Roberto Bolaño, 2666, pp. 1190-1191

« Vous me direz que la littérature ne consiste pas uniquement en œuvres maîtresses, mais qu'elle abonde en œuvres qu'on appelle mineures. Moi aussi je croyais cela. La littérature est une grande forêt, et les œuvres maîtresses sont les lacs, les arbres immenses ou très étranges, les éloquentes fleurs précieuses ou les grottes cachées, mais une forêt est aussi constituée d'arbres normaux, de forêts, de flaques, de plantes parasites, de champignons et de petites fleurs sylvestres. Je me trompais. Les œuvres mineures n'existent pas en réalité. Je veux dire : l'auteur d'une œuvre mineure ne s'appelle pas Machin ou Truc. Machin ou Truc existent, il n'y a pas de doute sur ça, et souffrent et travaillent et publient dans des journaux et des revues et de temps en temps ils publient même un livre qui ne gâche pas le papier sur lequel il est imprimé, mais ces livres ou ces articles, si vous faites attentions, ne sont pas écrits par eux.
Toute œuvre mineure a un auteur secret, et tout auteur secret est, par définition, un auteur d’œuvres maîtresses. […]Celui qui en vérité est en train d'écrire cette œuvre mineure est un écrivain secret qui n'accepte que la dictée d'une œuvre maîtresse. […].
À l'intérieur de l'homme qui est assis en train d'écrire il n'y a rien. Rien qui soit lui, je veux dire. Comme ce pauvre homme ferait mieux de se consacrer à la lecture. La lecture est plaisir et joie d'être vivant ou tristesse d'être vivant et surtout elle est connaissance et questions. L'écriture, en revanche, est d'ordinaire vide. Dans les entrailles de l'homme qui écrit il n'y a rien. Rien, je veux dire, que sa femme, à un moment, puisse reconnaître. Il écrit sous la dictée. Son roman, ou son recueil de poèmes, convenables, très convenables, sortent, non par un exercice de style ou de volonté, comme le pauvre malheureux le croit, mais grâce à un exercice d'occultation. Il est nécessaire qu'il y ait beaucoup de livres, beaucoup de beaux sapins, pour qu'ils veillent du coin de l’œil le livre qui importe réellement, la foutue grotte de notre malheur, la fleur magique de l'hiver.
Pardonnez ces métaphores. Parfois, je m'emporte et je deviens romantique. Mais écoutez. Toute œuvre qui n'est pas une œuvre maîtresse est, comment vous dire, une pièce d'un vaste camouflage. Vous avez été soldat, j'imagine, et vous savez déjà de quoi je parle. Tout livre qui n'est pas une œuvre maîtresse est chair à canon, infanterie vaillante, pièce sacrifiable puisqu'elle reproduit, de multiple manière, le schéma de l’œuvre maîtresse. Lorsque j'ai compris cette vérité, j'ai arrêté d'écrire. Mon esprit, cependant, n'a pas cessé de fonctionner. Au contraire, il fonctionne mieux sans écrire. Je me suis demandé : pourquoi une œuvre maîtresse a-t-elle besoin d'être occulte ? Quelles forces étranges l'entraînent vers le secret et le mystère ? »

« Je savais déjà qu'écrire était inutile, Ou que cela ne valait la peine que si l'on était disposé à écrire une œuvre maîtresse. La plus grande partie des écrivains se trompe, ou bien joue. Peut-être que se tromper et jouer, c'est la même chose, les deux côtés de la même pièce de monnaie. »

Nicot, Thresor de la langue francoyse 1606

Forest
Petite forest
Une forest de chesnes
Une forest espesse où les bestes paissent et se retirent en temps d'esté pour la chaleur du soleil
Forests fortes de bois, espesses et tres empeschante
Une forest où il croist du gland
Forest obscure et espesse
Forests qui rendent force fruits
Forest reservée pour paistre les bestes
Forests tremblantes et brandillantes
Forest où il y a arbres de diverses sortes et sans ordre










Noun (1)
Middle English, from Middle French lut, from Old Occitan laut, from Arabic al-ʽūd, literally, the wood 
Verb 
Middle English, from Latin lutare, from lutum mud — more at POLLUTE
Combining form 
New Latin (corpus) luteum

Somewhere I found that 'lute' would also mean 'whale', but I can't find it anymore





Prononcez longue la dernière syllabe de ce mot.


On appelle forêt un lieu, un bois moins considérable que celui qui ne porteroit ailleurs que le nom de buisson. Voyez BOIS.




Furetières :
« La foreſt de la grande Egliſe de Chartres eſt toute de bois de chaſteigner, il ne s'y trouve jamais d'araignées »

« Les foreſts ſont des lieux où les beſtes ſauvages ne ſont point enfermées »

ſe dit auſſi de ces grandes charpentes des Egliſes, ou autres grands Edifices, ſur leſquelles eſt poſée la couverture
se dit aussi de ces grandes charpentes des Eglises, ou autre grands Edifices, sur lesquelles est posée la couverture.


"On ne peut pas soupçonner nos pères d'avoir planté des coudres."
(Encyclopédie, Diderot/D'Alembert.)


Dictionnaire françois, contenant généralement tous les mots tant vieux que nouveaux et plusieurs remarques sur la langue françoise , Pierre Richelet ; éditeur J. Elzévir (Amsterdam), 1706

Egarer, v.a. Détourner quelqu'un de son chemin (il m'a égaré dans la forêt. J'ai été long-tems égaré sans me pouvoir remettre sur mon chemin.)

NINETEEN WAYS OF LOOKING
AT WANG WEI
How a Chinese poem is translated
Exhibit & Commentary by Eliot Weipberger
Further Comments oy Octavio Paz
MOYER BELL UMITED
Mt. Kisco, New York
\q<g1
/:;.tf




Copyright 0 1987 Eliot Weinbetger and <Xtavio paz
All rip!8 reserved. Fmlt Edition 1987
Printed In the United States of America
For pennission to reprint copyrighted material, the authors are indebted to the
following:
Georges Bol:dwdt Inc.: for the ~is Cheng tra.n.slation, Copyright 1977 by
J;.cIitions du SeuU.' '
Columbia UniverSity Press: for the BurtoJi, Watson tral:UJiation, Copyright 19']2
by the Colwnbia University Preas; and for the H.C. Chang translation, Copyright
1977 by H.C. Clang. . .
Farrar Straus &: Giroux: for the Witter 8ynner &: Iaang J:ang Hu trarlsiatlon,
Copyright 1978 by the Witter Bynner Foundation.
indiana University Preas: for the Donald 'A. Riggs &: Jerome P. Seaton tral:UJiation
of Fl'lIn~ Cheng, Copyright 1!}8a by the.lndlana University Press.
New~: for the Kenneth Rexroth translation, Copyright 1970 by Kenneth
Rexroth. ' .
Octavio paz: for his translations, Copyright 1974, 1978 by Octavio Pu.
Penguin Boob: for the C.W. Robinson transiation, Copyright 1973 by C.W.
Robinson. .
Gary Snyder: lor his translation, Copyright 1978 by Gary Snyder.
Chu1es E. Tuttle Co.: for the. C.J. Chen &: Michael Bullock translation,
Copyright 1960 by, Jerome Chen &: Michael Ilullock; and for the WiBiam
McNaughton translation, Copy,right in Japan 1974 by Charles TuttJe.
University of California PreiS: for the Peter A. Boodbel'l translation, Copyright
1979 by The Repnts of the University of California.
University of Chicago Preas: for the Jamee J.Y. Uu trans",tion, Copyright 1962
by James J.Y. Liu.
Wai-lim YIP: for his translation, Copyright 1972 by Wai..um Yip.
An earlier version of Weinberger's essay·fIrst appeared in ZERO: CONTEMPORARY
BUDDHIST THOUGHT, edited by Eric Lemer. Paz's original essay,
plus a SPanish translation of Weinberger's essay by Ulalume Go~1ez de Le6n,
first appeared in VUELTA (Mexico City). The translation of Paz's essay Is by
Bliot Weinberger.
Library of Congress Cataloglng--in-Publication Data
Weinberger, Eliot.
Nmeteen waY!' of looking at Wang Wei.
1. Wang, "rei, 101-761. Lu ch'ai. 2. Wang, Wei,
7Ot-']61-Trahslations. I. Wang. Wei, 101-761.
Lu ch'a!. Polyglot. l,sJ. n. Paz, Octavio, 1914m.
TItle.
Pl.2676.A68)W4 1987 895.1'1) 87-216J4
ISBN <>-918825-14-8 (pbk.)



Poetry is that' which is worth translating.
For example, this four-line poem, 1200 years old: a mountain,
a forest, the setting sun illuminating a patch of moss. It
is a scrap of literary Chinese, no longer spoken as its writer
spoke it. It is a thing, forever itself, inseparable from its language.
And yet something about it has caused it to lead a nomadic
life: insinuating itself in the minds of readers, demanding
understanding. (but on the reader's own terms), provoking
thought, sometimes compelling writing in other languages.
Great poetry lives in a state of perpetual transformation, perpetual
translation: the poem dies when it has no place to go.
The transformations that take shape in print, that take the
formal name of "translation, n become their own beings, set
out on their own wanderings. Some live long, and some don't:
What kind of aeatures are they? What~happens when a poem,
once ~ese and still Chinese, becomes a piece of English,
Spanish, French poetry?
Here are 19 incarnations of a small poem by Wang Wei (c.
100-161), who was known in,his lifetime as a wealthy Buddhist
painter and ca1li.grapher,· and to later generations as a 'master
poet in an age of masterll, the Tang Dynasty. The quatrain is
from a series of twenty poems on various sights nea.r the Wang
River (no relation). The poems were written as par of a massive
horizontal landscape scroll, a genre invented by Wang.
The painting was copied (translated) for centuries. The original
is lost; and the earliest surviving copy comes from the 11th
century: Wang's landscape after 1000 yearS of transformation.
1
1/lD




