At first, we hardly considered publication. Such translations were in the line of her usual work, and I was anxious to read the Chinese poets as nearly in the original as it was possible for me to do. When she returned to China, it was agreed that we should make a volume of translations from the classic Chinese writers. I was fascinated by the poems, and, as we talked them over, we realized that here was a field in which we should like to work. She brought them to me with a request that I put them into poetic shape. She brought with her a large collection of Chinese paintings for exhibition, and among these paintings were a number ofĮxamples of the " Written Pictures." Of these, she had made some rough translations which she intended to use to illustrate her lectures. Ayscough arrived in America on one of her periodic visits to this country. Of late years, she has delivered a number of lectures on Chinese subjects in China, Japan, America, and Canada, and has also found time to write various pamphlets on Chinese literature and customs. A diligent student of Chinese life and manners, she soon took up the difficult study of literary Chinese, and also accepted the position of honorary librarian of the library of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Returning to China in her early twenties, she became engaged to an Englishman connected with a large British importing house in Shanghai, and on her marriage, which took place almost immediately, went back to China, where she has lived ever since. It was then that I met her, so that our friendship is no new thing, but has persisted, in spite of distance, for more than thirty years, to ripen in the end into a partnership which is its culmination. She lived in China until she was eleven, when her parents returned to America in order that their children might finish their education in this country. Her father, who was engaged in business there, was a Canadian and her mother an American. Thetic go-between for a poet and his translator, and Mrs. Ayscough has been to me the pathway to a new world. The translations I had previously read had given me nothing. I was lucky indeed to approach Chinese poetry through such a medium. Since neither of us pretended to any knowledge of the other's craft, our association has been a continually augmenting pleasure. A sinologue has not time to learn how to write poetry a poet has no time to learn how to read Chinese. The study of Chinese is so difficult that it is a life-work in itself, so is the study of poetry. The method we adopted made this possible, as I shall attempt to show. To be suddenly introduced to a new and magnificent literature, not through the medium of the usual more or less accurate translation, but directly, as one might burrow it out for one's self with the aid of a dictionary, is an exciting and inspiriting thing. It has been a long and arduous task, but one which has amply repaid every hour spent upon it. Ayscough's and my joint collaboration has been to turn her literal translations into poems as near to the spirit of the originals as it was in my power to do. L ET me state at the outset that I know no Chinese. PUBLISHED DECEMBER, 1921 REPRINTED OCTOBER, 1922 FEBRUARY, 1926 North China Branch, Royal Asiatic SocietyĬOPYRIGHT, 1921, BY FLORENCE AYSCOUGH AND AMY LOWELL SIX FRENCH POETS: STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE (IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORENCE AYSCOUGH)įIR-FLOWER TABLETS: POEMS TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems Translated from the Chinese.Ī Celebration of Women Writers Fir-Flower Tablets:
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