Dear Dan,

In the original poem Li-Po uses the Chinese character meaning the color
blue, but the same character also means another color green as well as youth
or immature condition in some context.  So, "blue plum" means unripe fruit
of plum, which is actually green.

Unripe fruit of plum is called "blue plum" in Japan, too.  By the way, in
Japan we call one of the colors of a signal "blue," although it is actually
green.

According to Peter Brooker, Arthur Waley "has 'green plums'" in his
translation.  Authur Cooper also has "green plums" in his book "Lipo and
Tufu" in Penguin Books.  However, I think Pound is correct, using "blue"
here, because he follows Chinese and Japanese cultures and because Li-Po
actually uses the character "blue."

According to Kumiko Kakehi, a Japanese scholar of Chinese ancient poetry,
the line with "blue plum" refers to another ancient Chinese poem
"Hyo-Yu-Bai" in Shikyo (I am sorry these are in Japanese pronunciation), in
which very young people express their first pure love with unripe blue
plums.

Therefore, in this poem Li-Po suggests the faint or indistinct love between
the two young children by the "blue plums."

Hiroko Uno (Japanese)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Back door" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 4:41 PM
Subject: "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"


>I was preparing Pound's translation of "The River Merchant's
> Wife: A Letter" for class, when I came across another translation
> of the same poem. This one is by a Gary Geddes, and is from the
> Chinese original. He called it "The Song of Ch'ang-kan".
> Pound's is from the Japanese Rihaku version.
> Here are the first few lines of the Geddes:
>
> "While the hair barely covered my forehead
> I plucked a flower and played at my front door.
> You came by riding a bamboo horse
> and we circled the well, innocent as green plums."
>
> Why Pound would have used blue for the
> color of the plums. Green makes more sense?
> WHich translation is correct?
>
> Any thoughts?
> Thanks,
> Dan.
>
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