On “the soaring dust of the mortal realm”

Fei Ming was an influential modern Chinese poet known especially for writing free verse poetry that is full of ambiguity. This poem is no exception, posing many challenges for a translator because of its complex allusions and philosophical concepts. For example, the poem’s original title, “飞尘,” can mean “flying dust,” but to translate “尘” in this literal way could mislead readers to think the poem is just about cleaning and dust, when “尘” is in fact often used as a metonymy that stands for the mortal realm tainted by the dust of worldly desires.

The phrases “空山灵雨” and “虚谷足音” in the poem pose similar difficulties for translation. Both idioms not only refer to supernatural miracles, but also allude to Buddhist and Daoist worldviews respectively. For example, on a literal level, “空山灵雨” paints a mythical scene of empty mountains and mythical rain. But though the character “空” could be translated literally as “empty,” “空” does not have connotations of absence, lack, and nothingness; instead, it has an airy and meditative quality, and can allude to śūnyatā, a complex Buddhist idea about being open and letting go. The character “灵” also doesn’t just mean magical or mythical; it implies the rain is flowing with a spiritual or sacred energy, possessing a sense of self-awareness present in all beings, which allows the rain to fall exactly at the right moment. Thus, “空山灵雨” is not merely a description of scenery, but a depiction of a spiritual and supernatural phenomenon that is deeply moving and transcendental.

During the translation process, I attempted more than a dozen translations of the two aforementioned phrases, which are some of the hardest I have ever translated. While I attempted to find the phrasings that best reflect the source text’s tone and connotations, some of the original poem’s allusions and nuances, which are quite ambiguous and hard to grasp even in Chinese, are inevitably weakened in translation.