What is Zhang Jiuling getting at in this week's poem? In the first three Poems of Encountering, his focus progressed from the purely natural world, to the intersection of the natural world and the lonely hermit, to the hermit himself. Then comes this fourth poem, which returns from the hermit to nature again, but reads differently to me than the first poem with its careful opposition of kingfishers and swans.
The Fourth Poem of Encountering begins with Zhang meditating on the red tangerine. In the tradition of Qu Yuan, he uses the tangerine to comment on politics and politicians: in the fair-weather climate of the Imperial court, he says, it is truly remarkable that a man in a position of influence could remain uncorrupted, or evergreen. When Zhang asks why the tree is secluded, he means, why keep such a person away from court? Why would you exile him to Hubei province, to live out his life as an isolated scholar? Why can honest men not survive in government?
The fourth verse takes an abrupt turn from this simple and well-trod metaphor to questions of cosmic significance. Fate creates the conditions of the world. All actions are tied to other actions. The universe is an immense network of cause and effect, where events set the stage for their own recurrence. Violence creates pain, pain creates anger, anger creates violence again, naturally and without end. Children growing recreate their parents in themselves. This is Zhang's answer to the question, why can honest men not survive in government? In the end, fault does not lie with a political faction, or a rival. Honest men can't survive in government because all actions have consequences.
This understanding transcends the simple framework of the First Poem of Encountering, where envy, and human attachment to high office are the problems, and detaching oneself from those is the solution. The final couplet of the Fourth Poem anchors this cosmic statement in reality: A tree grows and bears fruit. In Chinese, we call a "result" 结果 jiéguǒ; the second character literally means "fruit." The honest man acts, and his actions achieve results. Yet his growth to maturity, and his actions, cast shadows. The shadow and the tree and its fruit cannot be separated from one another. They are all part of the same great system. Consequences are born in the moment of action.
The common narrative of the exiled official describes a man wrongfully accused, betrayed, and set aside to watch his country destroy itself. Zhang, in these poems, tells a different tale, in a kind of triumphant realism: the exiled official has done his honest work, and he has been set aside. His sacrifice is complete. This is the heart of the Encounter of the poem's title: the encounter of courage and honesty with their necessary consequences. For the rest of his life, the honest man may struggle to accept the consequences of his choices, but he could not have acted any other way. The tangerine grows in secluded valleys, but at least its heart does not wither in the cold.
Showing posts with label exiled officials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exiled officials. Show all posts
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
4: Alluding to Qu Yuan
This poem is a great example of the intertextuality Matt mentioned last month, and a good introduction to Qu Yuan 屈原, a master of Chinese verse -- arguably the first master of verse, as he is apparently the first Chinese poet to have his name directly associated with his works. Qu Yuan lived some three centuries before the Common Era, during the period of history called the Warring States, when the territory that is now the Chinese heartland was ruled by, well, warring states. The fiefdoms that took power as the Zhou declined were eventually devoured into seven large nations, and Qu Yuan worked as a high minister for the king of Chu, one of the seven.
At the time of Qu Yuan's life, another of the Seven Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Qin, was growing ever more aggressive, the ruling family's ambitions given strength by the rise of a philosophy of meritocratic totalitarianism (more or less) called Legalism, which a philosopher friend of mine describes pithily as "Evil Daoism." Qin scored a sequence of decisive military victories, and seemed a threat to all seven kingdoms, including Chu. Qu Yuan advocated an alliance between the six kingdoms against Qin, but he was betrayed for his trouble and sentenced to exile in Hubei province. Exiled and beset by deep depression, he composed poetry. If you think this sounds familiar, you're absolutely right. Many Chinese poets have walked the path of exile and literature; Qu Yuan is noteworthy, though, because even if he did not walk it first, he is the first one we remember. He is, quite literally, the one they made the holiday after.
Oh yes: in his depression, Qu Yuan wrote a sequence of poems about government, loyalty, duty, and sorrow, that have been the touchstones of Chinese romantic verse for two millennia. Then he walked into a lake carrying a heavy rock, and drowned. Villagers raced out in their fishing boats to save them, but they were too late. Unwilling to let such a great man be devoured by the beasts of the water, they threw rice and dumplings into the lake: eat this, but leave his body unharmed. When that failed, they beat the water with their paddles to frighten hungry fish away. Every year to this day, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, people around the world race their dragon boats into the lake to save Qu Yuan, and always fail; they throw rice into the water so the fish will not devour him.
