Chapter 47 Notes for the Translator of "The Rooster and Miscellaneous Dishes" (1)

Notes for the Translator of "The Rooster and Miscellaneous Dishes" (1) I have heard for a long time that there is a limited edition of foreign books, which are printed infrequently and sold at high prices. So far I have not owned any.This spring I saw the Japanese translation of Le Coqet L'ar-lequin by Jean Cocteau [2], which was one of the 350 volumes, and I wanted it too, but I put it down because of the high price [3].I only remember one sentence in it, which was: "Young people should not buy stable stocks", so I suspected that it must be unstable, and after careful consideration, I finally paid the price of five bowls of "proletarian" coffee [4] and bought it back.

After I bought it and looked at it carefully, I felt a little bit like complaining, because most of it talked about music, which is very unfamiliar to me.But once I bought it, I was not very reconciled to putting it down, so I just translated a few sentences that I could understand and sold them into China. Finally, I didn’t buy any unsafe stocks, and I also talked about differentiating myself from the “young people” ". As for the author, I don't want to introduce it here. In short, he is a modern Frenchman who can paint and write, and of course he knows music very well. ※ ※ ※ 〔1〕 This article, together with the translation of Cocteau's essay "The Rooster and Miscellaneous Dishes", was originally published in the fourth issue of the weekly "Chaohua" on December 27, 1928.

〔2〕Jean Cocteau Jean Cocteau (1891-1963), French writer.He has devoted himself to the poetry of cubist futurism, and has written the novel "Scary Child", the play "Time Bomb" and "Poetry Collection". 〔3〕The Japanese translation of Le Coqet L'arlequin is "Rooster and Miscellaneous Dishes" translated by Ota Kuromoto, published in Tokyo Daiichi Shobo in Showa 3rd year (1928).At that time, the selling price in Shanghai was five yuan and two cents for silver dollars. 〔4〕For the notes on "proletarian" coffee, please refer to "Sanxian Ji·Revolutionary Coffee Shop".The text says:

"I also saw the revolutionary advertising text of the Revolutionary Coffee Shop yesterday. I thought of a towering western-style building, facing Broad Street in front of it, with a gleaming glass signboard at the door... in front of me was a big cup of steaming proletarian coffee. ,..."