Friday, March 18, 2011

Some Small Solace In Zhang Heng, and his Seismograph of Golden Frogs



[Note to future researchers: Kara and I possess a woman's necklace made of golden frogs.]



While looking for some subtle and generative translation effects using google today, I put in this supposed
poem in 'complex chinese' by Zhang Heng, the object of some small recent researching:

浩浩陽春發。
楊柳何依依。
百鳥自南歸。
翺翔萃我枝




which came out as:

Vast spring hair. Willow Ho Yiyi. Birds return from the south. I'm flying sticks and Crafts (...)



On the site where it came from, there was no translation, but an explanation:

This poem describes a picture of early spring. The warm sunshine is casting on the fields and trees are sprouting. Willow trees are swaying with the mild breeze. Birds are flying back from the south. They are singing in the tree.





On a more serious note, and to remain in the provinces of my dearly beloved syntaxis and irronism, here
is a poem by Zhang Heng whose content is outwardly the complation of what to do against the problem of corruption, but whose inward meaning is none other than the fateful twins of  s.i.