,.1
(text)
t~
~w ;fJL ),,-,
~~k~'1
~ J:',' A ~';ft,
'M rt9. .:t.. -Jt 1__
~~~" -]:1 t2 ....r::-..



The poem is by Wang Wei (c. 700":"761), ~nown inhis lifetime
as a wealthy Buddhist painter and calligrapher, and to later
generations as a master poet in 'an age of masters, the Tang
Dynasty. The quatrain is from a series of twenty poems on
various sights near the Wang (no relation) River. The poems
were written a,s part of a massive horizontal landscape scroll,
a genre he invented. The painting was cOpied (translated) for
centuries. The original is lost, and the earliest surviving copy
comes from the 17th century: Wang's landscape after 900 years
of transformation.
In classical Chinese, each' character (ideogram) represents
a word of a ~ingJe syUabJe. Few of the characters are, as is
commonly thought, entirely representational. But some of the
basic vocabulary is indeed pictographic, and with those few
hundred characters one can play the game of pretending to
read Chinese. .
Reading the poem Jeft to right, top tooottom, the second
character in line 1 is apparently a mountain; the. last character
in the same line a person-both are stylizations that evolved
from more literal representations. Character 4 in line 1 ,was a
favorite of Ezra Pound's: w:hat he interpreted as an eye on legs;
that is, the eye in motion,' to see. Character 5 in line 3 is two
trees, forest. SpatiaJ relationships are concretely portrayed in:
character 3 of line 3, to enter, and. character 5 of line 4, aboDe
or on (top of). '
More typical of ChineSf! is character 2 of li11e 4, to $hine,
which contains an ~ge Qf the sun in the upper .left and of
fire at the bottom, as well as a purely phonetic element-key,
to the word's pronunciation-in the upper right. Most of the
other characters have no pictorial content useful for decipherment.
3



2
.(transliteration)
,",
LU'ZHAI
, , ,
Kong shan bu'-Han ren
" , , w w
Dan wen ren yu xiang
w _,
Fan jing (ying)rushen lin
Fu" zhao qing ta"i shang



The transliteration is from modem Chinese, using the cur...
rent, quirky pinyin system. Obvious, perhaps, to the Ruma~
nlans who helped develop it, but not to English speakers, is
that the zh is a j sound, the x a heavily aspirated s, arid the q
a hard cit. The ais the ah of father.
Though t)te characters have remained the SaIl1e, their p~
nunciatiQn has changed considerably since the Tang Dynasty.
In the 1920's the philologist Bernhard Karlgren attempted to
recreate Tang speech; a transDteration of this poem, using Karl:.
gren's system may be found in Hugh M. Stimson's 55 Tang
Poems (yale,. 1976). Unfortunately, the transliteration is written
in its own forbidding language, with upside-down letters, let-·
ters floating above the. words, and a leveled forest of diacritical
marks.
Chinese has the. least number of sounds of any major language.
In modem Chinese a monosyllable is pronounced in
one of fOur tones, but ~ny given sound in any given tone has
scores of possible meanings. Thus a Chinese monosyllabic word
(and often the written character) is 'cOmprehensible ori.ly in the
context of the phrase: a ~guistic basis, perhaps, for Chinese
philosophy, which was always based on relation rather than
substance.
For poetry, this means that rhyme is inevitable, andWestern
"meter" impossible. Chinese prosody is largely concerned with
the number of characters per line and the arrangement of
tones-both of which are untranslatable. But translators tend
to rush in where wise men never tread, and otten may be seen
attempting to nurture Chinese rhyme patterns in the hostile
environment of a Western language ..
IJ,Z 5




3
(charac.ter-by-characft~r
ti'anslatioh)


Empty mountain(s)
hill(s)
(negative) ,to see person
people

But to hear person,
people
words
conversation
Sj)und
to echo,

To
return bright(ness)
shadow(st
to enter' deep forest

To return
Again
to shine
to reflect
green
'blue
blade
moss
lichen
above
on (top of)
top




• According to ~Cheng, murning s1uItIt:Iws is a trope ~g rtIf/I of
JIlnsd.
6 7 1i.J




I have presented only those definitions that are possible for
this text. There are others.
A single character may be noun, verb, and adjective. It may
even have contradictory readings: character 2 of line 3 is either
fing (brightness) or ying (shadow). A,gain, context is all. Of
particular difficulty to the Western translator is the absence of
tense in cru.nese verbs: in the poem, what is happening has
happened and will happen. Similarly, nouns h~ve no number:

rose is a rose is all roses. '
Contrary to the evidence of most trans1ations~ the first,,:
person singular rarely appears in Chinese ~. By eHmi
nating the controlling individual mind of the po~t, the
experience becomes both universal and immediate to the reader.
The title of the poem, Lu wi, is a place-name, something

like Deer Gr~, which I take from a map of illinois. It probably
alludes to the Deer Park in Sarnath, where the Gautama Buddha
preached , his first sermon.
The first two lines ilJ'Ci! fairly straightforward. The' second
couplet;has, as we shall see, quite a few possible readings, all
of them equally "correct./I




4
The Fo. rm 6f. the Deer
So lone seem the hills; there is no one in sight there.
But whence is the echo of voices I hear?
The rays of the sunset pierce slanting the forest,
And in their reflection green mosses appear.
-W.J.B. Fletcher, 1919



The h:anslation is typical of those written before the general
recognition of Ezra Pound's Cathay, first published in 19J5.
Pound's small bOOk, containing some of the most beautiful
poems in the English Ia~guage, was based on a notebook of
literal Chinesetranslations.prepared by the orientalist Ernest
Fenollosa and a Japanese informant. The "accuracy" of Pound's
versions remains a sore point: pt!dants still snort at the errors,
but Wai-lim Yip has demonstrated that Pound, who at the time
knew no Chinese, intuitively corrected mistakes in the Fenollosa
manuscript. Regardless of its scholarly worth, Cathay
marked, in T.S. Eliot's words, "the invention of Chinese poetry
in: our time." Rather than stuffing the Original into the corset
of traditional verse forms, as Fletcher and many others had
done, Pound created a new poetry in English drawn hom what
was unique to the Chinese.
"Every force,". said Mother Ann Lee of the Shakers, "evolves
a foim. H Pound's genius was the discove~ of the living matter,
the force, of the Chinese poem-what he called the "news
that stays news" through the centuries. This living matter functions
som,ewhat like DNA, spinning out individual translations
which are relatives, not clones, of the Original. The relationship
between original and translation is'parent..child. And there are,
. inescapably, some translations that are overly attached to their
originals, and others that ate constantly rebelling.
Fletcher, like all early (and many later) translators, feels he
must explain and ;'improve" the. original poem. Where Wang's
sunlight enters the forest, Fletcher's rays pierce slanting; where
Wang states simply that voices are heard, Fletcher invents a
first-person .narrator who asks where the sounds are coming
: &om. (And if the hiDs are there, where is the narrator?)
. In line 4, ambiguity has been transh:tted into confusion:
..Fletcher's line has no meaning. (What reflection where?) Or
perhaps the line has a lovely aIldunJikely Platonic subtlety: if
their refers to the mosses,. then what appears·is the reflection.
of moss itself.
Fletcher explaihs his curious (and equally Platonic) title With
a note that wi means "the place where the deer sleeps, its
'form'." .
/.8'1





5
..,
Deer-Park Hermitage .
There seems to be no one on the empty mOUl)tain ...
And yet I tl.Unk I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.
-Witter Bynner & Kiang K.a ng-~.u , 1929

Witter Bynner was a.primary purveyor of Chinoiserie tra:nslation
in English in the 1920's-though not as. extreme an
exoticist as his Imagist counterparts, Amy Lowell and Florerice
Ayscough. His Chinese poet does however write from the
ethereal mists of tentative half-perception: there seems to be, and
yet I think I hear. (Wang, however, quite plainly sees no one .
and hears ~meone.)
Whet:e Wang is specific, Bynne:(s Wang ~to be watch~
ing the world through a haze of opium reflected in a hundred
thimbles of wine. It .isa world where no statement can be
made without a pregnant, sensitive, world-weary ellipsis. Th~
I even hears a voice whe~ the sunlight shines back to hinl.
from the moss. Such lack of sense was traditionally expbiined
by reference to the mystical, inscrutableFu Manchg East.




6
The Deer Park
An empty hill, and no one in sight
But I hear the echo of voices.
The slanting sun at evening penetrates the deep woods
And shines reflected on the blue lichens.
-Soame Jenyns, 1944




Dull, but fairly direct, Jenyns' only additions are the inevitable
I and the explanatory slanting sun at evening. He is the
only translator to prefer lichen to moss, though in plural form
the word is particularly ugly.
In the fourth line zhao becomes both shines reflected, rather
than one or, the other, but he is still in the "reflected" trap:
from what is the sun reflected?
: Chinese poetry was based on the precise observation of the
physical world. Jenyns and other translators come from a tradition
where the notion of verifying a poetic image would be
silly, where the word "poetic" itself is synonymous with
"dreamy. "
He might have squeaked by had he written And shines reflected
by the blue lichens-accurate to nature, if not to Wang.
But Jenyns-at the time iAssistant Keeper of the Department
of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, scribblirtg through
the Blitz-was so far removed from the poem's experience
that,he,found it necessary to add the fonowing footnote to line
2: "Th~ w(jods are SQ thick that woodcutters and herdsmen
are hidden."
12 lit 1)





7
La Foret.
Dans la montagne tout est solitaire,
On entend de bien loin l'kIlo des voix htunaines,
Le solei! qui p~n~tre au fond de la fo~t
Reflete son ~clat sur la mousse vert.
-G. MargouJi~, 1948
..
[The forest. On the moun~ everything is solitary'.1 One hears
from far off thEfecho of human voices,I The sun that penetrates
to the depths of the forest I Reflects its rayon the green moss.}


MargouJi~s prefers to generalize Wang's specifics: Deer Crcme
becomes, simply, The Forest; nobody in sight becomes the ponderous
malaise of everything is solitary. In the second line he
poeticizes the voices by having them come from far off. The
lrenCh indefinite pronoun happily excludes the need for a
\arI'I1tor.
167- 15





8
Deer Forest Hermitage
Through the deep wood, the slantirlg sunlight
Casts motley patterns on the jade-green mosses.
No glimpse of man in this lonely mountain,
.Yet faint voices drift on the air.
-:-Chang Yin-nan & Lewis C. Walmsley, 1958



Chang and Walnisley published the first book-length mlOsIanon
of Wang Wei in English, but Unfortunately their work
bore little resemblance to the original. .
In this poem, the couplets are reversed for no reason. The
