"Silang Visits His Mother" (四郎探母) 1/2 [English subtitles]

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• published: 21 Apr 2014
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My amateur translation. No copyright infringement intended. Thanks to operabeijing.com for the original video. "Silang Visits His Mother" was written some time during the Qing Dynasty, though the name of its author has been lost. It is one of many fictional works based on the historical Yang family and is probably one of the most popular pieces within the jingju repertoire. Random notes on the translation: -I went for clarity more than accuracy in many places. For this and other reasons, there is a great deal that has been lost in translation, but it would take a long time to explain why this is so. (一言难尽哪!) -"A golden well, a locked suotong tree" - The image being alluded to here is the walled courtyard of a noble family. In the old days, the very wealthy often had in their courtyards a well with gold ornamentation around its rim. -"四郎/Silang" literally means something like "fourth young man" and is an older way of referring to a fourth son. Thus, "Silang Visits His Mother" = "The Fourth Son Visits His Mother". -Yang Yanhui's surname, 杨/Yang, is composed of the radicals 木+易 in the traditional writing system, which become "Mu Yi" when read as characters. A clever, slightly literary pseudonym. -The characters often use honorific personal pronouns. Yanhui, for instance, often refers to himself as "本宫/bengong", a word which would identify its speaker as royalty. These pronouns have no equivalent in English, so I've made do with "I" and "me". -The princess calls Yanhui "驸马/fuma", which I usually translate as "husband". "Fuma" was actually the title reserved for the husband of the princess and is often translated as "Prince Consort"; "consort", though, has some negative connotations in the modern day. -"North" with a capital N is my compromise-translation of "番邦/fanbang", which is an ancient term for a foreign country, with the connotation that that foreign country is somewhat barbaric. I didn't use "barbaric", as some translators do, because I didn't want to make it sound like Yanhui was trying to insult Tiejing. -Familial relationships are very important within Chinese culture and this is reflected in the Chinese language. Within this play, the various different words for one's female parent (娘，母，高堂，and 萱, as well as 娘亲，老娘亲，母亲，老母亲，母后 and 慈颜), have all been squashed into "mother" or "aged mother". Additionally, there are separate words for "brother", "older brother" and "younger brother", all of which I've only translated as "brother". -"mansions of Chu and towers of Qin" - a wonderful euphemism for, you guessed it, brothels. -"li" -- a traditional Chinese unit of distance; something like half a kilometer. -"chi" -- another traditional Chinese unit of length; something like a third of a meter. -"lingjian" -- an official token of command; literally an "arrow token" since they were originally shaped like arrows. I kept "lingjian" to avoid confusion, the prop in this production being non-arrow shaped. - The two 丑/clown roles are sometimes acknowledged as 国舅/Guojiu. 国舅 means "Uncle of the Nation" and was a title reserved specifically for the empress' brothers. -"the lamp wick is sparkling" - an old superstition. - This is a condensed and slightly bowdlerized version of the original play. Four scenes have been cut from the original, as well as the part of Yanhui's first wife. Yes, he had a wife before marrying Tiejing. -"dingdai" -- a hat ornament worn by government officials. A historical inaccuracy; these appeared in the Qing Dynasty, but were actually not used during the time in which "Silang" is set. -"She's added two more!" -- I actually have no idea what the original Chinese means here; my translation is a stab in the dark. -"Have I turned into a sow?" - A pun; the word for "princess" sounds like the word for "female pig", though with a different tonal pronunciation. -"Your servants kowtow to you" - 奴才/nucai, which I've translated as "servants", really means something more like "slave". Only in the sense that the 奴才 was subject to another's will, though. China never had the sort of chattel slavery that America did, which is why I avoided "slave" and its English connotations. -"Brushing a grasshopper..." - I have absolutely no idea what this means. I'm pretty sure it's a pun or proverb, or something, but I cannot make any sense of it. -"A camel..." -- another pun/proverb I do not understand. -Huge chunks of this play rhyme pleasingly, which is not something I could translate, unfortunately !