Du Fu: loose translationsAbout this book
Du Fu, born in China in 712 during the Tang dynasty, is one of the most important poets in Chinese history. According to the Wade-Giles transliteration, we called him Tu Fu. In pinyin, his name is Dù Fû. His courtesy name is Zǐmeǐ (子美), which means “Child Beauty”; his art name is Shàolíng Yělǎo (少陵野老). In Japan, he is called To Ho, とほ in Hiragana.
Du Fu was born near Luoyang, Henan province. His father was a minor scholar-official. His mother died shortly after he was born. He suffered from diabetes and pulmonary tuberculosis, and died in 762 aged 58.
Du Fu met Li Bai in 744 when he was 32 and Li Bai was 43; they became friends, and Li Bai was a big influence on Du Fu’s life and work.
Du Fu wrote 1500 poems; about two-thirds of them have survived. Here we have a hundred of them in Chinese with literal translations and my loose translations in English.
The cover features a portrait of Du Fu and his name in Chinese characters. The photo of the author is by Liz Douthitt Sharp.
How this book is organized
The book has three pages for each poem and its translations. Language codes label the links in the header and footer. Zh is the language code for Chinese.
- En: My poem (in English)
- Zh+literal: The original Chinese poem, with a literal translation
- En+Zh: My poem, with the original Chinese poem
Links and shortcuts
In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.
- Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
- The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
- Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.
You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).
| Context | Keys | Jump to / Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| cover | ⌥ ◄ | Books by Tom Sharp |
| ⌥ ▲ | About Tom Sharp | |
| ⌥ ► | about this book (this page) | |
| ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| ⇧ ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| contents | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | cover |
| ⌥ ▼ | select the next item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | select the previous item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ► | open the selected page | |
| ⌥ ⏎ | open the selected page | |
| poem | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | contents |
| ⌥ ◄ | contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | open the previous page | |
| ⌥ ► | open the original + literal translation, translation + original, or translation in rotation | |
| ⌥ ▼ | open the next page |
The poet
Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of many books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769), Shevchenko : Шевченко (ISBN 979-8286863815), Twilight: loose translations of Pablo Neruda (ISBN 979-8294301910), Poésies: loose translations of Arthur Rimbaud (ISBN 979-8294301910), Su Shi: loose translations (ISBN 969-8296321190), and Li Bai: loose translations (ISBN 969-8296321633).
You may email tom/AT/sharpgiving/DOT/-c-o-m-/ to share comments on this work.
