Author: SUN Hongwei (Associate Professor, School of Foreign Chinese, Nanjing University)
A dish, a taste experience, always leads to a deep emotional experience, to a vast web of cultures, especially those dishes that are unique in taste and unique to a certain region – Artemisia annua belongs to this category. In the past, it was a delicious, authentic seasonal dish that could only be obtained on a spring day. Mr. Dongpo's poem "Three or two branches of peach blossoms outside the bamboo, the prophet of the spring river water heating duck." Artemisia is full of short reed buds, just when puffer fish crave", referring to the season to eat artemisia. Chinese said "do not eat from time to time", for which Mr. Lu Wenfu once wrote: "Food must be in season, this is the rule, just as the so-called 'drunken crab does not look at the lamp, the wind chicken does not look at the lamp, the knife fish does not look at the Qingming, and the sturgeon does not but the dragon noon'." "After the season of the artemisia, they have to wait until the autumn harvest to be used as firewood. In the "Book of Poetry, Zhou Nan Hanguang", there is "Wrong salary, words and words", which is about cutting the pole of Artemisia.
Profile picture of Degas's Absinthe work
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Su Dongpo
Although not uncommon in China, it is not a plant such as tea, cotton, and sugar cane – these plants are valuable commodities that once dominated world trade, influenced the development of East and West, and deeply participated in the shaping of the modern world. Artemisia does not have such an international character, and it has only spread to all parts of the country in recent years with the development of logistics and catering industry. It is still regarded as a wild vegetable, and has been recorded in the "Wild Vegetable Recipe" and "Rescue the Waste", and its shadow cannot be found in many contemporary Western books that introduce China's unique vegetables. As a dish, it is relatively niche and regional, pointing to the spring breeze and rivers and lakes. This also means that when it is translated into other languages as a Chinese plant, it must go through some twists and turns.
Zhao Mengfu's "Little Portrait of Dongpo" profile picture
Mr. Xu Yuanchong's translation of this Dongpo poem has two translations. One is to translate Artemisia in "Artemisia is full of reeds" as "weeds" - presumably to rhyme with reeds. Another translation is: "Bywatersideshortreedsbudsbudandwildflowersteem" (waterside reeds sprout, wildflowers flourish), replacing artemisia with wildflowers. Both translations make a trade-off of the imagery of the original poem, removing the heterogeneous plant "mushroom". In cultural interpretation, once encountering an unfamiliar object that is not in the target culture, the translator has to add notes, but this will block the natural flow of the text and destroy the original rhythm and rhyme. This may be why Mr. Xu wants to dissolve the strangeness of this word when dealing with it. Artemisia is like an alien species in the text and needs to be removed from the text. Interestingly, Mr. Xu adopted a similar strategy when translating the phrase "Wrong salary, wrong salary, wrong words" in Hanguang: "Ofthetreeshereandthere/Iwouldonlycutthefair." (Trees here and there, / I only cut down beautiful trees) - Artemisia disappeared again.
Picasso's Absinthe Drinker (1903) profile picture
Whether it is Dongpo's poem or "Han Guang", Mr. Xu's translated poems are fluent and catchy, and there is no word abrupt in the upper and lower contexts, and if a relatively unfamiliar word is implanted, it may not be so smooth to read. As far as Dongpo poetry is concerned, the composition is far and near, from the peach blossoms outside the bamboo to the artemisia all over the ground, red pink and green, giving people visual enjoyment, and the depiction is meticulous, reproducing a business-rich Song painting. This image is also represented in Mr. Xu's translated poem. However, it is also a poem of taste that strikes a delicate balance between spring scenery and diet. In the "Selected Notes on Song Poems", Qian Chongshu specifically mentioned when commenting on this poem: "In the cooking of the Song Dynasty, artemisia, reed buds and puffer fish were cooked together, so Su Shi thought of puffer fish when he saw artemisia and reed buds. "The "Collection of Su Shi Poems" annotated by Qingren Feng Yingliu quotes a number of texts to explain the cooking of this dish. Thus, there is a big dish behind the poem, hiding the secret of cooking, and if the wilted artemisia is removed, this delicacy will be gone.
