word of the day: mummer

word of the day: mummer

lines from “Up into the Clouds Music” by Li Po, translated by Elling Eide

Flowery canopies hang down to his lower lashes,

A lofty mountain looms over his upper lip.

Not seeing his strange, uncanny form,

How could you know the Lord of Creation?

The Great War was this mummer’s stern father,

Primal ether this mummer’s elderly kin.

definition (dictionary.com):

1. a person who wears a mask or fantastic costume while merrymaking or taking part in a pantomime, especially at Christmas and other festive seasons.
2. an actor, especially a pantomimist.

from the editor’s notes:

This poem describes a Wen-sang performance, a kind of mummery with music, dance, and song that served as the grand finale for certain rather elaborate musical entertainments. … The poem was probably commissioned by the sponsor of the celebration and may have been recited during the performance.

So a mummer is an actor, a performer in a theatrical work. The mummer of the poem is supposed to represent a non-Chinese person, thus the “lofty mountain” which is Li Po’s metaphor for a big nose, the editor says. The “flowery canopies” are long eyebrow hairs. The poem is too embedded in a Chinese cultural context to be easily understood in translation. The editor uses 24 footnotes to illuminate obscure references. 

I wonder at the translator’s choice of “mummer,” such an obscure word in English. I didn’t know what it meant. When translators choose unusual words in their target language to bring over meaning from the original language, I balk a bit. If the appropriate English word is that obscure you could leave the word in the original language and append a footnote, as translators sometimes will. “Li,” for example is a term for measuring distance that is often left untranslated because there is no precise English language equivalent. On the other hand, if the translator’s word was chosen because it was the closest equivalent in the target language, the translator going from Chinese jargon to English jargon, then ... 

source:

The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature

edited by Victor H. Mair

1994. Columbia University Press, New York