Ouyang Yu #1 - Bad Translation

Bad Translation

By Ouyang Yu

I wrote a poem, in Chinese back in 1995

And I thought of it when I thought of Google

Soon enough I found it through Search in my PC

And got the thing in its entirety:

《家乡》

一粒早衰的种子

埋在故乡的土壤

多年也不发芽

更没有开花的指望

虽然苦挣苦扎

虽然充满幻想

故乡的土质含碱带酸

天气又变化无常

于是开始了漂流

和孤独的跨陆远征

在无人认识的天空下

寻找自己的地方

虽然是陌土千里

虽然是异国他乡

种子却在这贫瘠的土壤中

找到了唯一的滋养

经年累月的沉默

已酿就醇厚的思想

岁月如沙从指缝中滑过

悄悄地来到纸上

再过一个世纪

这种子将不知去向

那形如梦匣的方块文字

会把这儿称做家乡¹

To save my time

And yours

I put it in Google Translation

Which produced an instant classic, in italics:

"hometown"

A premature seed

Buried in the soil of the homeland

Years nor sprout

And no hope of flowering

Although Kuzhengkuzha

Although fantasy

Hometown alkali soil with acid

The weather was changeable

So he began drifting

And lone expedition across the land

In the absence of understanding the sky

Find their place

Although unfamiliar territories thousands of miles

Although it is a foreign country

Seed was in this barren soil

Found only nourishment

Long years of silence

It has been brewing mellow thoughts

Over the years, such as sand through our fingers

Quietly came to the paper

A few centuries

This child will disappear without a trace

That dream box -shaped block of text

I will here called home

If you don’t understand

Or struggle with its meaning

Or simply accuse it of being bad

Blame Google, ok? Never me; I just did it the easy way

1 本诗应该写于1995年，于1998年发表在台湾的《中外文学》杂志第312期190-191页，并收入欧阳昱诗集《墨尔本之夏》，重庆出版社，1998，pp. 36-37。本诗的英文自译诗，发表于2000年Quadrant杂志1-2月号第32页。