In this poem, Dongpo first describes a natural landscape with a wild atmosphere, and at the end of the line, it introduces human fireworks. His brilliance is not only to describe the spring scene, but also to make a poem suddenly fall into the stove when it seems to be far away from the dust and smoke, and it is very well matched. There is both scenery and life here, not only the description of the natural scenery, but also the elements of firewood, rice, oil and salt. More importantly, the dish is also a region-specific product, indicating the change of seasons and phenological changes. In this way, the point omitted from Mr. Xu's translation actually has important information, which is a very meaningful aspect of the food culture of the Song people.
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"Dream of the Red Mansion"
In the sixty-first episode of "Dream of Red Mansions", when Lotus Qi asked the Liu family for egg soup and was rejected, he also mentioned Artemisia, and contributed several cooking methods: "Qian'er Xiaoyan came and said 'Sister Qingwen wants to eat aloe', why are you busy asking about meat stir-frying and chicken stir-frying? Xiaoyan said, 'The meat is not good, so I asked you to stir-fry gluten, and it is better to put less oil'. You were busy saying 'I fainted', rushed to wash your hands and fried, and kissed it like a dog. In the English translation of "Dream of Red Mansions", the translation of Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie uses the "genus name" and "artemisia" (Artemisia) of Artemisia to correspond to Artemisia. However, since the unannotated location is Artemisia wilt, which is unique to China, one can imagine that English readers might wonder if they substituted Artemisia sinsina common in the West for how this plant known for bitterness could cook so many dishes. In fact, in Yang and Dai's translations, "Artemisia" is a general name - for example, the section "Yuanchun Province Kin" mentions a four-character plaque "Ogilu Night Snow", which translates: "Artemisiain Evening Snow" (Artemisia in the night snow), and also considers "Artemisia" and "Ogi" as one thing. The seventy-eighth Baoyu work "Furong's Daughter", there is the phrase "Peng Ai Xiao Xiao", which translates: "Tangledartemisiasighs" (the sigh of the messy artemisia grass), which is also based on "Artemisia" corresponding to the word "Peng Ai".
Picasso's The Absinthe Drinker (1901).
In translating "Artemisia" as "Artemisia", David Hawkes' translation of "Dream of Red Mansions" is consistent with Yang and Dai. The difference is that Hawkes added a certain amount of detail, translating it as "artemisiashoots", which is "young shoots, young stems", and is also used to translate vegetables such as bamboo shoots and garlic, with a more refined effect. Hawkes made a distinction between other artemisia or suspected artemisia-like plants, such as the above-mentioned "Ogilu" translated as "rushes" and "Ponya" translated as "dried-upgrasses". The word "pontoa" in the Chinese is often used to refer to a little-visited wasteland, evoking bleak associations – the so-called "basil household", a tenacious plant that often overgrows courtyards, paths and ditches, but once translated, lacks this inherent cultural connection.
Whether it's basil or mugwort, a plant can be an emotional trigger – both culturally and personally. Artemisia annua's objects are highly regionalized, and the emotional expression is also very local. In an article on phenology in poetry, Mr. Zhu Kezhen wrote: "We can also see from the phenology chanted by the Tang and Song poets that phenology varies from place to place and from time to time. He emphasized the terroir and phenology unique to a certain region, just as "Artemisia Mandi" refers to a specific region. This plant with regional characteristics is also a secret word for a certain exclusive life experience, such as dishes such as "fried gluten with aloe" in "Dream of Red Mansions". For a foreigner, its meaning is closed until careful examination or interpretation emerges. But, at the same time, as an artemisia plant, Artemisia has different "relatives" around the world. Whether used for medicinal, edible, spices, ornamental or other purposes, artemisia plants often appear in people's lives, so they are also described in words and depicted in pictures. In the translation of Artemisia annua, Mr. Xu Yuanchong chose to abandon the translation, Yang, Dai and Hawkes translated it in relatively general genus names, and some translators chose to replace it with native species as equivalents.
