Revell Shanghai line the pentameter is. used. In poems of seven words in the line, the hexameter was generally used." Admiral Ts'ai's scholarship is thus shackled; and the result is not always happy. The metre and form are too cramping.
To do him justice, he does not claim that the Chinese poems are translated into English poetry: only into English rhyme, which can be very different. The Chinese poems, with their marvellous connotations, their subtlety in inference, and their fine distinctions of meaning are thus transferred into a medium which is often quite unsuited—a medium which is unable to bear those very qualities which make them unique.
It is a defect which is not common to translations from the Chinese. So great a poet as Milton found it out in his versification of - the Psalms of David. Comparing the following extract from the Authorised Version with Milton's verse will serve to illustrate the point:—"O Lord, my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none:
to deliver."
And Milton:
"Lord my God to thee I file Save me and secure me under Thy protection while I crie Lest a lion (and no wonder)
He hast to tear my soul asunder Tearing and no rescue nigh."
In the versification the soul.of the psalm is "torn asunder": the whole power of the appeal ig lost.
Milton set himself no task -to a i cee,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.