Translating chengyu idioms

[mecurtin]

There is a scene where Zhao Yunlan says:

感恩戴德?
三跪九叩?
which are 2 classical Chinese idioms, chengyu.

solo's current translation:
Be indebted to you?
Kneel and kowtow?

- which is accurate, but doesn't convey the *flavor*. I don't know if anything could, in English: ZYL is using elevated, elegant language (sarcastically), quoting the classics as a scholar-gentleman would. Quoting Shakespeare is too dramatic, the King James Version too religious.

Or we could use solo's translations, and put a note up above, like "Quoting" or "Quoting Romance of the Three Kingdoms"?

Chengyu have got to be an ongoing headache in Chinese translation; what kinds of solutions do other translators use?

Comments

[extrapenguin]

One way might simply be to use more complex vocabulary in the translation - e.g. "Be eternally indebted to you? Kneel thrice and kowtow nine times upon seeing you, as if you were the Emperor?"

Alternatively, you could have it be in the vein of Shakespeare and write it into iambic pentameter blank verse.

[solo]

On important limitation to bear in mind is that people have to be able to read the words in the time it takes to say the thing! I knew I was taking a much more elaborate thing and boiling it down to basics. We can aim for more elevated but can't really aim for much *longer*.

[zeest]

Even though chengyu have their roots in classical Chinese, they are used quite commonly in written and spoken contemporary Chinese. The two idioms that ZYL uses here are very direct, it's easy to infer their meaning from the words and the context, as opposed to the idioms that require knowledge of the story behind them before you can apply them to the situation at hand. So I don't think using Shakespeare or a similarly classical English text is suitable.

My immediate thought at these lines is not that ZYL is quoting the classics; it's that he's angry and exaggerating and packing the most punch in the least amount of words, which is what chengyu are excellent for. I think the current translation is fine, if lacking in uhhh dramatics. An alternative I can think of is "Owe you for the rest of my life? Get on my knees and grovel?" but it's both long and departs a bit from the literal meaning of the original.

[qwerty]

+1
It's more tone than the allusions that matter here. Short and punchy would be more true than literal accuracy.

"What do you want from me? Be forever grateful? Prostrate myself?"

Or whatever.

[mecurtin]

Thanks for the suggestions!