Elegies of Chu

The Chuci is a collection of poetic texts that first emerged from the culture of the great, south-lying state of Chu of early China. It is conventionally dated from the third century BCE to the second century CE, with the famous “Li sao” and its author, Qu Yuan, at its center. Heretofore, the only complete translation into English has been by David Hawkes.1 It takes a brave soul to translate in the shadow of David Hawkes, one of the greatest translators of Chinese literature, but that is what Nickolas Morrow Williams does, and we are lucky for it. Williams gives us new insights into the Chuci presented in clear and concise arguments, and he offers the poetry in an English significantly different from that of Hawkes. This volume is perfectly positioned to become the Chuci translation and textbook of choice.Without explicitly saying so, Williams's translation is devoted to a rendering in which semantic accuracy is prized, although not ignoring the dynamic effects of his choices. This is seen in his statement on the translation of numerous plant names that are central to the poetic language of the text: “One area where precision is of special importance in translating the Elegies is with respect to the flora and fauna of the anthology. . . . At the same time, the plethora of obscure terms, in particular the names of aromatic herbs, can be daunting to reader or translator, and these are identified in the glossary at the end of this volume” (xxxiv). Williams discusses the central poetic-plant motif, lan, which he notes has been mistranslated as “orchid” in the past but is actually Eupatorium chinense, a type of “unprepossessing, low-lying shrub with small clusters of white of purple flowers” (xxxiv). This he translates in the anglicized form “eupatory.” Here, we should remember David Hawkes's statement on the same problem: I cannot pretend to any consistency in my solution of this problem [“jaw-cracking” botanical names]. Sometimes I invent a name by translating the Chinese literally . . . ; sometimes I anglicize a Latin name; sometimes, for convenience, I follow a long-standing tradition which I know to be false (e.g. in translating lan as “orchid”); and sometimes I invent a name by adding a qualifying word to the English term for the genus. I admit that this is unscientific, but I fear that is unavoidable.2This “unscientific approach” has at its core Hawkes's attention to the “dynamic effect” of his English, which bends strongly toward a domestication of the Chinese. In this case, “orchid” works because of its cultural overtones, not its botanical accuracy. It is difficult to know what dynamic effect “eupatory” (or Gopal Sukhu's “thoroughwort”) has in English. Over a long reading of the “Li Sao” and related texts, these terms might build toward that desired effect.3 Williams is “foreignizing” the translation but coming to that translational strategy through Sinological scrutiny.This translation is of the complete Chuci collection as first delineated in Wang Yi's Chuci zhangju and reprised in Hong Xingzu's Chuci buzhu (seventeen titles, including sequences). Williams deviates from Hong's edition by reviving an earlier, perhaps original, sequence of selections—the principal deviation is that Jiu bian (Nine Phases), attributed to Song Yu, comes second, not eighth.4 This change implies an understanding of the anthology's composition whereby Qu Yuan's authorship seems circumscribed to his acknowledged masterpiece, “Li sao.”5 On this, Williams (xxxi–xxxii) reviews Tang Bingzheng's argument on the five-stage accretive nature of the anthology. The front matter of Williams's volume includes a thirty-five-page introduction that concisely engages the main historical, cultural, and textual issues, accompanied by an extensive bibliography of Chinese, Japanese, English, German, and French scholarship. For back matter, Williams's volume includes detailed explanatory notes arranged by poem and verse, along with a glossary/index of flora, fauna, and proper names; this includes Chinese graphs for items listed and extensive indexing to the anthology. These details increase the value of the translation, especially for the classroom.What distinguishes Williams's discussion of these matters is his sense of modesty and caution toward the materials and their traditional treatment. He details the understandings of the early tradition, adding his own insights, especially derived from contemporary sinology, but never proposing a larger agenda. He has his hesitations, but he has no axe to grind. For example, whereas Hawkes has little to say about the nature Wang Yi's work, Sukhu derides the commentary that “tore holes in the narrative fabric of the ‘Li sao’ allegory, rendering the poem incoherent,” and the “implausible” addition of later parts of the Chuci zhangju (xxiv, xxvi). Williams, rather, argues for the integrity of the anthology: “In other words, we have much to gain from the traditional practice of reading these poems in relation to one another and positing a common origin which we may describe as ‘Quvian’ even while admitting that they may not have been composed by a single person” (xxi).It is in that spirit that he argues for the importance of the Song Yu and later poets in the anthology, who “represent some of the perennial themes of imperial Chinese culture” (xxv). If Nicholas Morrow Williams has an axe to grind, it is for us to be careful, cautious, and modest when dealing with these complex traditional materials

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