voices are faint and drift on the air. The mountain is lonely (surely
a Western conceit, that empty = lonely!) but it's a decorator's
delight: the moss is as green as jade and the sunlight casts
motley patterns.
It is a classic example of the translator attempting to "improve"
the original. Such cases are not uncommon, and are
the product of a translator's unspoken contempt for the foreign
poet. It never occurs to Chang and Walmsley that Wang could
have written the equivalent of Casts motley patterns on the jadegreen
mosses had he wanteq to. He didn't.
In its way a spiritual exercise, translation is dependent on
the dissolution of the translator's ego: an absolute humility
toward the text. A bad translation is the insistent voice of the
translatot- that is; when one sees no poet and hears only the
translatot speaking.
16 IfJ 17






9
The Deer Enclosure
On the lonely mountain
I meet no one,
I hear only the echo
of human voices.
At an angle the sun's rays
enter the depths of the wood,
And shine
upon the green moss.
-C.]. Chen &: Michael Bullock, 1960


Chen and Bullock make some familiar "improvements": the
first-person narrator, the lonely mountain, the sun at an angle.
Wang's see becomes meet in their second line. Their main innovation
is the creation of eight lines for Wang's four-a gesture
that apparently caught them short when they had to break
the last line into two. .
18
;,:9q 19







10
On the eIl)pty moun~ins no one can be seen,.
But human voices are heard to resound.
I The reflected .sunlight pierces the deep forest
And falls again upon the mossy ground. j
I
~James J.Y. tiu, 1¢2


Liu's book, TheArt of Chinese Poetry, applied the techniques
of 1940's New Criticism to the interpretation of Chinese poetry.
The New Critics preached strict ~ttention to sense (special
emphasis on learned irony) and the general neglect of music.
Thus Liu'sversion is more accurate than most, but the first
two lines heave; the third gasps, and the fourth falls with a
thud on the mossy ground. .
In the first line, by changing the expected is to can be, Liu
has transfonned Wang's specifics into a general and not terribly
bright remark. Human voices, a steal from Eliot, is redundant;
and thel9th century resound is only there to rhyme with ground.
A ray of sunlight might pierce the deep forest, but reflected
sunlight wouldn't,. and absent from Liu's third line is the sense
that it is late afternoon, that the sunlight is returning to the
forest. In the fourth line, green has been subtracted, ground
added. .
In Liti's favor, however, are the absence of the ~I" arid the
usual explanations.
20 t~o 21





11
Deep .in, the Mountain
Wilderness'
Deep in the mountain wilderness
Where nobody ever comes
Only once in a great while
Something like the sound of a far off voice.
The low rays of the sun
Slip through the dark forest,
Andgleam again on the shadowy moss ..
-Kenneth Rexroth, 197()



The taxonomy of Chinese translators is fairly simple. There
are the scholars: most are incapable of writing poetry, but a
few can (among them: Burton Watson, A.C. Graham, Arthur
Waley, Jonathan Chaves). And there are the poets: most know
no Chinese, a few know some. Kenneth Rexroth belonged to
this last category (along with Gary Snyder and the later
Pound}-although this particular example is perhaps more
Uimitationll than translation. '
RexrothJgnores what he presumably dislikes, or feels cannot
be translated, in the original. ,The title is. eliminated, and
the philosophical empty 1'tunllitain becomes the empirical mountain
wilderness. Certain words and phrases are his own invention.
One of them, where inobody e:oer Comes leads him into a
trap: he must modify the SDund of a far off voice with SDmething
like, and it makes a rather clutzy fourth line. But this is cleady
the first poem of the group, able to stand by itself. It is the
closest to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original: the poem
Wang ~ght have writtert had he been bom a 20th century
American. '
Rexroth!s great skill is ,~pparent in three tiny gestures. In
line 2, by using comes rather than the more obvious goes he
has created an implicit ·nanator-observer (i.e., "comes here
where I am") without usitig the first person. Second, he takes
an. utterly ordinary phrase, once in II great while, and lets us
hear it, for the first time, as something lovely and onomatopoeiC.
And third, Rexroth~s slip for Wang's enter is'perhaps too
sensual-reminiscent of Sanskrit forest trysts-but it is irre
·sistible.
,U tqI 23






12
Deer Fence
Empty hills, no one ill sight,
only the sound of someo~e talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.
.-Burton Watson, 1971


Watson is a prolific and particularly fine translator of classical
Chinese and Japanese poetry, history and philosophy; he
is comparable only to Arthur Waley in this centwy. He was
also the first scholar whose work displayed an affinity with
the modernist revolution in American poetry: absolute precision,
concision, and the use ·of everyday speech.
[Curiously, while most of the French. and American modernists
lit joss sticks at the altars of their newfound Chinese
ancestors, the scholars of Chinese ignored, or were actively
hostile to modern poetry. Many still ate. Chinese poets were,
however, excited by the doings in the West. Hu Shi's 1917
manifestoes, which laUllf.ited the "Chinese Renaissance" in
literature by rejecting classical language and themes in favor
of vernacular and"reaUsm", were largely inspired by Ezra
Pound's 1913 Imagist manifestoes. Full circle:Pounq. thought
he found it in Chirui, Hu Shi thought it came from the West.]
Watsori here renders the first two characters of line 1 with
two words; no article, no: explanation. His presentation of the
image is as direct as the Chinese. There are 24 English words
(six per line) for the Chinese 20, yet every word of the Chinese
has been translated without indulging, as others have done,
in a telegraphic minimalism. In the translation of Chinese poetry,
as in everything, nothing is more difficult than simplicity.
More than anangements of tones, rhymes, and number of
. characters per line, Chinese poetry, ~e all ancierit poetries, is
based on parallelism: the dual (yin-yang) nature of the universe.
Wang's first two lines are typical: see no peaplel but hear people.
He even repeats a character. Watson retains Wang's parallelil;m
effortlessly enough (no cmelsomeone) yet he is the first translator
to do so.
24 I tf2... 25









13
Deer Enctosure
Empty moun~: no man is seen,
But voices of men are heard.
Sun's reflection reaches into the woods
And shines upon the green moss.
-WaHim Yip, 1972
26


Yip is a critic who l}.as written brilliantly on the importance
of Chinese poetics to 20th century American poetry. As a translator
he is. less successful, perhaps because English is apparently
his second language. (It is rarely possible, though many
try, to translate out ot one's natural language.) Thus the
strangeness of no man is seen and the oddly anthropomorphic
reaches into.
Like Burton Watson, Yip follows Wang's repetition otperson
in the first two lines (though his persons are men) and presents
six EngIish word~ per line· tor the ~ese five. But unlike
Watson· and the other translators, Yip actually gives us less
than the original-leaving out deep and again.
In a later version of this transJation, published in his anthology
Chinese Poetry (University of California Press, 1976),
Yip clipped the first line to the almost pidgin Empty mountain:
no man.
27
[r3





14
Deer Park
~s empty, no one to be seen
We hear only voices echoed-
With light coming back into the deep wood
The top of the green moss is lit again.
-G.W. Robinson, 1973

Robinson's tranSlatfon, published by Penguin Books, is, unhappily,
the most widely' available edition of Wang in English.
In this poem Robinson not only ~ates a narrator, he makes
it a group, as though it were a family outing. "With that one
word, we, he effectively scuttles the mood of the poem.
Reading the last word of the poem as top, he offers an image
that makes little sense on the forest floor: one would have to
be small indeed to think. of moss vertically.
For a jolt to the system, try reading this aloud.
28 19'f 29







'15
En la Ermita delParque',de los Venados
No se ve gente en este monte.
5610 se oyen, lejos, voces.
Por los ramajes la luz rompe.
Tendidaentre la yerba brilla verde.
-Octavio Paz, 1974


[In the Deer Park Hermitage. No people are seen on this moUntain.
1 Only voices, far off, are heard.J Light breaks through the
branches.J;Spread among the grass it shines green,]
For the second (1978) edition of Versiones y Diversiones, his
selected translations, Paz wrote:
The translation of this poem is particularly difficult, for the
poem carries to an extreme the characteristics of Chinese poetry:
universality, impersonality, absence of time, absence of
subject. In Wang Wei's poem, the solitude of the mountain is
so great that not even the poet himself is present. After a
number of attempts I wrote these four llnrhymed lines: three
with nine syllables each and the last with eleven.
Months later; reading some Mahayana texts, I was surprised
by the frequency with whlch the Western paradise, domam of
the Aptida Buddha,' is mentioned. I remembered that Wang
Wei had been a fervent Buddhis~: I consulted one of his biographies
and discovered that his devotion for Amida was ,such
that he had written a h~ in which he speaks of his desire
to be reborn in the Westeht Paradise-the place of the setting
sun... ,
This is nature poetry" but a Buddhist nature poetry: does
not the quatrain reflect, even more than the naturalistic aesthetidsVl
traditional. in this kind of composition, a spiritual
experience? Sometime later, Burton Watson,who knoWs my
love for .Chinese poetry, senf me his Chinese Lyricism~,Th&e I
encountered a confirmation of my suspicion: for Wang Wei the
light of the setting sun had a very precise meaning. An allusion
to the' Amida Buddha: at the end of the afternoon the adept
meditates and, like the moss 'in the forest, recei,,!es illumination.
Poetry perfectly objective, impersonal, far from the m~ticism
,of a St. John of the Cross, but no less authentic or
profound than that of the; Spanish poet~ Transfonnation of man
and nature beforethf! divine light, although in'a sense inverse
to that of Western tradition. In place of the humanization of
the world that stqTounds us, the Oriental spirit is iJ:i\pregnated
with the objectivity, passivity and impersonality of the trees,
grass and rocks, so that, impersonally, it receives the impartial
light of a revelation that is also impersonal. Without losmg the
30 31 19k"""




reality of the trees, rocks and earth, Wang Wei's mountain and
forest are emblems of the void. Imitating his reticence, I limited
myself to lightly c~ging the last two lines:
No se ve gente en este monte.
5610 se oren, lejos, voces.
La luz poniente rompe entre las ramas.
En la yerba tendida brilla verde.
[No people are seen on this mountain.! Only voiceS~ far oft,
are heard.! Western ligh~ breaks through the branches.! Spread
