Tag: Du Fu

佳人  A Beautiful Woman

杜甫 （Author:  Du Fu, 8th century)

绝代有佳人，absolutely/by all means generation have beautiful person
幽居在空谷。tranquil reside at empty valley
自云良家子，herself say good family daughter
零落依草木。remnant fall lean on grass trees
关中昔丧乱，strategic pass middle past mourning chaos
兄弟遭杀戮。elder brother younger brother suffer kill slay
官高何足论，official rank high how sufficient talk
不得收骨肉。no be able to collect bone fleshes
世情恶衰歇，world feeling evil decline come to an end
万事随转烛。ten thousand things follow rotate candles
夫婿轻薄儿，husband look down upon thin person
新人美如玉。new person beautiful similar to jade
合昏尚知时，close dusk still know time
鸳鸯不独宿。mandarin duck no alone sleep
但见新人笑，only see new person smile
那闻旧人哭。how (question word) hear old person cry
在山泉水清，exist mountain spring water clean
出山泉水浊。go out mountain spring water turbid/muddy
侍婢卖珠回，serve female slave sell jewel return
牵萝补茅屋。lead along rattan repair thatched cottage
摘花不插发，pick flower no insert hair
采柏动盈掬。pick cypress leaf move (here means usually) full bunch
天寒翠袖薄，sky cold green sleeve thin/flimsy
日暮倚修竹.   sun sunset lean on tall bamboo

 

Translation:

The most beautiful woman of our time,
Lives alone in a deserted valley.
She told me about her noble birth.
Driven into the wilderness, she had no support but the grass and trees.

When Chang An was invaded,
Both her older and younger brothers were slaughtered.
Their high rank could not protect them.
No one could retrieve their flesh and their bones.

And her whole world fell into ruins.
All of life is as unsubstantial as a flickering candle flame.
Her husband began to despise his fallen wife,
And found a new woman as beautiful as jade.

Even the flowers know to close their petals at dusk,
And the mandarin ducks will not sleep alone.
But her husband can only see his new love smiling.
How can he hear his old wife cry?

Spring water is clean when it’s in the mountain,
It gets muddy when it runs downhill.
When the maid returned from selling her lady’s jewels,
She found the lady using straw to repair the cottage.

The flowers she gathers are not for her hair.
Her arms are filled with cypress leaves.
The sky is cold, and her fine blue gown is flimsy.
The sun sets, and she leans on the tall bamboo.

 

Translation notes:

This poem is a portrait of a beautiful upper class woman whose birth family was destroyed during the An Lushan rebellion. After the downfall of her family, she was also despised and discarded by her husband, and was driven out to live in the mountain/wilderness. During the Tang Dynasty, it was usually not easy for an upper class man to divorce a wife who belonged to the same social rank. Therefore, what was described in Du Fu’s poem was a reflection of a complete destruction of social order during the An Lushan rebellion.

The poem is not easy to translate, and we had to take a couple liberties. The fourth line, if translated literally, will be something along the line of “lost and fallen, she could only lean on the grass and trees”. Some other translations have translated this line more literally. We felt that the literal translation could be pretty confusing to American readers, and therefore chose to translate it as “she has no support but the grass and trees”. The geographical location in the fifth line, if translated literally, will be “the middle of the strategic pass”. Here, since Du Fu is referring to the capital region, we chose to translate it directly as “Chang An”.

旅夜书怀  Writing my Thoughts when Traveling at Night

作者：杜甫 （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

细草微风岸  thin grass tiny wind shore
危墙独夜舟  fragile/tall mast lone night broad
星垂平野阔  star hang down flat field wide
月涌大江流  moon surge big river flow
名岂文章著  reputation how (question word) article show
官应老病休  official should old sick stop/rest
飘飘何所似  float float what (question word) similar to
天地一沙鸥  heaven earth one sand gull

 

Translation:

Thin grass, and a gentle breeze on shore,
A tall mast on the night’s lone boat.
Starlight falls to the broad, flat fields,
And the moon’s reflection drifts in the great river’s flow.
Will I be known only for writing poems?
An official should rest when he’s old and sick.
But I flutter from place to place,
Like a gull between heaven and earth.

