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PATRICK COLM HOGAN, Affective Space and Emotional Time

influence, Chinese literary tradition seems to be a particularly apt for
this task. Within that tradition, one of the most famous works
throughout the world (due in part to a translation by Ezra Pound) is
a poem by Lǐ Bái, which also happens to be a work that extensively
treats space, or spatiality. Here is my version.

Changgan Ballad 8
Lǐ Bái

At first, my hair hung down across my brow;
I played at pulling flowers
Before the door.
You came by, straddling a bamboo horse,
Circling the chair, playing with young plums like toys.
We lived together in Changgan,
A little girl and boy,
without resentment or suspicion.

At fourteen, I became my lord’s wife.
Shy, I did not raise my face or open up my mouth,
Head down, facing the dark wall.
I would not even once turn around,
No matter how many times you called.

At fifteen, I showed at last my eyebrows.
I hoped we would be joined
as dust and ashes.
Unwavering as the boy,
waiting for his bride,
who would not leave the river,

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In crafting this translation, and the subsequent explication, I have drawn
not only on Pound’s famous translation (h ps://www.poets.org/poetsorg/
poem/river-merchants-wife-le er [accessed March 26, 2017]), but also on
Cooper and Grigg (as well as dictionaries). I am grateful to an anonymous
referee for very helpful comments on this translation and on the translation
of Lǐ Qīngzhào’s poem.

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