, and feelings can usually be translated from one language to another; it is, however, impossible to translate the sounds and tones that help to heighten the effect of one’s emotion and imagination.
Some Chinese words, through cultural conditioning, have acquired the ability to elicit certain emotional responses beyond their surface meanings. Unfortunately, when a regulated verse is translated into a different language, the emotional response aroused by cultural connotations of the original words could be lost along with their sound and musical effects.
The following poem 楓橋夜泊 (Mooring by Maple Bridge at Night) by Zhang Ji illustrates the difficulty of translating any poem from one language to another. Because of the differences in their cultural and language backgrounds, a Chinese native who reads the original poem and an American who reads the English version would most certainly react differently to the imageries and implied meanings in terms of emotional arousal and association.
月落烏啼霜滿天 江楓漁火對愁眠 姑蘇城外寒山寺 夜半鐘聲到客船
While classical Chinese poetry was considered to be the speech of the heart, regulated poetry provided the sound, rhythm, and musical element that made such “speech” more effective. For this reason, a regulated verse was not just written for reading, it was written for chanting as well. Thus, when we read a translated regulated verse, we should remember that a regulated verse was essentially written more for the ears than for the eyes.
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