 

Translation Notes:

More than a thousand years after his death, Du Fu is still admired as one of China’s greatest poets, yet he was deeply disappointed by his failure to also become a great statesman. During Du Fu’s lifetime, China was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion which cost millions of lives. As a Confucian, Du Fu wished to help the emperor to restore social order and to alleviate the suffering of the common people, but he never became more than a low ranking official. Please see Qu River for a detailed discussion of one of Du Fu’s attempts to guide official policy.

Some Chinese literary critics have compared the second couplet of this poem to the second couplet of Li Bai’s poem “Crossing at Jingmen and Waving Goodbye”, which we have also translated.

In Li Bai’s poem, the second couplet features images — mountains, plains, the Yangtze and the great wildness. The second couplet of this poem also has the flat field and the Yangtze, but it includes the stars and the moon as well, which appear later in Li Bai’s poem. It is an interesting comparison: Li Bai was crossing the Yangtze at the beginning of his career filled with hope and ready for adventure. His images are dynamic, fanciful, and dazzling. Du Fu was near the end of what he believed was a failed career, and he appears to be docked on the Yangtze rather than crossing it. His portrait of the same scene is quiet, still, and depressive.

曲江 The Qu River

作者：杜甫 （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

朝回日日典春衣， court return day day pawn spring clothes
每日江头尽醉归。 Everyday river head exhaust drunk return
酒债寻常行处有， wine debt common go place have
人生七十古来稀。 people life seventy ancient come rare
穿花蛱蝶深深见， to cross flower butterfly deep deep see
点水蜻蜓款款飞。 skim water dragonfly slowly slowly fly
传语风光共流转， pass along words wind light together flow turn
暂时相赏莫相违. temporary each other appreciate no each other parting

 

Translation: 

Every day I return from court and pawn my spring robes,
And every day, I get so drunk by the river head before going home

Wherever I go, I owe money for wine.
Since ancient times, few people have lived to the age of seventy.

Deep in the flowers, a wandering butterfly appears.
Skimming the water, a dragonfly slowly glides.

Tell these beautiful scenes that we could all be one, roaming together
For a while, enjoying each other’s company without parting.

 

Translation notes:

Our translation of this poem begins rather brutally with the poet pawning his robes and getting drunk by the river every day. It is possible to translate words five and six of the second line differently. Out of context, they could mean “tipsy,” or “drinking my limit,” and others have translated them this way. We believe that “drinking” and “end” mean getting pretty thoroughly drunk here, and that there is a dark note of despair in what otherwise could be a rather typical Chinese poem about having some wine and communing with nature. Other drinking and nature poems do have an element of sadness, of having turned away from a more active style of living. They have also incorporated the idea of not having any money, but they’ve generally done so by painting an almost enviable picture of rustic simplicity, e.g. a humble thatched hut, a small garden, a drink shared with a neighbor. They are often suffused with a Taoist or Buddhist ideal of stillness and contemplation.

Du Fu was a Confucian and was very much concerned with right behavior. In Qu River, we see an urban man pawning his robes and seeing his creditors everywhere. He seems very alone though he works at the seat of power. Du Fu also notes that few people have ever lived to the age of seventy, in other words he doesn’t expect that he will live a long life. He spends the first half of the poem saying nothing about nature other than referencing the river and telling us that he is in debt, that he drinks daily, that he doesn’t expect to live to the 70s, and that he still works for the court. This is not a contemplative or idyllic opening.

The second half of the poem is a more typical work about drinking and longing to be one with the beauty of the natural world, but we note that Du Fu emphasizes the transitory quality of these moments and of the world around him. There is no mention of mountains, the moon, a tall pine, or other more enduring natural sights, only delicate butterflies and dragonflies. Du Fu hopes to join with them “for a while,” implying that he doesn’t expect to enjoy such beauty for long. At the time of writing Qu River, Du Fu was serving as a low-ranking advisor to Emperor Suzong and probably knew that he would soon be banished from the court.

