1If we take a bird’s-eye view of the history of translation, we often find in the beginning the “great seducers” or le belle infedele1. They are in command of a beautiful style and have a sure instinct for the interests of the reading public. These pioneers will take great liberties with the original in order to adapt it to the needs of their time. Examples are the translation of Plutarch by Jacques Amyot (1513-1593) or George Chap-man’s (1559-1638) translation of Homer, which carries the Elizabethan world-view and style into the Iliad and Odyssey2. Only later, when the public has got used to the strange import, will the ugly, more faithful translations emerge, le brutte fedele.

2In sinology, the same process can be observed: “Unfaithful beauties”, like Lin Shu or Franz Kuhn, are followed by more faithful but artistically less satisfactory translators. Yet there are notable exceptions: Maybe due to the difficulty of Chinese, quite a few sinological pioneer works are by no means beautiful but rather the opposite. How have they effected the Western reception of Chinese literature?

3As an example, I will take the Austrian Erwin Ritter von Zach, who produced the first and up to now only complete translation of Du Fu’s poems. In 1952, ten years after Zach’s death, the work was reprinted in the Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies with a foreword by Robert Hightower, in which he commended Zach as one of the most accurate and prolific translators of Chinese (Zach 1958). The book has reached a wide reading public in the United States and in Europe. It can be said to hold a key position in the Western reception of Du Fu.

4Zach’s work, by its wide circulation in Europe and the United States, has been influential in two opposite ways. First, it is partly responsible for the somewhat low esteem China’s greatest poet still suffers from in the West. On the other hand, it has inspired artists to write creative variations, which induced many Western readers to take an interest in Du Fu’s works and even to identify themselves with Du Fu. An analysis of Zach’s translations shows the dangers and pitfalls, but also some unex-pected possibilities of a “scientific” translation of literature.

Erwin Ritter von Zach (1872-1942)

5What kind of man was Erwin Ritter von Zach and what were his ideas about translation? His name cannot be found in Who’s Who or in any major encyclopedia.3 He was born in Austria in 1872 to a family of military officers. After studying medicine and sinology, he served for nine-teen years in the diplomatie service in the Far East. At the age of 47, he retired to Batavia (Jakarta) in Java (in Indonesia). For more than twenty years he lived there, without the comforts most European colonists were used to, without a wife and with only his books. He died in 1942, on his way to India, when his boat was hit by a Japanese bomb and sank.

6He produced an amazing amount of work: translations of the Wenxuan , of the poems by Tao Yuanming , Yu Xin , Li Bai , Du Fu, Han Yu . In addition, he compiled thousands of corrections to the Biographic Dictionary of Herbert A. Giles, the Grammar of Georg von der Gabelentz and even to Chinese classical dictionaries, like the Ciyuan and the Peiwen yunfu .4 Yet most of his publications appeared only in an obscure Batavian paper (Die Deutsche Wacht), usually at Zach’s own expense. He never held a university post and his great fame came only after his death.

7He was a difficult personality, completely without the famous Austrian charm and savoir-vivre. His few acquaintances describe him as extremely sensitive and touchy, yet having a sharp tongue and a great sense of mission. Like Buddha, Confucius or Jesus, he wanted to save the world, the world of sinology, that is. Consequently, he compiled long lists of the errata of famous sinologists, to whom he attributed complete ignorance of Chinese grammar and of literary sources.5

8Unfortunately, his victims did not take kindly to this. In France, Paul Pelliot () called him “balourd et grossier”, and refused to accept his articles for the magazine T’oung Pao (Pelliot 1929). In Germany, Otto Franke also broke off all relations with him (Franke 1925). Yet Zach, like his military ancestors, continued undauntedly to attack the sinological establishment, from Paris to Leningrad, with about the same resuit as Don Quixote in his fight against windmills.

9Zach proposed a translation theory in striking contrast to the more successful mediators of his time. His contemporary, Franz Kuhn (1884-1961), for instance, who translated no less than thirty-six Chinese novels, did not want to torment his readers with scholarly translations full of footnotes which would be read by only a dozen sinologists (Kuhn 1980: 13). Zach, on the other hand, wanted to do just that. The public he was aiming at were by no means the reading masses Kuhn could win over so easily, but the very small circle of serious students of sinology.6

10He took no pains to adapt Chinese literature to the taste of the vulgar public. Far from bringing China to Europe, he did not even bother to transport the Western reader to China. He provided only a rough map, by which the prospective student had to fight his own way in a heroic combat with the difficulties of classical Chinese.

11Some critics have said that Zach’s translations are not so scholarly after all, since they lack the academic apparatus (see Steinen 1938). This is perfectly true. Yet Zach consulted many more sources than he cared to admit. Apparently he withheld information on purpose so that students would learn to look up dictionaries and commentaries in order to get a good foundation in the classical Chinese canon.