It looks sort of like this.
In the end, Qu Yuan proved right. The combination of the political control granted by Legalism, and the military leadership and ambition of a ruling family rightly measured against the early Caesars and Phillip and Alexander of Macedon, proved too much for the other six kingdoms. In 221 BCE, the Qin unified all China under a single banner, and commenced a rule infamous for bloodthirsty suppression of dissenting opinion, bookburning, and the murder of scholars. The Qin lasted for only fifteen years before they were toppled by a peasant rebellion led by the charismatic Liu Bang, who founded the Han Dynasty, but they left deep marks on China.
One of Qu Yuan's poems was an extensive poem praising the red tangerine, called 橘颂 júsòng, "Tangerine Ode." Here, Qu Yuan praises the tangerine for the same reasons as Zhang Jiuling (perhaps I should write that the other way 'round, of course), citing the value of its remarkable constancy. Reading this poem biographically, you hear Qu Yuan's lament for the world of human affairs, where constancy is not so highly regarded, or rewarded.
Zhang takes this poem as his base, establishing the scene and alluding in the same breath to Qu Yuan, with whom all his readers would be familiar. Then he asks why the tree is so secluded, thereby raising the question: why has he been banished? Why was Qu Yuan banished, for that matter? Why are men of good faith banished from the halls of power?
I'll get to those questions, and the poem's overall meaning as near as I can fathom it, tomorrow.
At the time of Qu Yuan's life, another of the Seven Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Qin, was growing ever more aggressive, the ruling family's ambitions given strength by the rise of a philosophy of meritocratic totalitarianism (more or less) called Legalism, which a philosopher friend of mine describes pithily as "Evil Daoism." Qin scored a sequence of decisive military victories, and seemed a threat to all seven kingdoms, including Chu. Qu Yuan advocated an alliance between the six kingdoms against Qin, but he was betrayed for his trouble and sentenced to exile in Hubei province. Exiled and beset by deep depression, he composed poetry. If you think this sounds familiar, you're absolutely right. Many Chinese poets have walked the path of exile and literature; Qu Yuan is noteworthy, though, because even if he did not walk it first, he is the first one we remember. He is, quite literally, the one they made the holiday after.
Oh yes: in his depression, Qu Yuan wrote a sequence of poems about government, loyalty, duty, and sorrow, that have been the touchstones of Chinese romantic verse for two millennia. Then he walked into a lake carrying a heavy rock, and drowned. Villagers raced out in their fishing boats to save them, but they were too late. Unwilling to let such a great man be devoured by the beasts of the water, they threw rice and dumplings into the lake: eat this, but leave his body unharmed. When that failed, they beat the water with their paddles to frighten hungry fish away. Every year to this day, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, people around the world race their dragon boats into the lake to save Qu Yuan, and always fail; they throw rice into the water so the fish will not devour him.
It looks sort of like this.
In the end, Qu Yuan proved right. The combination of the political control granted by Legalism, and the military leadership and ambition of a ruling family rightly measured against the early Caesars and Phillip and Alexander of Macedon, proved too much for the other six kingdoms. In 221 BCE, the Qin unified all China under a single banner, and commenced a rule infamous for bloodthirsty suppression of dissenting opinion, bookburning, and the murder of scholars. The Qin lasted for only fifteen years before they were toppled by a peasant rebellion led by the charismatic Liu Bang, who founded the Han Dynasty, but they left deep marks on China.
One of Qu Yuan's poems was an extensive poem praising the red tangerine, called 橘颂 júsòng, "Tangerine Ode." Here, Qu Yuan praises the tangerine for the same reasons as Zhang Jiuling (perhaps I should write that the other way 'round, of course), citing the value of its remarkable constancy. Reading this poem biographically, you hear Qu Yuan's lament for the world of human affairs, where constancy is not so highly regarded, or rewarded.
