7.3.2 Witter Bynner's translated version
River-Snow [2]
A hundred mountains and no bird,
A thousand paths without a footprint;
A little boat,a bamboo cloak,
An old man fishing in the cold river snow.(https://www.daowen.com)
(Translated by Witter Bynner)
With regard to Bynner's translation of images in the poem,several cognitive translation strategies of image-G actualization are applied as illustrated below.Firstly,Bynner turns the images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)into“a hundred mountains”and“a thousand paths”,which apparently retains the non-referentiality of qian(myriad)and wan(endless)used in ST.“a hundred”and“a thousand”are emphatically not the specific reference or meaning of assurance.Rather,they are used vaguely and hyperbolically in TT(Liu,2005).Essentially,the incoming Gestalt attributes brought by“a hundred”and“a thousand”are exactly fit for original poetic cultural cognitive model of the images of shan(mountains)and jing(paths)in ST respectively,while this Gestalt reinforcement falls on the fact that these new Gestalt attributes internalize culturallyformed archetypes of cognitive models embodied in the original images.Thus,Bynner's translation practice in the image of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)is a typical instance of the image-G reinforcement strategy proposed in last chapter.In that case,exquisite antithetical form and fuzzy image graduation induced by“a hundred mountains”and“a thousand paths”can inspire in target readers a sense of misty and vague beauty,thus resulting in Gestalt qualities about elusive illusoriness.Besides,the images of niao feijue(no bird in flight)and renzong mie(no man in sight)are translated into“no bird”and“without a footprint”.With regard to the image schema involved,the internal image schema of the“no bird”and“without a footprint”bears similarity to the scenes-and-frames of Gestalt attributes actualized by the linguistic structure and the scenic mode that presents a scenic picture in ST.The image schema is realized out of a scenic unity,of which the sharp contrast between“a hundred mountains”and“no bird”as well as“a thousand paths”and“without a footprint”points to abstract characterization of the background of the holistic pictorial scene,namely,the weather is cold and the ground is frozen.
Secondly,Bynner turns the images of guzhou(lonesome boat)and suoli(straw cloak and bamboo hat)into“a little boat”,“a bamboo cloak”respectively that are put on a par with each other in the third line.“An old man”,as the translation of the image of weng,is placed in sentence initial position of the fourth line.As a result,these three images will be well arranged in hierarchically spatial structure and linked together naturally and consistently in target readers'reading process.To be specific,target readers'appreciation sequence will be determined by the spatial level of images with hierarchically spatial structure that presents in Bynner's translation,drawing from a distant view—the images of qianshan(myriad mountains)and wanjing(endless roads)to a close view—the images of guzhou(a lonely boat)and suoli(straw cloak and bamboo hat),and it finally focalizes on the central image—the image of weng(an old man).As a matter of fact,the spatial layers of these images produced in target readers'mind are arranged by Bynner with artistic forethought and pre-planning in his translation,not casually or cursorily.In a sense,Bynner's translation is an excellent one to manifest reappearance of image-G based on discourse intertextuality of the original far-reaching and vastness Gestalt attributes embodied in these three images.It is actually an impeccable application of image-G restructuring strategy proposed in last chapter.However,there is only one fly in the ointment is that“a little boat”has not been able to convey the symbolic meaning and Gestalt attributes of nobility and unsulliedness,which is not in accord with the poet's subjective spirit and genuine desire to rid himself deliberately from worldliness.
Compared with Xu's translation,Bynner doesn't retain the natural rhythms of the original poem with respect to the poetic rhythm.The last Chinese characters of his four lines are“bird”,“footprint”,“cloak”,and“river-snow”respectively,which means that he fails in retaining the natural rhythms of the original poem,thus not making a faithful reproduction of the original image-G in respect to the rhythmic schemata.As for the syntactical structure(language form),there's no more conjunctive words adopted here other than two prepositions(“without”and“in”)and one conjunction(“and”).The main verb is also omitted in his translation and only a participle(“fishing”)is adopted.In this way his prose-styled translation inherits the original's terse,implicit and vivid style of language as well as the original Gestalt qualities of loneliness,solitude and otherworldly transcendence.In spite of this,each line is introduced by the indefinite articles(“a/an”).Such a monotonous syntactical structure seems to be lacking in possessing a certain progressive relations of Gestalt attributes and aesthetic elements between these four lines since each line is syntactically stand alone.Thus it is no exaggeration to say that Bynner doesn't adopt proper cognitive translation strategies of image-G actualization in this respect.