The cause of the banishment was Du Fu’s loyalty to his friend and patron, Fang Guan. Fang Guan had been a chancellor to Suzong’s father, who was known as the Bright Emperor. During the An Lushan rebellion, the Bright Emperor escaped from Chang’An, and Suzong, who was the crown prince, declared himself the new emperor not long after. The Bright Emperor sent Fang Guan to recognize Suzong as the new emperor and to give his son the imperial seal. The new emperor was initially pleased with Fang’s arrival and offered him a senior position at court. However, it was later revealed that Fang Guan, while he was the chancellor to the Bright Emperor, advised the Bright Emperor to have Suzong share military commands with several of his brothers, each acting independently from each other and in different geographical territories. Suspicious of Fang’s loyalty to him, the new emperor stripped Fang Guan of much of his power. Du Fu then revealed himself to be either a very good Confucian or a very poor politician (or both) when he protested Fang’s demotion. After Du Fu’s protest, the new emperor grew concerned that Du Fu was inappropriately loyal to Fang, and he ordered the judicial system to interrogate him. This was a fairly unusual step to take given that Du’s ranking was very low as a government official. The result of the interrogation was that Du Fu was cleared of all criminal suspicions and pardoned by the emperor, but he was “banished” in the sense of being reassigned to a more provincial post.

作者：杜甫  （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

竹凉侵卧内，bamboo cold invade bedchamber inside
野月满庭隅。wild moon fill yard corner
重露成涓滴，heavy dew become tiny stream drop
稀星乍有无。sparse star suddenly exist no
暗飞萤自照，dark fly firefly itself shine
水宿鸟相呼。water lodge bird each other cry
万事干戈里，ten thousand affairs shield dagger-ax inside
空悲清夜徂。in vain sorrow clear night fade away

 

Translation:

Cold air from the bamboo grove invaded the bedchamber,
And the moon, shining from the wilderness, flooded the whole yard.
The dew grew heavy and began to drip，
A few stars appeared, then disappeared, came back again.

Flying in darkness, lightning bugs flickered.
Resting by the water, birds called to one another.
Dagger-axes and shields are at the heart of everything.
Hopelessly, I grieved as the clear night ended.

 

Translation Notes:

It is believed that Du Fu wrote this poem right after the An Lushan rebellion ended. The Au Lushan rebellion, which lasted for almost eight years, essentially left the Tang Dynasty devastated, making its western border vulnerable to the Tibetan forces. In 763 AD, immediately after the An Lushan rebellion ended, the Tibetan forces invaded the Tang Empire and briefly captured Chang’an, the capital of the Empire. Du Fu was living in Cheng Du at that time, faraway from the center of the warfare. However, he was very sympathetic towards the sufferings of commoners during the war. The first three couplets describe the natural sceneries at night around his residence, implying that he stayed up awake all night. The last couplet of the poem explains the reason for his sorrow — he was worried about the warfare but he couldn’t do anything to help mitigate the sufferings of the people.

Our translation of Weary Night is not very different from the other translations we’ve seen. We chose to use “invade” in the first line because it was more in keeping with a poem about dagger-axes and shields and because it was more literal. We chose to use “hopelessly” in the final line because the word felt more immediate and personal to use than “in vain.”

 

作者：杜甫    （Author:  Du Fu, 8th Century)

国破山河在   nation ruined mountain river exist
城春草木深   city springtime grass tree deep
感时花溅泪   feel time flower splash tear
恨别鸟惊心   hate goodbye bird startle heart
烽火连三月   beacon fire last three months
家书抵万金  home letter worth 10000 gold
白头搔更短  white hair scratch more short
浑欲不胜簪   hardly can hold hairpin

 

Translation

Spring View

Our nation is defeated; the mountains and rivers remain.
In spring, the city lies deep in grass and trees.
Feeling the times, I cry at the sight of flowers.
Grieving over separation, my heart is startled by birds.

The signal fires have burned for three months now,
And a letter from home is worth a thousand pieces of gold.
I scratch my thinning white hair.
It can barely hold a hairpin anymore. 

 

Translation Notes

This is one of the most famous of the Tang dynasty poems, and perhaps the most widely translated. Our translation differs from many others in two significant ways. In the first line, we say that the nation is “defeated” while most of the translations we’ve seen have described China as “ruined” or “broken.” We prefer “defeated” because the words guo po in the original are generally used to refer to military defeat, and we try to be as true to the original as possible. We also just like the word better. “Ruined” has been described as more poetic, but we believe that the specificity of a military defeat rather than the amorphous “ruined” is the stronger image and more in keeping with the Tang poets’ use of clear, concrete terms.