Zhang takes this poem as his base, establishing the scene and alluding in the same breath to Qu Yuan, with whom all his readers would be familiar. Then he asks why the tree is so secluded, thereby raising the question: why has he been banished? Why was Qu Yuan banished, for that matter? Why are men of good faith banished from the halls of power?
I'll get to those questions, and the poem's overall meaning as near as I can fathom it, tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
3: What We Talk About When We Talk About Encountering
(With apologies to Raymond Carver)
Matt requested some discussion of the Buddhist themes in the comments to the last post, and I'll oblige tomorrow. Tonight, I want to talk about this poem as part of the sequence of 感遇 (gǎnyù) poems.
Zhang Jiuling's first poem compared two types of birds - the lone swan flying over the ocean, and the kingfishers nested in the high tree. Zhang's sympathy appears to be first with the swan, claiming that as he wanders high and far, the arrows of men cannot harm him. However, Zhang writes this poem after being banished from the imperial court and sent to a distant province. In fact, his position has a great deal in common with the kingfishers, who, nesting in the tall tree, are nevertheless vulnerable to the "golden bullets" of a hunter's sling.
Similarly, in the second poem, we naturally project Zhang onto the hermit wandering the lonely valley among the cinnamon and lotus flowers in the autumn and spring. However - and I'm going with Matt's excellent read on the character 折 zhé as "select" in the sense of "pluck" or "pick" - by the end of the poem there's considerable ambiguity as to whether the poet identifies more with the peaceful religious hermit or the flowers, which, rejoicing as they grow, don't care whether they might be picked by the hermit. However, we're not certain whether it's a good thing for the flowers to be plucked. Zhang and his readers certainly thought that the hermit was a virtuous figure, but is being picked by a hermit an honor for the flowers, or certain death? This is particularly interesting given the form Zhang's exile took: he was selected (picked / 折'd) by the Emperor as a governor of a backwards province, and in the process ripped out of his flowering, carefree life at court.
In this poem, Zhang's focus shifts from the natural world to the hermit himself: a religious recluse living away from the urban press of humanity in some secluded valley, meditating and perfecting his mind (more on which later). Of the ten characters in the poem's first couplet, two (独 dú and 孤 gū) emphasize the solitary, lonely nature of the hermit's retreat. The hermit, isolated from the universe, achieves perfection by contemplating emptiness. What a fitting image for a poem by a man separated from his society!
But Zhang doesn't stop there, of course. In the last two lines, he arrives again, strangely separate from what at first appeared to be the main character of the poem:
From flying or sinking affairs am I cut off;
what comfort do I gain from dedication?
In contrast to the first two lines, which contain two characters meaning "lonely," the last two lines contain two characters, 自zǐ and 吾wù, that both mean "I" - in the same position as the two "lonely" characters in the first couplet. It seems likely to me that this is an intentional parallelism (and one almost impossible to capture in English translation, of course). The emphasis on the personal pronoun is weird in a a poem like this: the Tang poet has many different ways to narrate or describe a situation, yet here Zhang draws our attention to an "I" in a manner most uncharacteristic of a Buddhist monk.
I see a few different possibilities here:
Regardless of which interpretation we choose (or others I've missed that y'all should feel free to point out for me), thinking about the last three poems this way has given me a lot of respect for Zhang's mastery of perspective and subtlety. I wonder where he'll take us next.
Matt requested some discussion of the Buddhist themes in the comments to the last post, and I'll oblige tomorrow. Tonight, I want to talk about this poem as part of the sequence of 感遇 (gǎnyù) poems.
Zhang Jiuling's first poem compared two types of birds - the lone swan flying over the ocean, and the kingfishers nested in the high tree. Zhang's sympathy appears to be first with the swan, claiming that as he wanders high and far, the arrows of men cannot harm him. However, Zhang writes this poem after being banished from the imperial court and sent to a distant province. In fact, his position has a great deal in common with the kingfishers, who, nesting in the tall tree, are nevertheless vulnerable to the "golden bullets" of a hunter's sling.
