詩五首
Choe Chi-won
願言扃利門
不使損遺體
爭奈探珠者
輕生入海底
心榮塵易染
心垢水難洗
澹泊與誰論
世路嗜甘醴
陈情上太尉
海内谁怜海外人,问津何处是通津。
本求食禄非求利,只为荣亲不为身。
客路离愁江上雨,故园归梦日边春。
济川幸遇恩波广,愿濯凡缨十载尘。
暮春即事和顾云友使
东风遍阅百般香,意绪偏饶柳带长。
苏武书回深塞尽,庄周梦逐落花忙。
好凭残景朝朝醉,难把离心寸寸量。
正是浴沂时节日,旧游魂断白云乡。
(黃山江) 臨鏡臺
烟巒簇簇水溶溶
鏡裏人家對碧峰
何處孤帆飽風去
瞥然飛鳥杳無踪
石榴
相愛泥沙性愛海
實如球玉甲如蟹
酸中甘味何時來
葉落風高月建亥
Given my Malaysian Chinese and Korean heritage, as well as my upbringing in multiple countries, I felt a particular closeness with the feelings of alienation Choe described experiencing while studying for the imperial exams in Tang China as a foreigner. Such feelings accompanied me through academic sojourns in the United Kingdom and the United States. I have also sometimes felt an alienation from the English in which I write my own poems. It is often assumed that most Tang and Song poetry of repute was composed by ethnically Chinese writers, but Choe’s impressive oeuvre is testament to the depth of his feeling and the precision of his craft.
Choe is often anthologised in collections of Tang and Song poetry such as the Complete Tang Poems (全唐诗补逸) and is one of few foreigners to receive this honour. His most noted work is Gyewonpilgyeong (桂苑筆耕 Ploughing the Laurel Grove with a Wiring Brush). Choe’s return to Korea after his service in the Tang court allowed him to devote his energies to the propagation of Confucian teaching. He earned recognition as a progenitor of Korean literature thereafter.
Where translation is concerned, what proved most difficult was the lack of extant translations of Choe’s work into English. Unlike poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, or Li Qingzhao, for whom there exists a corpus of translations, Choe’s work has not attracted much attention. Relying on classical Chinese dictionaries and my own intuition did not always help to rectify difficulties in translation. For example, in the poem “Being at ease in Late Spring, to my friend Gu Yun,” I had wrestled with whether “Gu Yun” referred to the name of a friend, was a reference to Choe himself, was a reference to another literary form, or was an allusion. I later found confirmation that, in other translations of the poem, Gu Yun was a close friend of Choe’s and a fellow scholar-official. In the poem “Imgyǒng Terrace by Hwangsan River,” had it not been for glosses by previous translators, I might not have realized Choe was describing places in Silla.
While the initial translations I’d prepared preserved the semantic accuracy of the poems, it nevertheless felt that there was some distance between them and myself. Spencer encouraged me to find ways to place a bit more of myself as a translator in the midst of the poems. This led to experimentations with style, with form, and with the rendering of the poems. I took inspiration from such translators as Tse Hao Guang, Daryl Lim Wei Jie, and Wong May, particularly for “Imgyǒng Terrace by Hwangsan River.” “By Inspiration”, a didactic poem, ended up being informed by the poetry of Wendell Berry. “pomegranates,” perhaps the most contemporary in its treatment of the source material, was inspired by the poems of Li-Young Lee.
I am indebted to the previous translation and critical work undertaken by Christina Han, Wing S. Chu, and Key S. Ryang, as well as by Spencer. I am also grateful to Dr. Pauline Lin, whose guidance proved invaluable as I worked through each poem and who was indomitably encouraging throughout the process of translating these poems.
Choe Chi-won was born in 857 in the city of Gyeongju, then the capital of the Korean kingdom of Silla. At that time, Korea had been governed by the Unified Silla Kingdom until 935. At this point in time, Silla had adopted China’s Confucian style of bureaucracy to a limited degree and needed a coterie of officials. According to the twelfth-century historical work 삼국사기 (The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi), in 869, when Choe was twelve years of age, his father sent him to study in Tang China, seeing him off with the admonition that if he did not pass the Chinese imperial examination within ten years, he would cease to be his son. Within the decade Choe passed the highest of China's civil service exams, the coveted jinshi (進士) degree and was appointed to a prefectural office in the south. Choe went on to serve in China for nearly a decade, even becoming intimate with Emperor Xizong of Tang. After helping to put down the Huang Chao Rebellion, Choe’s thoughts turned toward home. As a foreigner and outsider in Tang China, Choe conveyed some of his feelings of alienation in his poetry. In "Presenting Feelings to the Chief Marshal,” he writes, “within these seas who would pity someone / who came from far beyond them?” He was known by the pen name Gu Yun, or Lone Cloud. He eventually returned home in 885 at the age of 28 and was appointed an instructor and reader at Silla's Confucian Hallim Academy as well as other administrative positions, including Vice-Minister of War. In 893 he was appointed chief envoy of a diplomatic mission to Tang China, but famine and subsequent upheavals in Silla prevented his journey. The Tang Dynasty fell soon afterward and Choe was never to see China again. He is said to have died in the early tenth century.
Jonathan Chan is a writer and editor of poems and essays. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore and educated at University of Cambridge and Yale University. He is the author of the poetry collection going home (Landmark, 2022). He has recently been moved by the work of Kevin Young, R. F. Kuang, and Alfian Sa’at. His translations have appeared in Asymptote, PR&TA, and SingPoWriMo. More of his writing can be found here.