We have also seen a number of translations that have the flowers crying and the birds being startled. We think these translations may have come about through a misunderstanding of the grammatical structure of the poems. Poets frequently wrote in the first person, omitting the word “I” which the readers were expected to understand. Because most lines follow a subject/verb format, “feel time” is best understood as “I, feeling the time,” followed by what I do (cry at the sight of flowers). Similarly, “hate goodbye” is best understood as the subject “I, hating goodbye,” also followed by what I do (feel startled by birds). The result of the more grammatically correct translation is a poem that describes a man so undone by grief that even the sight of flowers and birds causes him pain. The alternate translations yields the awkward images of weeping flowers and birds who don’t like saying goodbye. 

And here is a little bit of a historical background of this poem:  This poem was written by Du Fu in the late spring of 757 AD during the An Lushan Rebellion. An Lushan was a regional military commander in the northern part of the then Tang Dynasty, and he rebelled against the Tang Dynasty at the end of 755. In July of 756, An’s rebel forces captured Chang’an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. The city was looted and burned by the rebel forces. Du Fu arranged for his wife to stay at the Lu Province, a place north of Chang’an, while Du Fu himself continued his journey north to Ling Wu to join the new emperor Su Zong.  However, he was caught by the rebel forces during his journey north, and was taken back to Chang’an as a prisoner. It is said that Du Fu wrote this poem when staying in Chang’an as a prisoner of the rebel forces. 

作者：杜甫  （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

車轔轔 Cart sound of carriage (ling, ling)
馬蕭蕭  horse xiao, xiao walking sound, shoes, hooves clopping
行人弓箭各在腰 walk man (enlisted men) bow arrow each at waist
爺孃妻子走相送 father mother wife child walk him send someone off
塵埃不見咸陽橋 dust/dust not see Xianyang bridge,
牽衣頓足攔道哭 hold by hand clothes foot tapping block path cry
哭聲直上干雲霄cry sound straight go on rush towards (clash) cloud sky
道旁過者問行人 path beside (passing by person refers to Du fu) ask enlisted men
 行人但云點行頻 enlisted men only talk point (select/roll call) enlist frequently 
 或從十五北防河 either from 15 north defend yellow river
便至四十西營田  then reach 40 west manage field 
 去時里正與裹頭 leave time manager of an area (one li) and wrap head
 歸來頭白還戍邊 return come head white still defend frontier
邊亭流血成海水 frontier yard flow blood become sea water
武皇開邊意未已 Emp. Wu (veiled reference to Bright Emp.) opened up frontier intention wish not stop

 

君不聞漢家山東二百州 you not hear (didn’t you hear?) Han family (dynasty) mountain East 200 provinces (didn’t you hear that east of the mountain there are 200 provinces East of Han Gu strategic pass)
千村萬落生荊杞 1,000 village, 10,000 village grow wolf berry 
縱有健婦把鋤犁 Even have healthy woman hold hoe plow 
禾生隴畝無東西 Grain grow agricultural field not east west  (grain w/o direction)
況復秦兵耐苦戰 moreover again Qin nation soldier (fighting in western part) tolerate bitter war
被驅不異犬與雞 passive voice urge no different dog and chicken (urged on no different from dogs and chickens)
長者雖有問 even older person (Du Fu) have question
役夫敢申恨 War person (enlisted man) dare say hatred
且如今年冬 And like now year winter
 未休關西卒 not rest strategic pass west soldier
縣官急索租 county official in a hurry ask rent (taxes) 
租稅從何出 rent tax from where come out
信知生男惡 indeed know give birth men evil

反是生女好 give birth to daughter good (on contrary) 
生女猶得嫁比鄰  daughter still be able to marry neighbor

生男埋沒隨百草 give birth son bury disappear follow 100 grasses 
君不見青海頭 you not see green sea side/edge (Green Sea Lake) 
古來白骨無人收  old come (since ancient time) white bone not person receive 
新鬼煩冤舊鬼哭 new ghosts bother (feeling) bitterness old ghosts cry (new ghosts feel resentment while old ghosts cry) 
天陰雨濕聲啾啾 sky shade rain wet sound cry joe joe

 

Translation

Rolling and more rolling of the war carts,
The horse hooves constantly clopping.
Soldiers with bows and arrows at their waists.
Fathers, mothers, wives, and children come to say goodbye
There are so many that we can’t see the bridge to the west.
It’s covered with dust.
They clutch the soldier’s clothes, stamp their feet, cry, 
And try to block their path.
Their weeping blasts into the heavens,
And breaks against the cloudy sky.