The Du Fu translations

12Zach’s translations of Du Fu are generally very highly esteemed as a stupendous work of scholarship. Of course, when we compare them today to the original, we can detect many mistakes. Yet this is only natural, since Zach lacked the dictionaries, commentaries and the contact with Chinese scholars we enjoy today. He did not, for example, have access to the standard edition by Qiu Zhaoao , but had to use the inferior text and commentary by Zhang Jin .7

13A greater problem is the lack of artistic competence. We can imagine what would happen if somebody translated Shakespeare’s sonnets into prose, five or ten times longer than the original. While Chinese readers of Du Fu’s poems are elevated, shocked, moved to tears or laughter, many German readers have secretly asked themselves how such long-winded poetry could ever become so famous in China or what all the fuss is about. Zach has managed to turn nearly all of Du Fu’s strong features into weak points. I will give three examples:

14First, the style: Chinese critics over the ages have compared Du Fu to the ancient strategist Sun Zi , who would first lull the enemy into security, only to strike at him from behind when he least expected it. Du Fu can suddenly change from high style to the most vulgar, from despair to laughter and, in a sweeping movement of the camera, he can evoke three different feelings in a single line. The poem “Yuhuagong” (Jade Palace) (Qiu Zhaoao 1979, ch. 5: 389; Zach 1958: 110), for instance, describes a strange ruined palace, lit with blue fires; suddenly the eery mood is interrupted by celestial music, only to change back again to a feeling of horror and despair. Possibly because he does not want to confuse the reader, Zach, and after him many later translators, have left out the abrupt changes of feeling. In this way, when Du Fu jumps, flies, rises, falls, surprises, Zach will be found plodding along the same straight endless road.

15Secondly, Du Fu’s poems are full of strange and powerful images. In stanza 7 of “Qiuxing bashou” (Eight Autumn Inspirations), for instance, there appears a luminous star-goddess above a lake with a threatening submarine (underwater) seamonster, while lotus-pods dye the water bright red. These images, with their contradictory associations of war, splendour, blood and death, are very difficult or even impossible to translate. Yet it is certainly not illuminating, when Zach transforms the supernatural star and the seamonster into realistic “stone statues”:

Bleiches Mondlicht fällt auf die Statue der Weberin, deren Webstuhl in Ruhe ist,

Wâhrend der Schuppenpanzer des steinernen Walfisches [am Seeufer] durch den Herbstwind bewegt wird. (Qiu Zhaoao 1979, ch. 7: 1494 ff; Zach 1958: 563.)8

16In the same way, the images are often rationalized or reduced to one single meaning, which, for the benefit of the reader, is moreover carefully noted in brackets.

17Thirdly, Du Fu is famous for his shidan , his breaking of taboos. He himself calls his poetry strange and barbarian, something quite unheard of in China. In an oft-quoted line, he wants even in death to shock his readers.9 Not only does Du Fu present himself, like Li Bai, as a great hero. He can also turn into a drunkard without honour, sick or mentally deranged. In the 18th century, the scholar Shen Deqian (1673-1769) expressed this:

Du Fu’s poetry is like a vast stormy ocean, with mud and dancing monsters, with fairies and snakes.10

18Yet Zach will often leave out the mud and the monsters by using euphemisms. When Du Fu decides to get into a “drunken stupor for a hundred years”, Zach only allows him a mild “intoxication”:

Den Rest meines Lebens will ich gänzlich im Rausche verbringen.11

19The “gluttonous gulping of cannibals” becomes a mere “tickling of the palate”:

Der herrschenden Klasse (der Beamten) ebenso gut wie den Räubern und Dieben musst du einen momentanen Gaumenkitzel abgeben.12

20When the sun shines on Du Fu’s “naked belly”, this is politely changed to an “uncovered body”:

Entblössten Leibes sonne ich mich im Pavillon am Strome.13

21And when Du Fu is lying in bed, sick and vomiting and with diarrhoea, Zach corrects that to a more gentlemanlike “indigestion”:

Mir altem Manne wird bei diesem erschütternden Anblick übel
mit schwerer Verdauungsschwäche muβ ich einige Tage das Bett hüten.14

22In these and other cases, Zach follows Confucian commentators, who disapproved of artistic fancies and socially disreputable behavior. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Du Fu had been canonized as China’s shisheng, the “Saint of Poetry”, equal to Confucius and a pillar of the state. His body of works became a classic like the Shijing, a sort of Bible. They were supposed to be shishi “poetical history”, which means, that their main content was not poetry but politics. Therefore, all of Du Fu’s exaggerations, daring images and personal confessions were either eliminated or turned into allegorical criticisms of government and society. Zach often adopted these moralizations.15 Since he gives no indication when he does so, this habit has been especially misleading for later translators.

23We may very well ask why Zach dedicated himself to translating poetical masterworks? He was not a master of language; moreover, he was perfectly aware of this.16 Couldn’t he instead have concentrated on history or philosophy? Yet, to be fair, there are a few lines in his translation where he rises to artistic heights. Since these come as unexpectedly as an oasis in a desert, they are all the more striking. Perhaps Zach had a secret artistic gift after all which he chose not to develop but to repress.

