Look, look what I found!
I finally got to the first one of my many favorite parts of the story: Monkey goes to visit the Dragon King of the East and ask for the perfect weapon. Of course it cannot be any less than a magical, shapeshifting staff which is heavy enough to only be wielded by Sun Wukong, important enough that is is actually holding the Milky Way in place, and flashy enough to become the trademark attribute of the Monkey King.
What amazes me more is the realm of the dragon king itself. At the New York Metropolitan Museum I saw a small ivory carving from Japan depicting the palace of the Japanese Dragon King - it was a seashell with the palace built between its two halves. I still remember that image, and now I got curious about the Chinese version.
And guess what I found...
Reed Flute Cave
Now there is a place I'll have to visit one day.
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Now that's a place where we should tell the story some day ... Actually I'm already there in my imagination, admiring the colors of the Dragon King. And this is a lovely legend about the cave: "It is said that a visiting scholar tried to write a poem depicting the beauty of the cave and it took him so long to find the right words, that he finally turned to stone."
ReplyDeleteOkay I gotta ask now: does the Swedish/English version have the part when Monkey leaves the four Dragon Kings in the palace and instead of goodbye he says 'Ribbit'? Because there's a image! I bet the dragons are still standing there with their eyebrows twitching... XD
ReplyDeleteSeems like the hungarian translation has to be awarded the storytellers award for best Monkey comedy here! The english Jenner, Yu and the swedish Malmqvist translation says something like:
ReplyDelete"My apologies for disturbing you."
From the swedish translation of Waley it seems he portrays a more impolite Monkey saying something like "Greedy old bastards!"
Whoa :D Nice. In our translation he says 'Ribbit, ribbit' and the dragons quote him too in the letter of complaint they send to the Jade Emperor XD
ReplyDeleteWe have to keep comparing translations. This is fun!