over the grass it shines green.]
Paz drops empty from the, first line; in the second,
like Margouli~s and Rexroth, he makes the voices far off. His
third line, though not strictly literal, may be the most beautiful
of all the versions: rep~dng the abstract light enters the forest
with the concrete and dramatic light breaks through the branches-:-the
light almost becoming the sudden illumination, saton, of
Zen Buddhism. In the fourth line, the moss has become grass,
no doubt because the Spanish word for moss, musgo, is unpleasantly
squishy. (How mossy-soft and damp-is the English
moss!)
What is missing from these lovely third 'and fourth lines is
the cyclical quality'of the original. Wang begins both lines with
to return: taking a specific time of day and transforming it into
a moment, frozen in its recurrence, that becomes cosmic. Relld..;
ing the image as a metaphor for illumination, the ordinary'
(sunset in the forest) represents the extraordinary (the enlightenment
of the individwlI) which, in terms of the cosmos, is as,
ordinary as sunlight illuminating a patch of moss.
, An endless series of negations: The mountain seems empty
(without people) because noOne's in sight. But people are
heard, so the mountain is not empty. But the mountain is empty
because'it is an illusion. The light from the Western Paradise,
the: light called shadow falls.
33
(<I,






16
Li Ch'ai
In empty mountains no one can be seen.
But here might echoing voices cross.
Reflecting rays
entering the deep wood
Glitter again
on th.e dark green moss.
-William McNaughton, 1974


McNaughton offers the Otinese place-name as a title, but
his transliteration is incorrect-something like B!!tr Park..
Line 1 has been turned into a general statement, almost a
parody of Eastern Wisdom: in an empty glass there is no liquid.
Line 2 places the action here for no reason and adds cross for
the rhyme scheme he .has imposed on himself.· (Not much
rhymes with moss; it's something of an albatross. But he might
have attempted' an Elizabethan pastora:l echoing. voices toS$ or
perhaps a half-Augustan, half-Dada echoing voices sauce.)
Splitting the last couplet into four lines is apparently an
attempt at pictorial representation. The last line adds dark .to
fill out the thumpety-thump.
,r;
34 iff





17
Clos aux cerfs
Montagne'deserte. Personne n'est en vue.
Seuls, les echos des voix resonnent, au loin.
Ombres retoument dans la forlllt profonde:
Demier eclat de la moussei vert.
-Fran~is Cheng, 1977
[Deer Enclosure. Deserted mountain. No one in sight.! Only,
the echoes of voices resound, far off.! Shadows retum to the
deep forest:/ Last gleaming of the moss, green.]
Cheng wI1-tes:
[Wang1 describes here a walk on the mountain, which is at the
same time a spiritual experience, an experience of the Void
and of communion with Nature. The first couplet should be
interpreted "On the empty mountain I meet no one; only some
echoes of voices of people walking come to me." But through
the suppression of the personal pronoun and of locativeelements
the poet identifies hiniself immediately with the"empty
mountain," which is therefore no longer merely, a "complement
of place"; similarly, in the third line he is the ray of the
setting sun that penetrates the forest. From the point of view
of content, the first two li:qes present the poet as still "not
seeing"; in his ears the echoes of human voices still resound.
The last two lines are centered in the theme of "vision": to see
the golden effect of the setting sun on the green moss. Seeing
here signifies illumination and deep communion with the essence
of things. Elsewhere the poet often omits the personal
pronoun to effect the description of actions in sequence where
human acts are related to movements in nature.
(tr. Donald Riggs & Jerome Seaton)
Cheng also presents a literal translation of the poem:
Montagne ,vide 1 n~ percevoir personne
Seulement entendre 1 voix humaine resonner
Ombre-retoumee / penetrer forlllt profonde
Encore luire I, sur la mousse verte
It is curious to see how'Cheng poeticizes and even Westernizes
his literal version to create a finished translation. The
Buddhist montagne vide (empty mountain) becomes theRomantic
montagne deserte'(des~rted mountain). Echos and au loin,
(far off) are added to the second line. In the third, his literal
omhre-retournte (returned shadow-a trope he notes as'mean36
37
ffa
ing Nrays of sunset") has become a subject and verb, ombres
retournent (shadows return) which considerably alters the
meaning. Cheng's last line'is quite peculiar: the literal E.ncore
luire sur III mousse verte (to shine again on the green moss)
becomes Demier iclllt de lR mousse, vert (last gleaming of the
moss, green-:-the green referring to the gleaming, not the
moss). The line owes more to FrenCh Symbolists than to Tang
Buddhists.
Translatiol)s aside, Cheng's book is a luminous, original
study of Chinese poetry. In the English version, published in
1982, Jerome P. Seaton, working "after the lnterpretations of"
Cheng, Qffers a translatiqn that seems to owe more to Gary
Snyder's 1978 poem (#19) than to Cheng:
DEER PARK
Empty mountain. ~one to be seen.
But hear, the echoing of voices ..
Returning shadows enter deep, the· grove.
Sun shines, again, on lichen's green.
39
IffY







18
The Deer Park
Not the shadow on a man on the deserted bill-
And yet one hears voices speaking;
Deep in the seclusion of the woods,
Stray shafts of the sun pick out the green moss.
tI
-H.C. Chang, 1977
Chang translates 12 of Wang's 20 words, and makes up the
rest.
In tine 1 the first on, is probably a typographical error, but
in such surroundings,'it's hard to tell. In any event, what's
that shadoio doing (or more exactly, not doing) there? Only the
shadow knows.
Why are the shafts of sun stray? Why are'they shtlfts at all?
And why do they pick put the moss? The verb is unavoidably
reminiscent of the consumption of winkles and crab.
In short, the poem is more Chang than Wang. (It is taken
from a three-volume set, all by the same translator, and published,
oddly, by ColumbUiL.University Press.)
40 :too 41







19
Empty mountains:
no one to be seen.
Yet-hearhuman
sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark Woodsi
Again shining
on the green moss, above.
-Gary Snyder, 1978
4:L
Surely one of the best translations, partially because of Snyder's
lifelong forest experience. Like ReXX'9th, he can see the
scene. Every word of W~g has beeti. translated, and nothing
added, yet th.e translatiorl. exists as an American poem.
Changing the passive is heaTd to the imperative heaT is particularly
beautiful, and not incorrect: it creates an .exact moment,
which. is now. Giving us both meanings, sounds and
.echoes, for the last word <;If line 2 is, like most sensible ideas,
revolutionary. Translators always assume that only on~ reading
of a foreign word or phrase may be presented, despite the
fact tr ..... perfect correspondence is rare. .
The poem ends strangely. Snyder takes the last word, which
everyone else has read as on, and translates it with its alternative
meaning, above, isolating it from the phrase with a
comma. Whlit's gOing on? Moss presumably is only abOve if
one is a rock or bug. Or are we meant to look up, after seeing
the mo$s, back toward the sun: the vertical metaphor of enlightenment?
IIi answer to my query; Snyder wrote: "The reason for'...
moss, above' ... is that the sun is entering (in its sunset sloping,
hence 'again'-a fin/ill shaft) the woods, and i1luminating
some mpSs up in the trees,' (NOT ON ROCKS.) This is how my
teacher Ch'en Shih-hsiangsaw it, and my wife Oapanese) too,
the first time she looked at the poem."
The. point is that translatiOn is more than a leap from dictionary
to dictionary; it is'a reimagining of the poem. As sueh,
every r~ading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act
of translation: translation into th,e reader's intellectual and
emotionallUe. As no individual reader remains the same, each
reading becomes a different-not merely another-reading.
The same poem cannot be read twice..'
Snyder's explanation is only one moment, the Jatest, when
the poem suddenly tranf:lfonns ~foreour eyes. Wangs20
characters remain the same, but the poem continues in a state,
of restless change. .
,2p( 43








Further Comments
Eliot Weinberger's commentary on the succes~ive translations
of Wang Wei's .little poem illustrates, with sut:cinct clarity,
not only the evolution of the art of'translation ih the modem
period but at the same ti1l'\e the changes in poetic sensibility.
His examples come frOm English and, to a lesser extent, from
French; I am sure that a parallel exploration of German or
Italian would produce similar resuJts. Wefuberger cites only
one Spanish version, my own: There may be another, and
perhaps one or two in PortugUese. One must admit, however,
that Spanish and Portuguese do' not enjoy a corpus of Chinese
translation sirililar inimportar\ce or quality to that of other
languages. This is regrettable: the modem era has discovered
other classicisms besides that of Greco,...Roman culture, 'and
one of them is China and Japan. '
Weinberger's commentary led me backto my own translation.
Probably the greatest difficulty for any translator of a
Chinese poem is the unique temper of the language and of
the writing. The majority of the poems in the Shi jing, the mbst
ancient collection of Chinese poetry, are written in lines of fouT
syllables that are four characters/words. For example, the pho-,
netic transcription of the first line of a sm~U erotic poem in the
Shi jing is composed of these' foUr q1.onosyllables: Xing nu qi
shu. The literal translation is: Sweet girl how pretty. It is not
impossible to transform'this phrase ,in.to a line from a ballad:
iQu~ linda 1tl dulce niM! or How lcroely the pretty maiden! Five
words and eight syllables, twice the original. Arthur Waley
thought to resolve the prosOdic'problem by having each Chinese
mo~osyllable correspond toa,tonie'accent in the English line.
The result was English lines that were quite long, but with the
same number of acCents as the Chinese,original. This method,
besides being not terribly perfect, is iriapplicable to Spanish:
in our language words' generally have 'more syllables than English
iainbtc pentameter. ~Our,line has either three accents (in
the fourth syllable, in the seventh or' eighth, and in the tenth)
or only two (in the sixth and the tenth). In contrast, the English
line has five accents or rhythmic beats. Furthermore, in English
~o1...







the number of syllables may vary; not only do we have more
consonants, but we may also rely on a rich assonaitce. The
great advantage of the assonant is that the rhyme becomes a
. distant echo, one which never eXactly repeats the endings of
the previous line. I will note, finally, a small similarity between
Chinese arid Spariish versification: in Chinese poetry only paired
verses are rhymed, exactly like our romances and traditional
assonant poems."
The first to attempt to make English poems out of Chinese
originals was Ezra Pound. AU of us since who have translated