Similarly, in the second poem, we naturally project Zhang onto the hermit wandering the lonely valley among the cinnamon and lotus flowers in the autumn and spring. However - and I'm going with Matt's excellent read on the character 折 zhé as "select" in the sense of "pluck" or "pick" - by the end of the poem there's considerable ambiguity as to whether the poet identifies more with the peaceful religious hermit or the flowers, which, rejoicing as they grow, don't care whether they might be picked by the hermit. However, we're not certain whether it's a good thing for the flowers to be plucked. Zhang and his readers certainly thought that the hermit was a virtuous figure, but is being picked by a hermit an honor for the flowers, or certain death? This is particularly interesting given the form Zhang's exile took: he was selected (picked / 折'd) by the Emperor as a governor of a backwards province, and in the process ripped out of his flowering, carefree life at court.
In this poem, Zhang's focus shifts from the natural world to the hermit himself: a religious recluse living away from the urban press of humanity in some secluded valley, meditating and perfecting his mind (more on which later). Of the ten characters in the poem's first couplet, two (独 dú and 孤 gū) emphasize the solitary, lonely nature of the hermit's retreat. The hermit, isolated from the universe, achieves perfection by contemplating emptiness. What a fitting image for a poem by a man separated from his society!
But Zhang doesn't stop there, of course. In the last two lines, he arrives again, strangely separate from what at first appeared to be the main character of the poem:
From flying or sinking affairs am I cut off;
what comfort do I gain from dedication?
In contrast to the first two lines, which contain two characters meaning "lonely," the last two lines contain two characters, 自zǐ and 吾wù, that both mean "I" - in the same position as the two "lonely" characters in the first couplet. It seems likely to me that this is an intentional parallelism (and one almost impossible to capture in English translation, of course). The emphasis on the personal pronoun is weird in a a poem like this: the Tang poet has many different ways to narrate or describe a situation, yet here Zhang draws our attention to an "I" in a manner most uncharacteristic of a Buddhist monk.
I see a few different possibilities here:
- The monk is talking. A Buddhist sage seems unlikely to communicate in such a self-centered manner. Maybe I'm misreading the line, but I think this is the least probable option.
- Zhang is talking, and the "dedication" in the last line is meant to be read as "dedication to the Emperor" or "the court." In that case, he might be saying: "look at this monk! When I am distant from court, I feel really, really sad -- what does that idle dedication gain me? I should start meditating like the monk here."
- Zhang is talking, and the "dedication" in the last line refers to Buddhist practice. In this case, Zhang is wistfully confessing his inability to focus on contemplation like the ideal monk: "all this meditation doesn't help me; what comfort can I gain from dedicating [myself to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha]?"
Regardless of which interpretation we choose (or others I've missed that y'all should feel free to point out for me), thinking about the last three poems this way has given me a lot of respect for Zhang's mastery of perspective and subtlety. I wonder where he'll take us next.
Monday, October 25, 2010
3: Zhang Jiuling, Four Poems of Encountering #3
The 300 Tang Poems opens with four Zhang Jiuling works, of which you've seen two aready. This one is less famous than the first pair, which has made it harder to find good annotations. Be prepared for retractions and madness to come!
003
张九龄:感遇四首之三
幽人归独卧,滞虑洗孤清。
持此谢高鸟,因之传远情。
日夕怀空意,人谁感至精?
飞沈理自隔,何所慰吾诚?
yōurén guī dú wò, zhì lǜ xǐ gū qīng
hermit return lonely bed, sluggish consider wash alone clear
chí cǐ xiè gāo niǎo, yīn zhī chuán yuán qíng.
hold this wither tall bird, (therefore) spread far feeling
rìxì huài kōng yì, rén shéi gǎn zhì jīng
day night cherish empty meaning, people who feel to perfect?
fēi shěn lǐ zǐ gé, hé suǒ wèi wù chéng
fly sink at a distance I cut off, how that which console me sincere
---
The hermit returns to the solitary bed,
agglutinate thoughts washed lonely and clear.
Hold these to thank the soaring birds;
Because of them his mind spreads far.
Day and night embracing emptiness--
who on earth can know such perfection?
From flying or sinking affairs am I cut off;
what comfort do I gain from dedication?