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Thomas
For the phrase "Wrong salary, words and words" in the Han Guang, the British sinologist James Legge translated "蒌" as "southernwood". In the Book of Poetry, artemisia plants appear frequently, such as "Xiao", "Su", "Artemisia", etc., and James mostly translates them as "Southernwood". The name is a combination of the words "southern" and "wormwood", "southern absinthe", and the Latin name "Artemisiaabrotanum" belongs to a shrub-like, aromatic absinthe with bitter leaves. It is named because this grass is native to southern Europe and adjacent regions such as North Africa, the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. In terms of habits, this plant is very drought-tolerant, needs sunny, well-drained places, and is suitable for planting in dryland gardens, dry rocky slopes or paths - while Artemisia annua is a water-loving, water-growing plant, which is very different. This European artemisia grass, Chinese often translated as Artemisia annua, is also commonly known in English as "OldMan" and "Lad's-love". The English poet Edward Thomas has a poem entitled "The Old Man", which is based on this artemisia:
"OldMan", or "Lad's-love" - the name is not famous.
For a person who does not know the "love of a brat" or "old man",
This is a gray-green pinnate leafy herb, almost a tree,
Grows with rosemary, lavender.
…………
On the unmistakable pinnate branches and leaves of this plant, two seemingly contradictory names are attached: one old and one young, tensely coexisting, referring to the same thing. Compared with plants with a higher degree of "popularization" such as roses, there is an ulterior motive to use artemisia grass to symbolize nature - to recall the past with a bitter smell:
As for me,
I have forgotten where I first smelled that bitter smell.
I also used to crush its gray leaves.
Sniff, think, smell again,
And then I try to remember what I remember,
Always in vain. I wouldn't like the smell,
But I'd rather give up other, sweeter smells,
They mean nothing compared to this bitterness.
In English gardens, roses are common plants, but they evoke sweet associations - for example, Shakespeare said that "roses are sweet no matter what they are called", expressing love, bright flower language, while artemisia grass is bitter, pointing to memories that cannot be lost. Thomas begins with the smell of artemisia in an attempt to awaken his memory—and since a small, scallop-shaped dessert called "Madeleine" can remind novelists of watery years, the smell of artemisia can have a similar effect. Here, the passage of time seems to pause or even regress in the bitterness of the artemisia grass. However, the past cannot be awakened with the bitterness of artemisia. The poet is immersed in nostalgia for the past, and he can't ask for it, which makes people sad. The poem goes around in circles, and we realize that the poem is really a poem about aging and forgetting, as its title suggests.
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Ovid
Artemisia annua belongs to one of the famous plants in European culture, "vermouth", which is a key ingredient in the absinthe that once made artists addicted. It is not difficult to find it in European 19th-century paintings and poetry, so much so that its name immediately conjures up images of Degas, Manet, Van Gogh and Baudelaire. This green wine fascinates the artists and sees it as a source of inspiration. In fact, the smell of absinthe has been throughout Western history, and its name predates the birth of absinthe. The writing of absinthe in literature dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. The Greek philosopher and poet Lucretius wrote about wormwood several times in his Treatise on the Nature of Matter, emphasizing its suffering in particular but also highlighting its medicinal uses. He mentioned a trick in which doctors smeared honey on the rim of a cup to coax the children into taking the juice of absinthe. More than two thousand years later, this little conspiracy can still make today's parents smile. In Lucretius's poems, absinthe is synonymous with suffering, sometimes representing truths that are difficult to accept. In order for young people to accept bitter truths, poets have to reason in "sweet verses."
The ancient Romans also had a deep understanding of the suffering of absinthe. Wormwood is mentioned several times in Ovid's exile poems. In The Black Sea Book, about the landscape of the Black Sea coast, he lamented: "On the empty plain, the gloomy wormwood is as dense as a thorn, / Only this bitter plant is suitable for this land." "Only gloomy vermouth grows in the desolate fields / land and borrows them to declare its bitterness." The suffering of absinthe characterizes the suffering of exile, and his words are full of desolation and sorrow. The absinthe in the poem is both a description of the natural landscape and a hint at the bitter state of mind of exile. The poet was convicted of poetry and had to eat the bitter fruit of words. At the same time, he also expressed anxiety about whether his words and poems could endure: in the Ovidian era, people wrote on parchment, and wormwood was added to the ink, which could repel insects, embalm, and extend the preservation time. In this sense, absinthe represents the eternal existence of the written word, and its imagery entrusts Ovid's reflections on the annihilation of the flesh and the immortality of the poetic title. In this way, absinthe has multiple meanings. He wrote in the Lamentations: "Even if cold Pontus no longer grows absinthe, / The sweet thyme of Hebrewa ceases to exist, / No one can prove that you have become cold to your friends." "The imagery of absinthe is again associated with the theme of memory. On the one hand, Ovid doubts being snubbed and forgotten by his friends, and on the other hand, he expresses confidence in friendship. Poetry is an immortal monument that resists the passage of time and forgetting. In a poem to his wife, he insisted that his poetry "made a magnificent temple." / Fortune can naturally take away many things from the author, / but you will be immortalized for my talent." It is a belief in the written word, and everything that is enshrined in poetry wins eternal life.