Chinese and Tapanese poetry are not only his followers but
his debtors. I never found P01,lfid's theory of translating Chinese
persuasive, and in other writings I have hied to explain my
reasons. It doesn't matter: though his theories seemed unreliable,
his practice not only convinced me but,:Jiterally.. enchanted.
me. Pound did not attempt to findm.etrical equivalents
or rhymes: taking off hom the images-ideograms of the orig~
inals, he wrote English poems in free verse. ThOse poems had
(and still have) an enormous poetic freshness; at the same time
they allow us to glimpse another civilization, and one quite
distant from Westem Greco-Roman tradition.
The poems of CAthay (1915) were written in an energetic:
language and in irregular verses which I have rather loosely
labeled as free. In fact, ctIthough they do not have fixed measures,
each one of them is a verbal unity. Nothing could be
more l!linote from the prose chopped into short lines that today
passe,S for free verse., Do Pound's poems correlJlPond to the
originals? A useless question: Pound invented, as Eliot said,
Chinese poetry in English. The points of departure were sOme
ancient Chinese poems,revivedand changed by a great poet;
the result was other poems. Others: the same. With that small
volume of translations Pound, te) a great extent, began modem
poetry in English. Yet, at the same time, ,he also began something
uriique: the modem tradition of classical Chinese poetry
in the poetic: conscience of the West.
Pound's effort was a success, and after Cathlly many
others followed on various paths. I am thinking above a.n of
Arthur Waley. The translations of Chinese andJapanese poetry
into English have been so :great and so diverse that they themselves
form a chapter in the modem poetry of the language.
I find nothing similar in French, although there are notable
translations, sl:lch as those by,Claude Roy or Fran~ois Cheng..
Certainly we owe to Claudel, Segalen, and Saint-John Perse
poetic visions of China-'but not memorable translations. It's
a pity. In Spanish this lack has impoverished us.
In my own isolated a,ttempts I followed, at first, the examples
of Pound and, more than anyone, 'Waley-a ductile
talent, but OJ'),e less intense and less powerful. Later, little by
little, I found my own way. At.the beginning I used free verse;
later I hied to adjust myself to ~ fixed rule, without of course
attempting to reproduce Chinese meter. In general, I have
endeavored to retain the number of lines of each poem, not
to scom. assonances and to respect, as much as possible, the
plU1illelism. This last el~ent is central to Chinese poetry, but
neither Pound nor Waley gave it the attention it deserves. Nor
do the other translators in English. It is a serious omission not
only because parallelism· is the nucleus of the best. Chinese
poets and philosophers: the yin and the yang. The unity that
splits into dualty to reunite and to divide again. I would add
that parallelism links" however slightly, our own indigenous
Mexican poetry with that of China.
, In the Han era they moved ,from a four-syllable line to one
of five and seven (gu shi)'. These poems are composed in a
sbict tonal counterpoint. (The classica.llanguage haS foUr tones.)
'f:he number of lines is' undefined. and only paired. lines 'are
rhYJl":ld. During the Tang period, versification became more
stri~ and they wrote poems of eight and four lines (lu shi and
jue qu; respectively). The lines of those poems are, as in the
earlier style; composed of five and seven syllables; the same
rhyme is used throughout the poem. The other ntlea apply to
parallelism (the four lines in the center of the poem must form
two antithetical couplets) and the tonal structure. This last
}..o]
47








recalls, in certain respects; classical quantitative versificationalthough
the rhythm does .not co~e from the combination of
short and long syllables bUJ rather from the altemation of
tones. Every Chinese poem· offers a 'true counterpoint that
cannot be reproduced in any Indo-European language. I will
spare the reader the chart of the various combinations (two
fOr the five syllable lines and two for the seven). There are
other forms: the ci (tz'u), poetry written to accompany already
existing musical tunes and with lines of unequal Jengthi dra~
tic verse (qu) and the Iyric·dra~tic (san qu). .
Wang Wei's poem is written in four lines o.f five sy&bles
each (jue qU)i the second line rhymes with the fourth. In older
to transmit the information of the original, while attempting
to recreate the poem in Spanish, I decided to use a line of nine
syllables. I chose this meter not only because of its greater
amplitude but also because it appeared to be, without actually
being, a trunCated hendecasyllable. It is the least traditional of
our meterS and it appears infrequently in Spanish poetry, ex·
cept among the Nmodernists"-above all, Ruben Darlo-who
used it a great deal. I t,Uso decided to use assonant rhyme, but
unlike the ChineSe original I rhymed all four lines. The poem
is divided into. two parts. The first alludes to the solitude of
the forest, and aural rather than visual sensations predominate
(no one is seen, only voices are heard). The second refers to
the apparitiqri oflight in a forest clearing and is comPosed of
silently visuAl sensations: the lightmeaks through the branches,
falls on the moss and, in a manner of speaking, rises again.
Attentiv~:to this sensual and spir.i.tual division, I: divided the
poem into two pairs: the £irst line rhymes with the secqnd and
the third rhymes with the fourtJ:t. I left the two first lines of
my earlier version intact, but !radically changed the third. and
the fourth lines:·
48
No se ve gente en este monte,
8610 se oyen, lejos, voces.
Bosque profundo: Luz poniente:
alumbra el Il\usgo y, verde, asciende.
(No people are seen on thismountain,l only voices, far-off,
areheard.l Deep forest. Western Iight:1 it illuminates the moss
and, green, rises.]
The first two lines need no explanation. Itseems to me that
I succeeded in transmitting the information whit!:! conserving
the impersonality of the original: the I is implicit. The third·
line, according to Fran9lis Cheng, means literally: returning
sIuuImo-to penetrate-deep-forest. Cheng points out that returning
shadow alludes to the western sun. James}. Y. Uu tranSlates
in similar terms but, with greater propriety, says reflected
light in place of returni1'fg shadtniJ. In his literary version Uu
writes; The reflected sunlight pierces the deep forest. Cheng has
. Ombrd retournent dans ta for't profonde. The reader, through a
note at the foot of the page, learns that ombres retournent-a
rather forced trope:-means the rays of the setting sun.· And
why shadows and not light or brightness or something similar?
I wavered a great.deal about translating this line. First I wrote;
Cruza el follaje el sol poniente. (The western sun crosses the
foliage.) But the poet does not speak of foliage but rather of
the forest. I then tried: .Traspasa el bosque el sol poniente. (The
western sun crosses through the forest.) Somewhat better, but
perhaps too energetic, too active. Next I decided to omit the
verb, as Spanish allowed the ellipsiS. The two syntactical blocks
(bosque profundo/luz. poniente; deep forest/western light) pre~
served the impersonality of the original and at the same time
afiuded to .the silent ray of light crossing through the overgrowth.
According to Cheng the last lin~ means: still-to Shineon-
green-moss. Uusays: again......shine-grten-11Wss-upon.
That is: the reflection is green. In his literal version Weinberger
'zot 49



includes aU of the possibilities: to,returnlagain-to,shinelto re-{
lect-grtenJbluelb1ack-mossllichen-abowlon(top of)Itop. In two
places my version departs from th.e others. First: the western
light illuminates the moss-in place of reflectirig it or shining
on it-because the verb illuminate contains both the 'phys~Cal
aspect of. the phenome,non (shining, light, clarity, brightness)
and the spiritual (to illuminate understanding). Second: I say
that the green reflection ascends or rises because I want to accentuate
the spiritual character of the scene. The light of the
western sun refers to the point of the horizon ruled by the
Amida Buddha. Without trying to pin down the floating gante
of anal~gies, one mightsay that the western sun is the spiritual
light of the paradise of the West,' the cardinal point of the
Amida Buddha; the solitude of the mountain and the forest is
this world in which there is noboQy really, though' we hear
the echoes of voices; and the clearing in the forest illuminated
by the silent ray of light is the one who meditates and contemplates.
-Octavio paz
50
Postscript
Alter the publication of these 'commentaries in ~e Mexican
magazine Vuelta, the editors received a furious letter from a
professor at the Colegio de Mexico, charging me with nothing
less than ncrimes against Chinese poetry. H Among those criminal
acts was the "curious neglect" of "Boodberg's cedule."
. The cryptic reference, I later discovered, was to Ctdu1es from.
a Berkeley Workshop in Asiatic'P1ulology, a series of essays privately
published by Prof. Pete~ A. Boodberg1n 1954 and 1955.
The relevant essay, "Philology in Translation-Land,"' is 1~
pages lo~g and is devoted to excoriating, in idiosyncratic language,
an other translators and scholars ofWang Wei for failing
to reaHze' that th~ ll:'st word ~f the poem, sluzng (which now
means above, on (top ofl, top) had an alternate meaning in the
Tang dynasty: to rise. '
This usage apparently dropped out of the language centuries
ago. But for those who doubt the aCCiJ.raCY of poetry!
translated by poets rather than scholars, it should be noted
that Octavio P.az, in his latest version of the poem, intuitively
divined this forgotten meaning and translated the word a,s"
asc(endt. '" ,
Boodberg ends his "cedule" with his own verSion of the ,
poem, which he calls fla still· inadequate, yet philolOgically.
correct, rendition of the stanza (with"due attention to graphosyntactic
overtones, and enjambment),': .
The empty mountain: to see no men,
Barel, earminded of me1,:l talldng-countertones,
And antistrophk lights-and,sluidoWs incoming deeper the
deep-treed grove, . '
Once more to glowlight the blue-green mosses-going up
(The empty mountain ... ) .
To me ~ sounds like Gerard Manley Hopkins on LSD,
and I am grateful to the furious professor for sending me in
search of this, the strangest of the many Weis.
-B.W.
;to.,) 1;1




Sources
Bynner, Witter&: Kiang Kang-hu. The Jade Mountain. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. .
. .'
Clang; H.C. Ghinese LiterrltuTe, Vol 11: Nature Poetry. New'York:
Columbia University. Press, 1977.
Chen~ C.J. &: Michael Bullock. roems of Solitude. Rutland, Vt.
&: Tokyo: Charle~ E. Tuttle, 1960. .' ..
Cheng, Fran9)is. L'tcriture poetique chinoise. Paris: Editions duo
SeuU, 1977. [English translation: Chinese Poetic Writing:. trans..
by Donald A. Riggs &: Jerome P. Seaton. BloominSton: Indiana
University Pre~s, 1982.)