003
张九龄:感遇四首之三
幽人归独卧,滞虑洗孤清。
持此谢高鸟,因之传远情。
日夕怀空意,人谁感至精?
飞沈理自隔,何所慰吾诚?
yōurén guī dú wò, zhì lǜ xǐ gū qīng
hermit return lonely bed, sluggish consider wash alone clear
chí cǐ xiè gāo niǎo, yīn zhī chuán yuán qíng.
hold this wither tall bird, (therefore) spread far feeling
rìxì huài kōng yì, rén shéi gǎn zhì jīng
day night cherish empty meaning, people who feel to perfect?
fēi shěn lǐ zǐ gé, hé suǒ wèi wù chéng
fly sink at a distance I cut off, how that which console me sincere
---
The hermit returns to the solitary bed,
agglutinate thoughts washed lonely and clear.
Hold these to thank the soaring birds;
Because of them his mind spreads far.
Day and night embracing emptiness--
who on earth can know such perfection?
From flying or sinking affairs am I cut off;
what comfort do I gain from dedication?
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
2: Beauty and Big Sheep
Veering from understanding to complete ignorance, I'm going to talk about the character 美 měi, which appears in the poem's last line：
何求美人折?
hé qiǔ měi rén zhé?
why beg beauty person return
I've translated měi as "beauty" above, which is its dictionary definition; some other suggestions from Wenlin include "pretty" and "self-satisfied," which I think is Wenlin being too pejorative about the state of being pleased with oneself.
Chinese characters come in many different varieties. The most common by far are semantic-phonetic combinations like 饿 è, which means "hungry." These types of characters are composed of smaller characters that suggest both the character's meaning and its pronunciation. The leftmost part of the 饿 character, 饣, is a simplified version of 食 shí, which means "eat," so we know this character has something to do with food; that's as much meaning as the character contains within itself. Meanwhile, the rightmost part of the character, 我, is pronounced "wǒ," and is supposed to suggest to us (or was once pronounced as - I'm going to beg Matt to post on this because his sense of tonal development is better than mine) the sound "è."
Some Chinese characters, though, are meaning-pictures. 好 (hǎo), the classical example, is composed of a picture of a woman (女) next to a picture of a child (子), and means "good." Woman + Child is good - a pleasant domestic and dynastic image that has a whole bunch of social connotations which I don't want to get into now. 美, at least according to one common etymological dictionary (which is not always correct but is often interesting), is the character for sheep (羊) on top of the character for "big" (大). Big sheep are beautiful! Or, Beauty is Big Sheep! The next time I look at images of Jolin Tsai or Sun Yanzi, I'll have to compare them to a big sheep and see what they have in common.
That aside, my question is, how to translate "měi" at the end of this poem. The dictionary translation above makes it look like the proper English would be "Why beg the beautiful people to return?" but that doesn't feel right: the poet's the wandering one, not the beautiful people. 求 qiú might be better read as "seek", in which case the line might read something like "Why, seeking the beautiful people, return?" This reading has its merits, but it sounds like the poet is plagued by concupiscence, while I think he's more worried about political position and influence. In that case, rather than reading 美人 "beauty people" as "beautiful people," maybe I should read it as "Why, seeking beauty from people, return?"
This is where I make a big jump, and this is where my translation probably fails. In love with the idea that the poet's talking about politics, I think, beauty and self satisfaction might be referring to a kind of official position or respect, much as did "高明“ (high and shining) and 美服 (beautiful clothes) in the first poem. Hence my translation as "honor," and the final reading of "Why return to seek honor among men?"
何求美人折?
hé qiǔ měi rén zhé?
why beg beauty person return
I've translated měi as "beauty" above, which is its dictionary definition; some other suggestions from Wenlin include "pretty" and "self-satisfied," which I think is Wenlin being too pejorative about the state of being pleased with oneself.
Chinese characters come in many different varieties. The most common by far are semantic-phonetic combinations like 饿 è, which means "hungry." These types of characters are composed of smaller characters that suggest both the character's meaning and its pronunciation. The leftmost part of the 饿 character, 饣, is a simplified version of 食 shí, which means "eat," so we know this character has something to do with food; that's as much meaning as the character contains within itself. Meanwhile, the rightmost part of the character, 我, is pronounced "wǒ," and is supposed to suggest to us (or was once pronounced as - I'm going to beg Matt to post on this because his sense of tonal development is better than mine) the sound "è."
