□ Guo Canjin
泰戈尔说：Let life be beautiful like summer flowers And Death like autumn leaves.
Zheng Zhenduo translation: Make life like the splendor of summer flowers, and die like the quiet beauty of autumn leaves.
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I specifically looked at mr. Zheng Zhenduo's translation of "The Collection of Birds" and confirmed that "life is as brilliant as a summer flower, and death is like the quiet beauty of autumn leaves" is indeed translated by Mr. Zheng Zhenduo. This translation is regarded as a model of Sindaya.
I even think that Zheng Zhenduo's translation is, to some extent, more meaningful than Tagore's original. Because, if it is hard to translate according to the original text, beautiful is difficult to correspond to the colorful imagery and level of "gorgeous" and "quiet beauty" in Chinese in any case. However, it should be noted that the artistic conception of "summer flower" does not seem to be directly related to "brilliant" in ancient poetry. For example, Liu Yuxi once had the sentence "Ancient Shore Summer Flower Hair, Remote Forest Late Cicada Qing", which contrasts "Ancient Shore Summer Flower" and "Remote Forest Evening Cicada", which seems to emphasize the Zen meaning of "Ancient Shore Summer Flower", which seems to have nothing to do with splendor. Sometimes, summer flowers are directly associated with lotus flowers, for example, in the "Miscellaneous Poems of the South Garden", Sima Guang said: "It is better to have a good summer flower, but it is still autumn and real." "The summer flowers here are talking about lotus flowers. In ancient poetry, the lotus flower seems to be associated with "out of the mud without staining", and it is not closely related to "brilliant". Tasting the connotation of Sima Guang's poems does not seem to lie in the beauty of appreciating the lotus flowers, but in affirming the magic of autumn fruits.
The Ming dynasty Cai Runan said in the "History of the Retreat garden pavilion and wei thorns": "The spring grass steps rest, and the summer flowers are sparse at the bottom of the tree." "There seems to be more emphasis on the loneliness of summer flowers.
Therefore, from a certain linguistic tradition, it is difficult for us to directly associate "summer flowers" and "flowers". Mr. Zheng Zhenduo translated Tagore's poem Let life be beautiful like summer flowers as "making life as brilliant as a summer flower", which is beautiful, but it may not coincide with the inherent mood of "summer flower" in ancient poetry.
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So, is Mr. Zheng Zhenduo's translation in line with Tagore's original intention? This may be worth exploring.
From the general understanding or from the common sense, spring flowers bloom in the first order, seducing the soul, summer flowers no matter how gorgeous, it is difficult to catch up with the spring flowers. "The sunrise river flowers are red and better than the fire, and the spring river water is as green as blue", how gorgeous and unrestrained are the spring river flowers? Whether in a biological sense or in the reader's psychology, summer flowers are not in the same heavyweight as spring flowers as a whole.
Therefore, the original meaning of Tagore's verses is not necessarily to say summer flowers in the meaning of splendor. If the emphasis is on splendor, why didn't Tagore say let life be beautiful like spring flowers?
To this end, I consulted my colleague Roshan, a foreign teacher from India. His explanation was: As far as I know, in most parts of India, flowers usually bloom in the summer. So, he probably wrote this poem in an Indian context.
Roshan's reply opened up one of my questions about why Tagore would talk about summer flowers instead of spring flowers. Considering what Roshan called the background of the seasons in India, combined with the reality of China, perhaps translated as "making life bloom like a spring flower" is more in line with Tagore's original meaning, although the seasons in the original poem were changed.
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However, can we conclude from this that Zheng Zhenduo's translation is inferior to the original poem? Not necessarily.
Because of the time difference between the blossoming seasons in China and India, the translation of the phrase "born like a summer flower" has produced a different charm in the collision of cultures.
I think that the artistic conception of "born like a summer flower" may not be entirely in its splendor, but also in its urgency.
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In China, "spring blossoms fourteen five six", spring is the season when most flowers bloom, therefore, flowers belong to spring, flowers that bloom in spring, can be called the right time, since it is just in time, then, spring flowers can be relaxed, stretched and brilliant.
"When is the spring flower and autumn moon", the spring flower and autumn moon, represents an order. Born like a spring flower, representing the splendid season of life, is a natural flowering period, so the spring flower can be opened calmly, after all, it is the season, after all, it is open in its own season, therefore, it will not and does not have to have too strong a sense of urgency.
However, "the blossoming of the flowers" means the arrival of summer, which means that the flowers have passed the season of blooming, so the "flower affair" is over.
No one stipulates that flowers cannot bloom in the summer, but summer is after all the season after "the flowers fade red and apricots are small", even if there are flowers, it also gives people a sense of lateness, since it is late, the summer flowers are likely to cherish the opportunity of this wrong peak, it is possible to pay more attention to the quality of their own blooming, and therefore they will bloom more. But after all, it is not the right time, summer flowers are difficult to compare with spring flowers, but they can be compared with spring flowers.
Therefore, being born like a summer flower is a terrible warning of life, this is the last chance to bloom, if you do not cherish it, autumn will arrive. Therefore, Zheng Zhenduo's translation, carefully tasted, has such a strange beauty.
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And the real autumn has arrived, the leaves are yellow, this is the natural law of the reincarnation of the Heavenly Dao, and we must conform to it.
There is no doubt that such a death is conforming, is calm, is not urgent, and since it has been so urgently completed to open in the summer, "morning and evening death can be done", we may as well be like the yellow leaves of autumn, calmly facing the west wind of life. There is no need to "prefer to die with incense on the branches", just follow the heavenly path.
Therefore, we should read more about life under zheng Zhenduo's beautiful translation. "Born like a summer flower" is not to let us pursue splendor, but to let us cherish the last possibility of life; "death like autumn leaves", the emphasis is not necessarily "quiet beauty", but may be more in let us learn to adapt.
The different stages present their own beauty, brilliant, quiet beauty, natural "beautiful", natural beauty, natural beauty, but in Tagore, beautiful may contain more meanings, we should not be omitted because of the timeless translation.