京劇秦香蓮（簡體書）

2.3. Notes on translation
In Chapter III, footnotes are provided for terminologies appearingin the play that are essential for the understanding of the script. Tomaintain the smooth flowing of the script, explanations are offered hereon the translation of the original Chinese script into English.
Firstly, care was taken to stay with the meaning of the originalas closely as possible while ignoring terminologies that play only aperipheral role to the understanding of the script. Take literary allusionfor instance. With its long literary history, works of Chinese literatureand art are known for allusion to classics. These allusions no doubt createcultural-specific images in the minds of a Chinese reader or audience.However, to present them without discrimination to an English readermay not be the best option. For one thing, it would slow the process ofreading and hence impede the process of appreciation. Therefore many ofthese allusions have been omitted.
Secondly, the lyrics for singing have been arranged to rhyme and,by and large, to conform to the basic conventions of the poetic meter.Among the many differences between the Chinese and the Englishlanguages, the one that is the most relevant to the translator of verses isthe way phonological meter is defined in them. Chinese is what a linguistwill call a "syllable-timed language," meaning the time it takes to utter aline depends on the number of syllabus in it. Since each written word-referred to as a character--represents one syllable, the length of a lineis hence determined, typographically, by the number of characters itcontains. Thus one of the most popular classical Chinese poetical form iscalled qilii (七律), meaning a form of poetry with eight seven-word lines.