It is not difficult to see that absinthe is obviously different from Artemisia, one bitter and the other luscious, respectively representing very different natural phenomena and cultural experiences. However, translating absinthe can use this plant, which is widely known in the West and entangled with Western literary and artistic traditions, as a reference, and transports the reader to the ancient and strange world of the Book of Poetry. The objects described in the three hundred articles are originally from the living environment, which is both lively and close to the people, regardless of grass, trees, birds and beasts, which are originally commonplace. However, after a thousand years, their names have also changed in China, and they need to be annotated and interpreted. For a plant, the name on the dictionary is just an abstract, empty word, without color, without smell, unable to inspire any emotional experience, unable to make waves in the hearts of readers or listeners, and can only live dimly in ancient texts. When Mr. Lu Xun translated "Little John", he once talked about the difficulty of translating animals and plants: "We have always been too distant from nature, even if we find the name that appears in the book, we don't know what the real thing is. We understand, the purple flower is a bit of a mustache, and the Primel does not even know what the translator is, although it has been written down according to the dictionary. "The translator is thinking about how to make this strange thing transcend historical and local limitations, while avoiding too much separation from its deep connection to the original cultural environment.
James 's translation of the Book of Poetry was relatively early and influential – as Bernhard Karlgren put it, James 's translation was "a great feat in his time." Later translators also tried different ways when translating "蒌". William Jennings, for example, translates "mushroom" as "fragrantweeds," perhaps trying to strike a balance between general generalizations and more specific names. Arthur Waley translates "mushroom" as "mugwort", and at the same time subdivides many artemisia plants that appear in the Book of Poetry, such as "Xiao" and "Ai" in the "Tsege" as "Southern Artemisia" and "Artemisia" respectively; "Apple" and "Artemisia" in "Deer Song" are translated as "Black Southernwood" and "White Southernwood" respectively; "Xiao" in "Shengmin" is translated as "Southern Artemisia"; "Artemisia" in "Tategor" is translated as "wormwood", and "Wei" is also translated as "wormwood". The American poet Ezra Pound's translation is the most interesting, translating "mushroom" as "sandalwood." Pound did not understand Chinese, and the translation method was the poet's translation of poetry, often drastically deleted and modified in terms of words, and did not take literal correspondence as its main purpose. Translators and sinologists often emphasize the correspondence between words and the faithful transmission of information. From this point of view, Gaubenhan's translation stands in opposition to Pound. He transplanted plants such as "mushroom" and "apple" in the way of transliteration, translating word by word, emphasizing rigorous scholarship. It can be said that he adopted the strategy of "suspension", which would rather be presented in its original form than possible fallacies. In this way, "mushroom" is re-endowed with a certain exoticism and mystery, becoming a cultural symbol that is difficult to interpret.
Just as Westerners have many associations when they see absinthe, Chinese when they see Artemisia, they will think of the Book of Poetry, think of Dongpo's poems, and think of Qingwen in "Dream of Red Mansions". This association in the Chinese's mind may be a secret that is difficult for outsiders to see. This is why generations of translators have made so many adjustments and attempts to achieve a closer connection between the two languages and cultures. This is bound to be an arduous but at the same time far-reaching task – in the process, the luscious and fragrant artemisia often turns into bitter mugwort. However, with their efforts, an ancient plant gradually became clear and became a unique cultural representation, layered with rich and profound meaning.
Guang Ming Daily(Version 13, 02/02/2023)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily