Opening of Journey to the West, chapter 1
Thursday, 19 September 2019 12:57![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerThe poem goes:
Ere primal chaos parted, heaven and earth were mixed—
In boundless vastness, there was not a man to see;
But ever since Pangu broke up that mistiness,
Both clear and muddy’s been distinguished separately.
The crowded, overflowing lives all aim for humaneness,
Ten-thousand creatures ’neath the sun tend towards the best.
If you would know how Nature gathered its first merit,
Then read “The Tale of Woes Resolved upon the Journey West.”
诗曰：
混沌未分天地乱，
茫茫渺渺无人见。
自从盘古破鸿蒙，
开辟从兹清浊辨。
覆载群生仰至仁，
发明万物皆成善。
欲知造化会元功，
须看西游释厄传。
The Journey to the West (TV Tropes) famously has a lot of poems, used in all sorts of ways by the narrator, so who wouldn't want to translate some of them? (Note: managed to rhyme w00t. Not the same rhyme all through like the original, but at least the original rhyming lines are rhymed.)
---L.
Ere primal chaos parted, heaven and earth were mixed—
In boundless vastness, there was not a man to see;
But ever since Pangu broke up that mistiness,
Both clear and muddy’s been distinguished separately.
The crowded, overflowing lives all aim for humaneness,
Ten-thousand creatures ’neath the sun tend towards the best.
If you would know how Nature gathered its first merit,
Then read “The Tale of Woes Resolved upon the Journey West.”
诗曰：
混沌未分天地乱，
茫茫渺渺无人见。
自从盘古破鸿蒙，
开辟从兹清浊辨。
覆载群生仰至仁，
发明万物皆成善。
欲知造化会元功，
须看西游释厄传。
The Journey to the West (TV Tropes) famously has a lot of poems, used in all sorts of ways by the narrator, so who wouldn't want to translate some of them? (Note: managed to rhyme w00t. Not the same rhyme all through like the original, but at least the original rhyming lines are rhymed.)
---L.