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.