Staunin Ma Lane

<p><em>Staunin Ma Lane</em> isn't intended to be a comprehensive tour of classical [Chinese] poetry though it does contain specimens of many of the major genres and styles and it may serve as a first primer. Note that the poetry is in the Scots: the English versions are there to help the non-Scots speaker. It has been my aim to make poems in Scots: if you expect to find dictionary definitions of Chinese words in my translations you will be disappointed. That sort of drably mechanical 'accuracy' does not make poetry and a poem that doesn't move the reader is like a joke that isn't funny. In the translation of poetry there are many many more ways of being wrong than of being right and I do not claim that my versions are in any way definitive or better than anyone else's: I do however want to say to the reader Deek whit the Mither Tongue can dae: gin it can dae this whit'll it no can dae? (Look what our mother tongue can do: if it can do this what will it not do?) and I would urge readers inclined toward translation to do it for themselves whatever their mother tongue might be. -from Brian Holton's Afterword in this volume.</p><p></p>