Fletcher,w..J.B. Gems of Chinese Verse. Shanghai: n.pbJ., 1919.:
Jenyns, Soame.. Further Poems of the T'ang Dynasty. London;
John Murray, ;1944.
Liu, James J.Y. The Art ofChinese Poetry. Chicago: University of
Chi~go Press. 1962.
McNaughton, Wi.l1iam. Chinese Uterature. Rutland, \'t.: Charl~
E. Tuttle, 197:4. .
"
Matgouli~s, G. Anthologie Raisonre de 1Il LitthahlTe Chinoise..'Paris:
Payot,·1948.
Paz, Octavio. Versiones y Diversiones. Mexico City: Joaqufn Mor- .
tiz, 1974 (revised edition, 1978). .
Rexroth, Kenneth. Love and the Turning Year. New York: New
~ctions, 1970. .
Robinson, C.w.. Poems of Wang Wei. Hannondsworth, U.K:
Penguin Books, 1973. . .
Snyder, Gary. Journal for the Protection of All Beings. No. ~, Fall·
1978. .
Wang Wei. 1hiding the Universe. tra~. b}r Win-lim Xip. N~ .. . . . ~
York: MunshinshalGrossman, 1972. . ','
Wang Wei. Poems. trans. by Chartg Yin-nan &: Lewis Walm~ley.
Rutland, vt. &: Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1958. "
Watson, Burton. Chinese Lyricism. New York: Columbia Universitv
Press. 1971.
2,oi

Forêt nom féminin – éditions IMS
Projet d'un texte de présentation :

« Les forest sont des lieux
où les bestes sauvages ne sont point enfermées ; »

Forêt, nom féminin est un livre composé à partir d'une collection de toutes les définitions possibles d'un seul mot, glanées au détour de dictionnaires de différentes époques, comme pour tenter de comprendre ce qu'un mot veut nous dire.
Ce protocole simple devient une tentative de cartographier un terme, une exploration d'un lieu du langage et de l'imaginaire, et permet – à travers quelques rencontres plus ou moins inquiétantes – de se perdre aux détours de ses sens.

Walter Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers traduit par Martine Broda ("la tâche du traducteur") : 
La traduction ne se voit pas comme l’œuvre plongée pour ainsi dire à l’intérieur du massif forestier de la langue, elle se tient hors de lui, face à lui, et sans y pénétrer, elle y appelle l’original aux seuls endroits où, dans sa propre langue, elle peut à chaque fois faire sonner l’écho d’une œuvre écrite en langue étrangère. Non seulement son intention a un autre objet que celle de l'œuvre, mais elle est aussi une autre intention : celle de l’écrivain est naïve, première, intuitive, celle du traducteur dérivée, dernière, idéelle.







Walter Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers, traduit par Laurent Lamy (l'Abandon du traducteur)
Cependant, la traduction ne se voit pas, à l'instar de l'œuvre poétique, plongée pour ainsi dire au cœur même de la forêt de montagne qu'est la langue ; elle se tient à l'orée, face à elle et, sans y pénétrer, elle y sollicite l'original aux seuls endroits où il lui est donné de faire résonner dans sa propre langue l'écho d'une œuvre conçue dans une langue étrangère. Non seulement son intention vise un autre objet que celle de l'oeuvre poétique, c'est-à-dire une langue dans son intégralité, saisie à travers le prisme d'une oeuvre d'art particulière conçue dans une langue étrangère, mais elle se veut elle-même d'une autre nature : l'intention de l'écrivain est naïve, primaire, intuitive, celle du traducteur dérivée, finale, idéelle. 



une autre traduction:


La traduction, cependant, ne se voit pas, comme l’oeuvre littéraire, pour ainsi dire plongée au coeur de la forêt alpestre de la langue ; elle se tient hors de cette forêt, face à elle, et, sans y pénétrer, y fait résonner l’original, au seul endroit chaque fois où elle peut faire entendre l’écho d’une oeuvre écrite dans une langue étrangère. Non seulement son intention vise autre chose que ne le fait celle de l'œuvre littéraire […], mais elle-même est autre : l’intention de l’écrivain est naïve, première, intuitive ; la sienne est dérivée, ultime, idéelle.


et dans 
Walter Benjamin, Rue à sens unique, traduit de l’allemand par Anne Longuet-Marx – éditions Allia, Paris, 2015 :







MARCHANDISES DE CHINE
[...]
La force d’une route de campagne est tout autre selon qu’on y chemine à pied ou qu’on la survole en aéroplane. Ainsi diffère également la force d’un texte si on le lit ou si on le copie. L’aviateur voit seulement comment la route se propulse à travers le paysage, elle se déroule sous ses yeux suivant les mêmes lois que le terrain qui l’entoure. Seul celui qui chemine sur la route prend la mesure de son emprise et réalise comment de ce terrain qui pour l’aviateur n’est précisément qu’une plaine déroulée, elle fait surgir, sur ordre, des lointains, des belvédères, des clairières, des perspectives à chacun de ses tournants, tel l’appel d’un commandant fait sortir les soldats du rang. Ainsi, seul le texte copié commande l’âme de celui qui en est occupé, tandis que le simple lecteur n’apprend jamais à connaître les nouveaux aspects de son intériorité, comme les ouvre le texte, cette route à travers la forêt vierge intérieure s’épaississant toujours et encore : parce que le lecteur obéit au mouvement de son moi dans le libre domaine aérien de la rêverie, tandis que celui qui recopie l’expose à être commandé. Ainsi, la copie des livres en Chine fut la garantie incomparable d’une culture littéraire et une clef des énigmes de ce pays. 

Caroline Bergvall


Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per une selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita
—The Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto 1 (1–3)


1. Along the journey of our life half way
I found myself again in a dark wood
wherein the straight road no longer lay
(Dale, 1996)

2. At the midpoint in the journey of our life
I found myself astray in a dark wood
For the straight path had vanished.
(Creagh and Hollander, 1989)

3. HALF over the wayfaring of our life,
Since missed the right way, through a night-dark wood
Struggling, I found myself.
(Musgrave, 1893)

4. Half way along the road we have to go,
I found myself obscured in a great forest,
Bewildered, and I knew I had lost the way.
(Sisson, 1980)

5. Halfway along the journey of our life
I woke in wonder in a sunless wood
For I had wandered from the narrow way
(Zappulla, 1998)

6. HALFWAY on our life’s journey, in a wood,
From the right path I found myself astray.
(Parsons, 1893)
Caroline Bergvall 83

7. Halfway through our trek in life
I found myself in this dark wood,
miles away from the right road.
(Ellis, 1994)

8. Half-way upon the journey of our life,
I found myself within a gloomy wood,
By reason that the path direct was lost.
(Pollock, 1854)

9. HALF-WAY upon the journey of our life
I roused to fi nd myself within a forest
In darkness, for the straight way had been lost.
(Johnson, 1915)

10. In middle of the journey of our days
I found that I was in a darksome wood
the right road was lost and vanished in the maze
(Sibbald, 1884)

11. In midway of the journey of our life
I found myself within a darkling wood,
Because the rightful pathway had been lost.
(Rossetti, 1865)

12. In our life’s journey at its midway stage
I found myself within a wood obscure
Where the right path which guided me was lost
(Johnston, 1867)

13. In the middle of the journey
of our life
I came to myself
in a dark forest
the straightforward way
misplaced.
(Schwerner, 2000)

14. In the middle of the journey of our life I came to
myself within a dark wood, for the straight road was lost
(Durling, 1996)

15. In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark
wood where the straight road was lost.
(Sinclair, 1939)

16. In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself astray in a dark wood
where the straight road had been lost sight of.
(Heaney, 1993)

17. IN the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood;
for the straight way was lost.
(Carlyle, 1844)

18. In the mid-journey of our mortal life,
I wandered far into a darksome wood,
Where the true road no longer might be seen.
(Chaplin, 1913)

19. In the midtime of life I found myself
Within a dusky wood; my way was lost.
(Shaw, 1914)

20. In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,
Gone from the path direct:
(Cary, 1805)

21. Just halfway through this journey of our life
I reawoke to fi nd myself inside
a dark wood, way off -course, the right road lost
(Phillips, 1983)
Caroline Bergvall 85

22. Midway along the highroad of our days,
I found myself within a shadowy wood,
Where the straight path was lost in tangled ways.
(Wheeler, 1911)

23. Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to fi nd myself in some dark woods,
For I had wandered off from the straight path.
(Musa, 1971)

24. Midway along the span of our life’s road
I woke to a dark wood unfathomable
Where not a vestige of the right way shewed.
(Foster, 1961)

25. Midway in our life’s journey I went astray
from the straight road & woke to fi nd myself
alone in a dark wood
(Ciardi, 1996)

26. Midway in the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, for
the straight road was lost.
(Singleton, 1970)

27. MIDWAY life’s journey I was made aware
Th at I had strayed into a dark forest,
And the right path appeared not anywhere.
(Binyon, 1933)

28. Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost.
(Pinsky, 1994)

29. Midway on the journey of our life I found myself within a darksome
wood, for the right way was lost.
(Sullivan, 1893)

30. Midway the path of life that men pursue
I found me in a darkling wood astray,
For the direct path had been lost to view
(Anderson, 1921)

31. Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,
I woke to fi nd myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone
(Sayers, 1949)

32. MIDWAY upon the course of this our life
I found myself within a gloom-dark wood,
For I had wandered from the path direct.
(Bodey, 1938)

33. MIDWAY upon the journey of my days
I found myself within a wood so drear,
Th at the direct path nowhere met my gaze.
(Brooksbank, 1854)

34. MIDWAY upon the journey of our life,
I found me in a forest dark and deep,
For I the path direct had failed to keep.
(Wilstach, 1888)

35. Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the right road was lost.
(Vincent, 1904)

36. MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
(Longfellow, 1867)

forêt [fɔ.ʁɛ] nom féminin









1.

(c’est un lieu vaste & rempli de grans bois
& de bois épais)
Vaste
terrain
couvert de nombreux arbres proches

Vaste
étendue de terrein
où poussent des arbres
qui en garnissent la surface

Grande
estenduë
de pays couvert de bois
de terre couverte de bois
de haute fustaye

Ensemble des grands arbres
qui peuplent cette étendue

qui composent une ~.



2.

Quantité considérable
d’objets
dressés

Grande quantité
de choses
qui s’élèvent en hauteur

Amas
de choses
longues et menues

Grande quantité
d’objets
longs et serrés

réunion
d’objets
massés en grand nombre

comme les arbres d’une ~.


3.

Grande quantité.

Grande quantité
de choses abstraites

formant un ensemble
complexe et confus,
complexe ou confus
inextricable

Espace, système inextricable.



4.

Grande quantité de pièces de bois
qui forment le comble
de quelque vaste édifice.

Ensemble des nombreuses pièces de
charpente
formant le comble
