2010: Year of the Tiger - Year to Save the Tiger
Joachim
January 16, 2010, 06:50 PM posted in General DiscussionOn February 14, 2010 we will celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Tiger. Unfortunately, tigers are on the brink of extinction with only 3200 left.
The WWF will thus chime in the year to save the tiger in 2010. http://www.wwfchina.org/wwfpress/presscenter/pressdetail.shtm?id=983 or http://www.panda.org/?185602/Camera-traps-yield-first-time-film-of-tigress-and-cubs
How about a lesson on the state of the tiger?
Joachim
February 08, 2010, 10:30 PMFewer than 50 wild tigers in China:
Tal
January 18, 2010, 12:16 PMPoor Tiger. Certain to go the way of the dodo, the Tasmanian Devil, the passenger pigeon. We super apes you see, would far rather celebrate you in pretty poems and pictures than by letting you live on the earth. We'd far rather have your dead skin than your living body, we'd far rather grind your bones and consume your genitals to satisfy our irrational barbarous beliefs and absurd vanity, than to try and share this world with you and your kind. Goodbye though, and thanks for the memory, the magic, the night fear from childhood dreams. Maybe your spirit will live on somehow, preserved in some fold of space-time forever inaccessible to mad monkeys who like to dream they are gods. The day will come when they too are gone. Move your great feet in the ghost dance before you go. You may rise again if you just do it right.
bodawei
January 18, 2010, 01:35 PM@tal
Before the other Aussies get to you - I think you mean the Tasmanian tiger? The devil is still around, but I was surprised to read that it has recently been declared 'endangered'.
Tal
Doh! Right you are old sport, what a clanger. If only I'd remembered that I could have started off by saying the tiger is sure to go the way of the Tasmanian one.
bababardwan
yeah,I was reading recently how since 1996 they have this facial tumour that spreads like a contagious disease through their population
bababardwan
well there was an attempt to bring back the tassie tiger with a cloning project but they gave it up in 2005 after 6 years due to lack of good genetic material.Some subsequent research has given hope of restoring the population though.Who knows? time will tell.
Tal
To me it is supremely funny (in a very grim way) that humans destroy a species, and then suppose they can put it all right again by cloning. Just as well there'll be no one around to clone us when the hour comes. Or is it?
Joachim
Some people reckon there'll be a move to transhumanism. If ordinary homo sapiens sapiens became extinct, one possible reason to bring them back might be as biological models like today's white mice.
Btw: We are not destroying A species, but our impact is similar to an ongoing meteorite regarding biodiversity in general.
Tal
January 18, 2010, 02:16 PMDoh! Right you are old sport, what a clanger. If only I'd remembered that I could have started off by saying the tiger is sure to go the way of the Tasmanian one.
henning
January 18, 2010, 03:09 PMThe Rilke poem has always been my absoulte favourite. Isn't it strange how much it loses of its impact in the translated from? This tells you a lot about language.
Joachim
January 18, 2010, 11:39 AMhellotherebrick:
I certainly know this poem and it's a favourite!
In a similiar vein:
Der Panther
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, dass er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 6.11.1902, Paris
[
The Panther
His gaze, going past those bars, has got so misted
with tiredness, it can take in nothing more.
He feels as though a thousand bars existed,
and no more world beyond them than before.
Those supply powerful paddings, turning there
in tiniest of circles, well might be
the dance of forces round a center where
some mighty will stands paralyticly.
Just now and then the pupils' noiseless shutter
is lifted. - Then an image will indart,
down through the limbs' intensive stillness flutter,
and end its being in the heart.
[Rainer Maria Rilke]
henning
The Rilke poem has always been my absoulte favourite. Isn't it strange how much it loses of its impact in the translated from? This tells you a lot about language.
BEBC
Yes, it seems that poetry is the first to suffer through translation. I don't understand the original, but the translation seems a bit stilted. I suppose that once you are able to appreciate the poetry of a people, then you really have mastered the languge. Thanks for that, Joachim; and thanks for the translation, Henning.
BEBC
Es tut mir leid ! I just realised it was you who supplied the translation, Joachim. Put it down to old age and infirmity !
henning
Wikipedia led me to a site with a translation that seems a little closer in tone and rhythm (on http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/) - although it also does not fully capture the original in strength:
His gaze has grown so weary from the passing
Of bars that now there's nothing it can hold.
It seems there are a thousand bars around him,
And, out beyond a thousand bars, no world.
Revolving in the smallest of all circles,
The sleekly powered footsteps' mellowed pace
Is like a dance of strength about a center
Wherein a mighty will stands stunned in place.
Only at times the pupil's soundless curtain
Is reeled away. An image then will start
Inward through the taut silence of his sinews
And come to nothing in the heart.
BEBC
I particularly like the final verse.
BEBC
January 18, 2010, 08:32 PMEs tut mir leid ! I just realised it was you who supplied the translation, Joachim. Put it down to old age and infirmity !
bababardwan
January 18, 2010, 09:34 PMyeah,I was reading recently how since 1996 they have this facial tumour that spreads like a contagious disease through their population
bababardwan
January 19, 2010, 05:54 AMwell there was an attempt to bring back the tassie tiger with a cloning project but they gave it up in 2005 after 6 years due to lack of good genetic material.Some subsequent research has given hope of restoring the population though.Who knows? time will tell.
henning
January 19, 2010, 06:03 AMWikipedia led me to a site with a translation that seems a little closer in tone and rhythm (on http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/) - although it also does not fully capture the original in strength:
His gaze has grown so weary from the passing
Of bars that now there's nothing it can hold.
It seems there are a thousand bars around him,
And, out beyond a thousand bars, no world.
Revolving in the smallest of all circles,
The sleekly powered footsteps' mellowed pace
Is like a dance of strength about a center
Wherein a mighty will stands stunned in place.
Only at times the pupil's soundless curtain
Is reeled away. An image then will start
Inward through the taut silence of his sinews
And come to nothing in the heart.
Joachim
January 20, 2010, 09:24 PMAnd here is the Panther in Chinese:
译文 豹
它的目光被那走不完的铁栏
缠得这般疲倦，什么也不能收留。
它好像只有千条的铁栏杆，
千条的铁栏后便没有宇宙。
强韧的脚步迈着柔软的步容，
步容在这极小的圈中旋转，
仿佛力之舞围绕着一个中心，
在中心一个伟大的意志昏眩。
只有时眼帘无声地撩起。——
于是有一幅图像浸入，
通过四肢紧张的静寂——
在心中化为乌有。
(来自：新诗集 1902/03)
BEBC
January 18, 2010, 07:38 PMYes, it seems that poetry is the first to suffer through translation. I don't understand the original, but the translation seems a bit stilted. I suppose that once you are able to appreciate the poetry of a people, then you really have mastered the languge. Thanks for that, Joachim; and thanks for the translation, Henning.
BEBC
January 16, 2010, 10:18 PMJoachim: The campaign has my support. You probably know this inspired poem well, but I thought I'd post it anyway.
THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794