24According to Zach, the Du Fu translations were to serve two purposes: first of all as a crib for students of sinology, who should thereby have access to an important part of the Chinese literary canon; and secondly, as a source book for creative poets.17 His first aim met with some unforeseen obstacles, yet in his second point he proved to be surprisingly clearsighted.

Du Fu’s reception

25The influence of Zach’s translations on the Western reception of Du Fu is difficult to judge, since there are many separate factors involved. Still, we can recognize two conflicting tendencies, both of which can in some way be related to Zach.

26First, the translations have in many cases worked as a slow poison, more or less ruining Du Fu’s fame. Most Chinese over the ages have regarded Du Fu as their greatest poet. In the West, on the other hand, he has been accepted only half-heartedly. Poets like Bai Juyi , Li Shangyin , Wang Wei and especially Li Bai have been accorded much more scholarly attention. It should arouse suspicion that Zach the translator has won more fame than Du Fu the poet. Can Chinese and Western artistic sensibilities really be so far apart? More probable, at least for the German-reading public, is the assumption that the poor artistic quality of Zach’s work provoked in some readers a sinking feeling, discouraging them from further interest in Du Fu.

27Zach’s forewords, short as they are, have contributed to this. Here the German dichotomy of “poetry of feeling” and “poetry of idea” (Schiller 1962) is projected onto China: Li Bai is described as a Romantic genius in the manner of Goethe, while Du Fu is only judged as intelligent and full of ideas, like the less-famous Schiller (Zach 1926). In later Western criticism, this same opinion has been echoed many times. Consciously or unconsciously, it may have been reinforced by the fact that Mao Zedong did not like Du Fu. Therefore Guo Moruo wrote a book in which he praised Li Bai and condemned Du Fu, showing the latter as not only a feudalist, a Buddhist and a Daoist, but also an alcoholic (Guo Moruo 1982).

28In the West, Du Fu has been often judged as “conventional” and “full of learned allusions”, a “Confucian moralizer”, without a strong Personal voice or individuality. One Du Fu specialist wrote:

It is clear that Tu Fu could not break free of the Confucian equation of literature ... with public service. (Davis 1971: 102.)

29And another:

(Du Fu) lacks ... the strongly personal imagery which establishes [poets like Li He and Li Shangyin] as vividly individual poets. (Graham 1968: 39.)

30Yet these negative judgments apply less to Du Fu than to his commentators and translators.

31Zach’s bad habit of incorporating orthodox commentaries into his work has been followed by many later translators. There are two seemingly good reasons for this: first of all, Du Fu’s poems are not easy to read; and secondly, Western scholars want to see Chinese literature with Chinese eyes, instead of forcing Western artistic values on it. Yet the Confucian commentators usually understood more about politics than about poetry. Moreover, their allegorizations were often only a manœuvre to get around censors. In the same way, the gods and heroes of Homer and Virgil were interpreted as allegories of Christian virtues, in order to make them acceptable in the Christian Middle Ages.

32In China, these allegorizations did no great harm, since people could read the originals and privately follow their own thoughts and feelings. Yet Western readers would blame Du Fu’s conventional Confucian morality, which they saw in contrast to “Western freedom and individualism”. Thus, far from seeing China with Chinese eyes, old prejudices were confirmed. The intercultural gap was not bridged but widened.

33On the other hand, Zach’s translations, far from depressing the reader, have also worked as a stimulus, a kind of magic carpet for creative writers. The German poet, Ehrenstein, identified himself with Du Fu in a poem titled “Ich” (“I”), which is a collage of lines by Du Fu taken from the Zach translations (Ehrenstein 1970: 13). The American poet, Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), who used Zach among other sources, recognized himself in the Chinese poet as well (Rexroth 1956). His poems became so famous that they were translated into many other languages and even set to music. There followed a wave of Western Du Fu identifications, which took Wytter Bynner’s “This Ancient Man is I” as their slogan (Chung 1985, Kahn 1988). Interestingly enough, this is in accordance with Chinese Du Fu identifications, of which the Song poet Wen Tianxiang is one of the best-known examples.18

34How is it that Zach’s work produced such contradictory results? In Du Fu’s case, the normal process of translation-history is turned upside down: In the beginning, there was no great seducer to present Du Fu in an alluring way to the Western public, as Lin Shu did in China with the works of Shakespeare, Homer, Dickens and many others. Instead, the reader is thrown into cold water, either to sink or to struggle and learn to swim. Thus, Zach has driven away many readers and damaged Du Fu’s fame.

35On the other hand, he has attracted a great many others. Strangely enough, Zach’s very deficiencies have led to this resuit. His translation possesses what we may call the beauty of ugliness, the creative possibilities offered by an unfinished product. Seen in this way, Zach is even a greater mediator than the beautiful traitors, since he covers the bride with disfiguring veils in order to make her all the more desirable. In a similar way, Ezra Pound was inspired by Ernest Fenollosa’s stenographie notes to produce creative poems of his own. It is certainly a pity that Pound did not come across Zach’s translations of Du Fu.

36Zach has produced what may be called a translation for translators. Today, as the negative verdict on Du Fu is being slowly reversed,19 Zach’s complete Western translation will be extremely useful.

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