d’un édifice de dimensions considérables.

Charpente
du comble
d’une église

Ces grandes charpentes des /
Eglises, ou autres grands Edifices,
formée d’une
grande quantité de pièces de bois





5.

Être dans une ~

Vous étiez là dans une ~ :
Vous étiez entouré de malhonnêtes gens,
au milieu
entouré de frippons
vous n’étiez entouré que de fripons

C’est une ~,
C’est un lieu peu sûr
un lieu & un endroit
rempli de gens qui ne valent pas grand’chose
une société
où l’on est impudemment volé, dépouillé

un couppe-gorge,
« coupe-gorge, lieu où l’on fait des violences. »
, des exactions

Vous êtes entouré de malhonnêtes gens.





6.







On nomme ainsi, dans l’Imprimerie,
une tablette divisée en
différentes cellules,
petites cases,
dans lesquelles on serre les bois qui servent
à garnir les formes
pour l’impression
pour l’imposition
tels que les biseaux, les têtières, bois de fond,
& autres.

Aquaportail :

L’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'Alimentation et l'Agriculture (FAO) définit les forêts comme des terres occupant une superficie de plus de 0,5 hectare (5 000m2) avec des arbres atteignant une hauteur supérieure à 5 mètres et un couvert forestier de plus de 10%, ou avec des arbres capables de remplir ces critères.

Aquaportail :

La forêt qualifie une formation végétale ligneuse constituée d'arbres feuillus ou résineux qui dominent un sous-bois. La forêt de petite taille est appelée bois ou futaie selon qu'elle est naturelle ou non. Une minuscule forêt est un bosquet d'arbres. La prairie est essentiellement peuplée d'herbacées, avec peu de ligneux, ce qui en fait l'opposé de la forêt.



Institut Forestier National
Forêt
Ancienne méthode
La forêt est un territoire occupant une superficie d’au moins cinq ares avec des arbres capables d’atteindre une hauteur supérieure à 7 mètres à maturité in situ un couvert arboré de plus de 10 % et une largeur d’au moins 25 mètres. Les sites momentanément déboisés ou en régénération sont classés comme forêt même si leur couvert est inférieur à 10 % au moment de l’inventaire.
N.B. : Les peupleraies (taux de couvert libre relatif des peupliers cultivés supérieur à 75 %) ne sont pas inclues dans la définition de la forêt. Les noyeraies et les châtaigneraies à fruits ainsi que les truffières cultivées et les vergers sont également exclus (productions agricoles).

Nouvelle méthode
La forêt est un territoire occupant une superficie d’au moins 50 ares avec des arbres capables d’atteindre une hauteur supérieure à cinq mètres à maturité in situ un couvert arboré de plus de 10 % et une largeur moyenne d’au moins 20 mètres.
Les sites momentanément déboisés ou en régénération sont classés comme forêt même si leur couvert est inférieur à 10 % au moment de l’inventaire.
Elle n’inclut pas les terrains dont l’utilisation du sol prédominante est agricole ou urbaine.
N.B. : Les peupleraies (taux de couvert libre relatif des peupliers cultivés supérieur à 75 %) sont inclues dans la définition de la forêt.


forêt nf 1 vaste terrain planté d'arbres, ensemble de ces arbres
2 quantité considérable d'objets dressés
3 au sens figuré espace, système, inextricable

Larousse internet

forêt nf Grande étendue de terrain couverte d'arbres ; ensemble des grands arbres qui occupent, qui couvrent cette étendue.
Grande quantité de choses qui s'élèvent en hauteur



forêt nf Vaste étendue couverte d'arbres ; l'ensemble de ces arbres. 
Fig. Ensemble complexe et confus.


Grand dictionnaire des lettres ; 1-7. Grand Larousse de la langue française. Tome 3, ES-INC / [sous la dir. de Louis Guilbert,..., René Lagane,..., Georges Niobey,...] 1989

forêt nf 1. Grande étendue de terrain couverte de bois. par extension : Ensemble des grands arbres qui peuplent cette étendue 
2. Grande quantité d'objets longs et serrés.


Wiktionnaire :
Nom commun
forêt \fɔ.ʁɛ\ féminin
(Botanique) (Biogéographie) (Foresterie) (Écologie) Vaste terrain couvert de bois, de nombreux arbres proches.
1. (Par extension) Grande quantité.
2. (En particulier) Amas de choses longues et menues.
3. (En particulier) Grande quantité de pièces de bois qui forment le comble de quelque vaste édifice.
4. (Théorie des graphes) Type de graphe composé de plusieurs arbres.

FOREST , [ 1694 ] Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française 1694, t. 1 ( Coignard , Paris , 1694 )

FOREST. s. f. Grande estenduë de pays couvert de bois de haute fustaye.


FORêT , Féraud, Jean-François , [ 1787 ] Dictionaire critique de la langue française T.2 (E-N) ( The ARTFL Project , Marseille , 1787-88 )

FORÊT, s. f.  Forêt, grande étendue de pays couvert de bois.


FORÊT. s.f. , [ 1762 ] Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Quatrième Édition. T.1 ( Brunet , Paris , 1762 )

FORÊT. s.f. Grande étendue de pays couvert de bois.

FORÊT , [ 1798 ] Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Cinquième Édition. T.1 ( Smits , Paris , 1798 )

FORÊT. s. f. Grande étendue de terrain couvert de bois.

FORÊT. s. f. , [ 1835 ] Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. Sixième Édition. T.1 ( Didot , Paris , 1835 )

FORÊT. s. f. Grande étendue de terrain planté de bois; ou L' assemblage d' arbres qui occupent, qui couvrent cette étendue.
Fig. et fam., Vous étiez là dans une forêt, Vous étiez entouré de malhonnêtes gens, de fripons. C' est une forêt, C' est un lieu peu sûr.
Par extension, Une forêt de mâts, de lances, etc., se disent en parlant d' un grand nombre de vaisseaux réunis, d' une troupe nombreuse de soldats armés de lances, etc.


Dictionnaire de L'Académie française 8e édition (1932-1935)
Forêt, n. f.  Grande étendue de terrain planté de bois; ou Assemblage d' arbres qui occupent, qui couvrent cette étendue. 
Fig. et fam., Vous êtes tombé dans une vraie forêt de Bondy, Vous êtes entouré de malhonnêtes gens.
Par extension, Une forêt de mâts, une forêt de lances, etc., se disent en parlant d' un Grand nombre de vaisseaux réunis, d' une troupe nombreuse de soldats armés de lances, etc. On dit aussi par exagération Une forêt de cheveux.

Académie 9 eme édition.
Forêt, n.f. Vaste étendue couverte d'arbres ; l'ensemble de ces arbres.
Fig. Ensemble complexe et confus. 


Littré
forêt nf Vaste terrain planté de bois ; terrain couvert d'arbres exploités pour le chauffage, les constructions, etc.
 Par extension, grande quantité, amas de choses longues et menues.
Grande quantité de pièces de bois qui forment le comble de quelque vaste édifice. La forêt du dôme des Invalides.

Dictionnaire du Moyen Français :
Forest : Vaste étendue couverte d'arbres, forêt

Féraud: Dictionaire critique de la langue française (1787-1788)
Forêt, grande étendue de pays couvert de bois.



Le dictionnaire étymologique et historique du galloroman (français et dialectes d’oïl, francoprovençal, occitan, gascon) Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (FEW).

Forest : Etendue de terrain boisé dont l'usage est réservé au roi, à un seigneur
Forêt : vaste étendue de terrain boisé
Charpente du comble d'une église formée d'une grande quantité de pièces de bois (1690)
Quantité considérable d'objets longs et serrés comme les arbres d'une forêt
"coupe-gorge, lieu où l'on fait des violences"


TLfi
forêt nf
A.−  Vaste étendue de terrain couverte d'arbres; ensemble des arbres qui couvrent cette étendue
B.− P. anal. 1. Grande quantité d'objets longs et serrés. 
2. Au fig. Grande quantité de choses abstraites formant un ensemble complexe ou confus, inextricable.


FORET, n. f. Yaste In rain plante de hois: Une
guinde roRfr. Forit saeice, espaces [rats et sombres.
(St-Lamb.) La nature a prodigue a rinde des x-ORiis
de citronnicrs. (Volt.) 1| Fig. el fain. J'ous ctiez la dans
une fokIt, an milieu dc Jnpons. {ke.) Nestlaiuniv
de Rondj. \\ Les caux c/ eorets, i’adniiniistr.ilion des
cours d’eau, dcs lacs, des l)Ois depeuduiits du doinanie
public: Conscreateur , inspecteur des eaux et for f is.
Il Par e.xtens, Grande quantile, anias de choses longues
et meniies ; Une foret de lances. Cette forit de mats
qui flotte sur les eaux. (C. Del.) Une foret dc clicectix.

Dictionnaire de la langue française, Glossaire raisonné de la langue écrite et parlée. P. Poitevin, Paris, 1851
Forêt, n.f. Vaste terrain planté de bois.
Fig. Et fam. Vous étiez là dans une forêt : entouré de frippons :
par extens : Grande quantité, amas de choses longues et menues.


Nouveau dictionnaire classique de la langue française
by Bescherelle, M. (Louis Nicolas), 1802-1883; Pons, J. A

Vaste terrain planté de bois
fam. être dans une forêt : au milieu de frippons
Grande quantité de choses longues et menues.

Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française
by Clédat, Léon, 1851-1930
de fors : proprement bois hors les murs.

Nouveau dictionnaire de la langue française
by Laveaux, J.-Charles (Jean-Charles), 1749-1827
Forêt, n.f. Bois qui embrasse une fort grande étendue de terrain
En terme d'imprimerie, on appelle forêt, une tablette divisée en différentes cellules, dans lesquelles on serre les bois qui servent à garnir les formes pour l'imposition.

Nouveau Larousse illustré : dictionnaire universel encyclopédique
by Larousse, Pierre, 1817-1875; Augé, Claude, 1854-1924

Forêt (rê- anciennement forest, du bas latin forestis [sous-entend. sylva], de foris, dehors; proprem. bois du dehors, par oppos. aux parcs enclos de murs) n.f. Grande étendue de terrain plantée de bois; ensemble des grands arbres qui occupent, qui couvrent cette étendue.
par anal. réunion d'objets massés en grand nombre : une forêt de mâts, de cheveux.
Charpent. Ensemble des nombreuses pièces de charpente formant le comble d'un édifice de dimensions considérables.
Techn. Tablettes divisées en petites cases, dans lesquelles on serre les bois qui servent à garnir les formes pour l'impression.

Syn. Forêt, bois. V. BOIS.
Encycl. Linguist, Les Anglais prétendent
trouver l'étymologie de forêt dans un
vieux livre,'qu'ils appellent le Livre noir de
l'Echiquier. foresta serait pour feresta, proprement
retraite des bêtes sauvages, fererum
statio. Inutile de discuter cette origine, qui
n'est appuyée sur aucun fondement sérieux.

De forts, le bas latin a formé forestare,
mettre dehors, bannir. Foresta signifie
donc originairement un ban, une proscription
de culture, d'habitation ou autre, dans
l'intérêt de la chasse ou de la-pêche seigneuriale.
Naturellement, ces prohibitions s'appliquaient
surtout aux bois où se trouvaient
les bêtes fauves, et, d'ailleurs, les arbres
poussaient bientôt dans les campagnes ainsi
soustraites à la culture. Foresta désigne donc
proprement un endroit, tant d'une rivière que
d'un champ, d'où quelqu'un avait le droit
d'exclure les autres [...]

Forêts (représentations artistiques de). Citons d'abord le tableau de Ruysdael (Louvre).
Des chênes, des hêtres, des ormes bordent le chemin à demi-submergé par les eaux d'une rivière. Une paysanne, montée sur un âne et escortée par un chien, parle à un villageois, qui conduit un boeuf. Sur le bord de la route, un voyageur se repose. Quelques bestiaux paissent ou se désaltèrent. Au milieu, par une éclaircie, on voit des collines dans le lointain.