Some Chinese characters, though, are meaning-pictures. 好 (hǎo), the classical example, is composed of a picture of a woman (女) next to a picture of a child (子), and means "good." Woman + Child is good - a pleasant domestic and dynastic image that has a whole bunch of social connotations which I don't want to get into now. 美, at least according to one common etymological dictionary (which is not always correct but is often interesting), is the character for sheep (羊) on top of the character for "big" (大). Big sheep are beautiful! Or, Beauty is Big Sheep! The next time I look at images of Jolin Tsai or Sun Yanzi, I'll have to compare them to a big sheep and see what they have in common.
That aside, my question is, how to translate "měi" at the end of this poem. The dictionary translation above makes it look like the proper English would be "Why beg the beautiful people to return?" but that doesn't feel right: the poet's the wandering one, not the beautiful people. 求 qiú might be better read as "seek", in which case the line might read something like "Why, seeking the beautiful people, return?" This reading has its merits, but it sounds like the poet is plagued by concupiscence, while I think he's more worried about political position and influence. In that case, rather than reading 美人 "beauty people" as "beautiful people," maybe I should read it as "Why, seeking beauty from people, return?"
This is where I make a big jump, and this is where my translation probably fails. In love with the idea that the poet's talking about politics, I think, beauty and self satisfaction might be referring to a kind of official position or respect, much as did "高明“ (high and shining) and 美服 (beautiful clothes) in the first poem. Hence my translation as "honor," and the final reading of "Why return to seek honor among men?"
Monday, October 11, 2010
2: Zhang Jiuling - Four Poems of Encountering, No. 2
Matt's madcap rebellion regardless, I intend to continue with the poems in Hengtang Hermit Edition order. I don't know enough Tang poetry to know which poems out of the 300 I really like; one of my minor goals with this project is to learn more about Tang dynasty poetics. I have to move in some order, so I might as well proceed in the traditional one, which will provide me with classics and hidden gems in equal measure.
002张九龄:感遇四首之二
兰叶春葳蕤,桂华秋皎洁。
欣欣此生意,自尔为佳节。
谁知林栖者,闻风坐相悦。
草木有本心,何求美人折?
lán yè chūn wēiruí, guì huā qiū jiǎojié
orchid leave spring abundant luxurious, cassia flower autumn clear pure
xīnxīn cǐ shēng yì, zǐ ér wèi jiā jié
happy happy this life meaning, I you become good festival
shéi zhī lín xì zhě, wēn fēng zuò xiāng yuè
who know forest lonley (type of person), hear\smell wind & so mutual joy
cǎo mù yǒu běn xīn, hé qiǔ měi rén zhé?
grass wood have root heart, why beg beauty person return?
Zhang Jiuling, Four Poems of Encountering, No. 2
Orchid leaves in spring: abundant, luxurious; cinnamon flowers in fall: bright, pure.
Happy, happy this life; spring and fall are joyous revels.
Who knows the lonely forest, hears the wind and so becomes like breeze.
Grass and wood have a rooted heart; why return to seek honor among men?
Even without Kang Laoshi to excoriate me I can see a handful of issues with this translation, which I'll start to bring up tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy your evening!
002张九龄:感遇四首之二
兰叶春葳蕤,桂华秋皎洁。
欣欣此生意,自尔为佳节。
谁知林栖者,闻风坐相悦。
草木有本心,何求美人折?
lán yè chūn wēiruí, guì huā qiū jiǎojié
orchid leave spring abundant luxurious, cassia flower autumn clear pure
xīnxīn cǐ shēng yì, zǐ ér wèi jiā jié
happy happy this life meaning, I you become good festival
shéi zhī lín xì zhě, wēn fēng zuò xiāng yuè
who know forest lonley (type of person), hear\smell wind & so mutual joy
cǎo mù yǒu běn xīn, hé qiǔ měi rén zhé?
grass wood have root heart, why beg beauty person return?