 

I ask the soldiers questions,
And they tell me they are forced to enlist again and again.
At fifteen years old, they defend us at the north river.
At forty they’re forced to grow food for the soldiers.
When they leave, the village chief wraps their heads.
When they come home again, their hair is white, 
And still, they go back to frontier to fight. 
On the frontier, so much blood flows that it becomes an ocean.
But Emperor Wu’s greed for more territory never ends. 

 

Haven’t you heard that east of the pass,
There are two hundred provinces?
In a hundred thousand villages, 
Nothing but thorns and wolf berries grow.
Even though the stronger women are tilling the land,
The crops are still in disarray.
In the West, the soldiers must endure a bitter war.
Forced on like dogs and barnyard fowl.
When an old man asks questions
The soldier is afraid to confess his hatred.
And this winter there will be no rest
For the soldiers fighting in the West.
The magistrate is still demanding taxes, right away
Where will the money come from?

 

Now we truly know that bearing a son is an evil fate.
Even a daughter is better than that.
The girl might be married to a neighbor, 
But a boy will leave you; he’ll be buried beneath the weeds.
Have you ever seen the banks of the Green Sea Lake? 
Since ancient times, no one has gathered its white bones. 
The ghosts of the newly dead are filled with bitterness,
While the old ghosts cry.
The grey sky soaks the earth,
And everywhere is the sound of sobbing.

 

Translation notes:

Du Fu, who lived during the height of the Tang Dynasty’s wealth and prestige and during the devastating An Lushan invasion as well, is one of China’s most renowned poets. A devoted Confucianist, he wrote feelingly of the sufferings of the common man. Although he speaks of Han dynasty Emperor Wu in the penultimate line of the second stanza, contemporary readers would have understood that he was actually making a thinly veiled reference to their own Bright Emperor. Someone in Du Fu’s time reading the first stanza of the poem would have also understood that when the soldiers crossed the bridge to the west, they were going toward the western border, where the Bright Emperor was aggressively expanding his domain. The third stanza also refers to the west, and the Green Sea Lake in the fourth stanza is a large and famous western lake. The repeated mentions of the west and the frontier are to emphasize the fact that these were primarily unjustified wars fought merely to enlarge territory. The only mention of any other direction comes in the second stanza when young soldiers fight at the “north river” (the Yellow River). This is the only place where Du Fu uses the word “defend” as the Tang Dynasty did face a serious threat at her north western border from Tibet.

 


作者：杜甫   （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)


江 汉 思 归 客 Jiang Han feel return guest
乾 坤 一 腐 儒。heaven earth one pedantic scholar
片 云 天 共 远 piece cloud sky together distant
永 夜 月 同 孤。long night moon together alone
落 日 心 犹 壮 fall sun heart still strong
秋 风 病 欲 苏。autumn wind illness will revive
古 来 存 老 马 old come keep old horse
不 必 取 长 途 not need use long trip

Translation:

Where the Han and Yangtze meet: a homesick traveler.
Between Heaven and Earth: a quibbling scholar,

I become one with a scrap of cloud in the distant sky.
I am alone with the moon in the endless night.

The sun sets, but my heart remains ambitious.
The autumn wind blows, but I will recover from my illness.

From ancient times, old horses were kept
Because they were the ones who knew the way home.

Translation notes:

While we are satisfied that we’ve come up with a reasonable translation, we did take liberties with the original and think that this is a poem that could yield many very different and equally valid translations. In lines three and four, the “I” is implied, and the verb tense is unspecified. We used the present tense because it gives greater immediacy, and we chose the words “I become” to give the lines a sense of vigor and personal agency, which we thought was important because the poem ends on a triumphant note.

The last two lines refer to a Chinese legend. In around 650 BC, Duke Huan of Qi, a famous ruler during China’s Spring and Autumn period, initiated an expedition against the State of Gu Zhu. The war between the two States didn’t end until winter time. On their way back home, the Duke’s army lost their way. Guan Zhong, Duke Huan’s long-time advisor, offered a suggestion that old horses in the army are wise animals who could know the way back home. Following Guan’s advice, the Duke let a couple old horses lead in front, with his armies following behind. Eventually they managed to find their way back home. If we had translated the poem more literally, an American might have understood it to be saying that old horses were kept even though they are not particularly needed, not that they were valuable for their wisdom. One of us is a bit of an old horse herself and vigorously objected to giving the impression that charity might be the only reason for keeping an old nag around.