A Dictionary of the English Language: In which the Words are ..., in five volumes, Volume 2
Samuel Johnson, London, 1818.

FOREST t n.s. [forest, in french ; foresta, italiena] So far Dr Johnson. He might have added the welsh fforest. The many derivations of this word are also too curious to be overpassed. Menage derives it from the low latin foresta,; a word, which forst occurs in the capitulars of Charlemagne; and Vossius deduces that from the German forst, i.e. de foris, meaning the forests are out of or beyond towns: Spelman from foris and restare, with the same inference; Others from foris and stare, meaning a place, says Cotgrave, "whereto the access or entry is forbidden to others:" Others from feris, i.e. Ferarum statio, a station for wild beasts. See du Cange in V. Foresta. The last seems the most probable etymology. In the Black Book of the Exchequer, foresta is feresta, with a view, as it has been supposed, to this derivation.]


DUCANGE
http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/FORESTA

FORESTA, Foreste, Forestus, etc. Saltus, silva, nemus : Cambro-Britannis, qui, ut aiunt, priscam linguam Gallicam et
Britannicam retinent, Fforest, Germanis Forst. Lindwodo, Foresta est,
ubi sunt feræ non inclusæ ; Parcus, locus, ubi sunt feræ inclusæ
. Ockamus cap. Quid Regis Foresta est :
Foresta est tuta ferarum mansio, non quarumlibet, sed silvestrium, non quibuslibet in locis, sed certis, et idoneis, unde Foresta, E mutata in O, quasi Feresta, hoc est, ferarum statio.
Eadem habet liber Niger Scacarii Anglici, cujus auctor creditur Gervasius Tilleberiensis, apud Spelmannum. Alii, quod foris stent, forestas dictas putant. Vide Menagium in Dictionario Etymol. Gallic.

Gilles Ménage, Dictionnaire etymologique ou Origines de la langue françoise. Paris, 1644, avec privilège du Roy
"Forest semble avoir signifié, comme le mot garenne, un endroit, tant d'une rivière que d'un champ, d'où quelqu'un avoit droit d'exclure les autres."

Echiquier d'Angleterre (Page 5:259)
Echiquier d'Angleterre ou Cour de l'Echiquier, est une cour souveraine d'Angleterre, où l'on juge les causes touchant le thrésor & les revenus du roi, touchant les comptes, déboursemens, impôts, doüannes, & amendes; elle est composée de sept juges, qui sont le grand thrésorier, le chancelier ou sous - thrésorier de l'échiquier, qui a la garde du sceau de l'échiquier, le lord chef baron, les trois barons de l'échiquier, & le cursitor baron. Les deux premiers se trouvent rarement aux affaires que l'on doit juger suivant la rigueur de la loi; ils en laissent la décision aux cinq autres juges, dont le lord chef baron est le principal, il est établi par lettres patentes.
Le cursitor baron fait prêter serment aux sherifs & sous - sherifs des comtés, aux baillis, aux officiers de la doüanne, &c.
Cette cour de l'échiquier est divisée en deux cours: l'une, qu'on appelle cour de loi, où les affaires se jugent seion la rigueur de la loi; l'autre, qu'on appelle cour a équité, où il est permis aux juges de s'écarter de la rigueur de la loi pour suivre l'équité. Les évêques & les barons du royaume avoient autrefois seance à la cour de l'échiquier; présentement les deux cours de l'échiquier sont tenues par des personnes qui ne sent point pairs, & qu'on appelle pourtant barons.
Sous le chancelier, sont deux chambellans de l'é<-> chiquier, qui ont la garde des archives & papiers, ligues & traités avec les princes étrangers, des titres des monnoies, des poids & des mesures, & d'un livre fameux appellé le livre de l'échiquier ou le livre noir, composé en 1175 par Gervais de Tilbury neveu d'Henri II. roi d'Angleterre. Ce livre contient la description de la cour d'Angleterre de ce tems - là, ses officiers, leurs rangs, priviléges, gages, pouvoir & jurisdiction, les revenus de la couronne: ce livre est enfermé sous trois clés; on donne six schellings huit sous pour le voir, & quatre sous pour chaque ligne que l'on transcrit.
Outre ces deux cours de l'échiquier, il y en a encore une autre qu'on appelle le petit échiquier; celui - ci est le thrésor roval & la thrésorerie; on y reçoit & on y débourse les revenus du roi: le grand thrésorier en est le premier officier. (A)

Full text, Red book of the exchequer
https://archive.org/stream/redbookexcheque00hallgoog/redbookexcheque00hallgoog_djvu.txt

Liber Nigri Scaccarii :
https://books.google.fr/books?id=5xMwAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=snippet&q=ferest&f=false
Forêt imprimerie :

ARTFL
Encyclopédie diderot Dalembert p. 134

Forêt, s.f. (Botan. Et économ.)

FORÊT, s.f., (Botan. Et économ.) On entend en général par ce mot, un bois qui embrasse une fort grande étendue de terrein : cependant cette dénomination n'est pas toujours déterminée par la plus grande étendue. On appelle forêt un lieu, un bois moins considérable que celui qui ne porteroit ailleurs que le nom de buisson. Voyez BOIS.

bois
L'on entend vulgairement sous le nom de forêt, un bois qui embrasse une fort grande étendue de pays.



Forêt, (dans l'Imprimerie) [Imprimerie] unknown (Page 7:133)

Forêt; on nomme ainsi, dans l'Imprimerie, une tablette divisée en différentes cellules, dans lesquelles on serre les bois qui servent à garnir les formes
-- 7:134 -- [Click here for original page image]
pour l'imposition; tels que les biseaux, les têtieres, bois de fond, & autres.



Titre :  
Dictionnaire universel, contenant généralement tous les mots françois tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts... ([Reprod.]) / par feu Messire Antoine Furetière,...
Auteur :  
Furetière, Antoine (1619-1688). Auteur du texte
Éditeur :  
A. et R. Leers (La Haye)
Date d'édition :  
1690
Sujet :  
Français (langue) -- Dictionnaires -- Ouvrages avant 1800



expressions lues qui pourraient être des dictons : reste à trouver le sens.

"On ne peut pas soupçonner nos pères d'avoir planté des coudres."
(Encyclopédie, Diderot/D'Alembert.)



L'on entend vulgairement sous le nom de forêt, un bois qui embrasse une fort grande étendue de pays.


1706
Dictionnaire françois, contenant généralement tous les mots tant vieux que nouveaux et plusieurs remarques sur la langue françoise
Pierre Richelet ; éditeur J. Elzévir (Amsterdam), 1706

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k58593308/f389.item.r=for%C3%AAt.zoom

Egarer, v.a. Détourner quelqu'un de son chemin (il m'a égaré dans la forêt. J'ai été long-tems égaré sans me pouvoir remettre sur mon chemin.)

Forêt, s. f. Prononcez longue la dernière syllabe de ce mot. (c'est un lieu vaste & rempli de de grans bois & de bois épais).
* forêt, ce mot, en parlant de personnes, se prend d'ordinaire en mauvaise part, & signifie un lieu & un endroit rempli de gens qui ne valent pas grand'chose. Cette vile est une forêt de brigans.)


1862
Petit dictionnaire de la langue française suivant l'orthographe de l'Académie : contenant tous les mots qui se trouvent dans son dictionnaire... (30e édition) / par Hocquart
Hocquart, Édouard (1789-1870?)
Éditeur :  
T. Lefèvre (Paris)
Date d'édition :  
1862
Forêt, s. f. Terre couverte de bois





1888-1889
Dictionnaire français illustré des mots et des choses, ou Dictionnaire encyclopédique des écoles, des métiers et de la vie pratique... : contenant 1 ° l'explication de tous les mots de la langue française.... T. 1, A-H / par MM. Larive et Fleury,...
Auteur :  
Larive et Fleury. Auteur du texte
Auteur :  
Larive et Fleury. Auteur du texte
Éditeur :  
G. Chamerot (Paris)
Date d'édition :  
1888-1889

Forêt, s.f. Vaste étendue de terrain où poussent des arbres qui en garnissent la surface et excluent toute autre végétation productive. ... ||
l'ensemble des arbres qui composent une forêt
|| fig.,Vous étiez là dans une forêt, vous n'étiez entouré que de fripons
|| C'est la forêt de Bondy, C'est un lieu, une société où l'on est impudemment volé, dépouillé (allusion à ce que la forêt de Bondy, près de Paris, était autrefois infestée de voleurs). -
FIG. Grande quantité de choses longues et menues : une forêt de cheveux. Une forêt de lances. Une forêt de mâts. -

SCORE

qui embrasse

Forest
Petite forest
Une forest de chesnes
Une forest espesse où les bestes paissent et se retirent en temps d'esté pour la chaleur du soleil
Forests fortes de bois, espesses et tres empeschante
Une forest où il croist du gland
Forest obscure et espesse
Forests qui rendent force fruits
Forest reservée pour paistre les bestes
Forests tremblantes et brandillantes
Forest où il y a arbres de diverses sortes et sans ordre

stop upsetting the cabbages
as behind them lies only themselves

Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the center of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one. Not only does the aim of translation differ from that of a literary work—it intends language as a whole, taking an individual work in an alien language as a point of departure— but it is a different effort altogether. The intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, graphic; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational.

Flying above the forest on an aircraft, lidar systems emit laser pulses to measure the elevation of the ground below and create detailed 3D maps of the terrain. This approach is significantly more productive and even more detailed than trying to survey from the ground. For example, at the Maya site of Caracol in Belize, it took archaeologists 20 years on foot to survey just nine square kilometers. Using airborne lidar, 200 square kilometers were mapped in as little as six days, with greater resolution than that accomplished on foot.

While ground surveys are ideal for documenting localized site details, airborne surveying provides the surveyor a much broader, yet detailed,aperspective of the area. A walker may encounter a slight ridge in the earth and think nothing of it, but a lidar’s overhead view can identify that the ridge extends in a straight line for hundreds of meters and connects to other features.

The land here is so remote and uninhabited that the rivers and mountains
don’t even have names
in the official maps.

The power of a country road is different when one is walking along it from when one is flying over it by airplane. In the same way, the power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out. The airplane passenger sees only how the road pushes through the landscape, how it unfolds according to the same laws as the terrain surrounding it. Only he who walks the road on foot learns of the power it commands, and of how, from the very scenery that for the flier is only the unfurled plain, it calls forth distance, belvederes, clearings, prospects at ‘each of its turns like a commander deploying soldiers at a front. Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of daydreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command. The Chinese practice of copying books was thus an incomparable guarantee of literary culture, and the transcript a key to China's enigmas.

distance, belvederes, clearings, prospects

Vaste terrain

Labyrinthe

Charpente

Un lieu peu sûr

L'imprimerie

Forêt de souffles