Zhang Jiuling, Four Poems of Encountering, No. 2
Orchid leaves in spring: abundant, luxurious; cinnamon flowers in fall: bright, pure.
Happy, happy this life; spring and fall are joyous revels.
Who knows the lonely forest, hears the wind and so becomes like breeze.
Grass and wood have a rooted heart; why return to seek honor among men?
Even without Kang Laoshi to excoriate me I can see a handful of issues with this translation, which I'll start to bring up tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy your evening!
Monday, October 4, 2010
10: Du Fu - The Beautiful Woman
Max has evinced a desire to translate in the order of the Hengtang Hermit Edition (sometimes called the "Retired Master of Hengtang", and certainly deserving a post of its own), but, wild free spirit that I am, I have chosen instead to jump around. And so I present the tenth poem of the collection, by Du Fu:
010 杜甫: 佳人
绝代有佳人,幽居在空谷。
自云良家子,零落依草木。
关中昔丧乱,兄弟遭杀戮。
官高何足论,不得收骨肉。
世情恶衰歇,万事随转烛。
夫婿轻薄儿,新人美如玉。
合昏尚知时,鸳鸯不独宿。
但见新人笑,那闻旧人哭!
在山泉水清,出山泉水浊。
侍婢卖珠回,牵萝补茅屋。
摘花不插发,采柏动盈掬。
天寒翠袖薄,日暮倚修竹。
jiā rén
jué dài yǒu jiā rén, yōu jū zài kōng gǔ
zì yún liáng jiā zǐ, líng luò yī cǎo mù
guān zhōng xī sāng luàn, xiōng dì zāo shā lù
guān gāo hé zú lùn, bù dé shōu gǔ ròu
shì qíng è shuāi xiē, wàn shì suí zhuǎn zhú
fū xù qīng bó ér, xīn rén měi rú yù
hé hūn shàng zhī shí, yuān yāng bù dú sù
dàn jiàn xīn rén xiào, nǎ wén jiù rén kū
zài shān quán shuǐ qīng, chū shān quán shuǐ zhuó
shì bì mài zhū huí, qiān luó bǔ máo wū
zhāi huā bù chā fā, cǎi bǎi dòng yíng jū
tiān hán cuì xiù báo, rì mù yǐ xiū zhú
the beautiful woman
cut generation has beautiful people, secluded inhabit in empty valley
self say good family son/child, alone fallen rely grass wood
central plain former-times death chaos, brothers met-disaster killed massacred
official high how enough discuss, not worth gather bones flesh
world condition evil fall cease, ten-thousand things follow turn candle
man son-in-law light thin, new people beautiful like jade
unite dim(meet at night) still know time (the Time of Knowing), male(duck) female(duck) not alone sleep
only/but see new people laugh, that hear old people cry
in mountain pool water clear, leave mountain pool water muddy
servant maid sell pearl return, lead-on/pull vine mend thatch house
pluck flower not insert hair, gather cypress move full/surplus hold-with-both-hands
sky cold emerald sleeve thin, sun dusk lean-on slender bamboo
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The Beautiful Woman
In generations long past, there was a beautiful woman who lived alone in an empty valley.
Quoth she:
"I, the child of a good family, am fallen
empty, to lean on grass and wood.
Of late the lands Between the Passes are beset by death and chaos,
brothers cursed to kill and to massacre.
Of those high officials what can be said? They could not
order even their own bones and flesh.
The mood of the world is evil, fallen, exhausted, and all
the Ten Thousand Things flicker and turn like candle flame.
My husband was weak and thin,
his new woman beautiful as jade.
They met at dusk in the Time of Knowing, before the flowers closed,
mated ducks who would not pass the night alone.
He only sees that new one, how can he
hear this old one cry?
In the mountains, spring-water is clear.
Leave the mountains, and such pools thicken with mud.
My maid has gone to sell my pearls, and she returns
trailing vines to mend my thatched hut.
I pluck flowers but do not bind them into my hair, I seek
for cypress to fill my hands and carry home.
The sky is cold and my emerald sleeves thin, and
as the sun dims I lean on a slender bamboo."
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