Tag: Tang Dynasty

己亥岁二首  Two Poems Written in the Year Ji Hai

曹松             (Author: Cao Song, 9th century)

其一             Number One

泽国江山入战图，lake nation river mountain enter war map
生民何计乐樵苏。live people how plan happiness firewood grasscutting
凭君莫话封侯事，rely on you no talk about grant marquess affair
一将功成万骨枯。one general achievement success ten thousand bones dry

 

Translation:

The southern part of a nation blessed by fresh water enters the arena of war.
How can the people find happiness cutting firewood or grass?
Please don’t talk about winning aristocratic titles.
For one general’s glory, a thousand bones are left drying, crumbling to dust.

 

其二    Number Two

传闻一战百神愁，spread hear one war hundred deity worry
两岸强兵过未休。two banks strong armies pass no stop
谁道沧江总无事，who say Cang river always no affair
近来长共血争流.   recent come long together blood strive flow

 

Translation:

I’ve heard that when war begins, hundreds of gods grieve.
There are strong armies on both sides of the river, but neither can stop this thing.
Who says nothing ever happens beside the Cang waters?
Now there are torrents of blood and water flowing east, struggling against each other.

 

Translation Notes:

These two poems were written by Cao Song, a poet in the late Tang Dynasty. Cao took the imperial examination many times, but didn’t pass the final exam and receive the degree until he was in his early 70s. Since four other scholars in their 70s passed that final exam in the same year as Cao, the announcement from that year’s exam was nicknamed “the list of five elderly”. Cao was famous for using accurate and refined words in his poems. His experience of failing the imperial exams many times is a reflection of how difficult it is for the educated people to pass such exams and become government officials at that time.

During Cao Song’s era, the power of the warlords had significantly expanded, and the central government of the Tang Dynasty had essentially lost control of the local armies. Cao’s poems focused on the sufferings of the commoners when local armies engaged in constant warfare with each other, and pointed out clearly that it was the commoners who were paying the unbearable cost of the warfare.

松寺        Pine Temple

卢延让    (Author: Lu Yanrang, 10th century)

山寺取凉当夏夜，mountain temple get cold should summer night
共僧蹲坐石阶前。together monk squat sit stone stair in front of
两三条电欲为雨，two three strip lightning about to become rain
七八个星犹在天。7, 8 individual star still exist sky
衣汗稍停床上扇，clothes sweat a little stop bed on fan
茶香时拨涧中泉。tea fragrant sometimes stir mountain brook in stream
通宵听论莲华义， all night hear discuss Buddhism meaning
不藉松窗一觉眠。 not equal to pine window one night sleep

 

Translation:

A mountain temple grows a little cooler on a summer night.
I squatted in front of the stairs with a monk.
Until two or three flashes of lightning signaled the coming rain.
Seven or eight stars were left in the sky.

And my clothes were damp from the day’s heat,
I lay in bed, fanning myself and stirring my tea
Its fragrance joined the mountain streams,
The perfume of each stimulating the other.
I listened to talk of the Lotus Sutra until dawn
But even a whole night’s discussion is not worth a good sleep by a pine window.

 

Translation Notes:

This poem was written by Lu Yanrang, a poet in the late Tang Dynasty. While much of our translation closely follows the literal, word for word language, we expanded the sixth line to try to give a little better sense of what was meant by tea fragrance that stirs the mountain streams. By the Tang dynasty, tea drinking had become very popular in Buddhist monasteries, and the monks participated in the aesthetic appreciation of various teas. Moreover, a Buddhist who achieves virtue is believed to have a “pure nose” which is capable of smelling the good scents of nature even from a great distance. We think that the poet was saying that the essence of the tea became one with the mountain streams and that he could smell and appreciate both as he lay on a bed fanning himself.

Chinese poets sometimes borrow concepts from the works of the past. The second couplet of this poem probably inspired a later poem written by Xin Qiji, which we have also translated. Xin’s poem also portrayed a landscape with the stars appearing in the distant sky until two or three rain drops fall in front of the mountain. Though both poems portrayed a tranquil environment, the second couplet of Lu’s poem emphasizes the unexpectedness of a summer rain — before the flashes of the lightning signaled the coming rain, there were still stars hanging in the sky.

The last couplet of the poem could be translated in two different ways — If we translate the word “藉“ as “think of”, this couplet would mean that the poet was so concentrated on listening to the discussion of the Lotus Sutra that he didn’t even think about going to sleep. “藉“ could also be interpreted as a homophonic pun of the word “及“, which means “come up with” or “be equal to”. We chose the second interpretation as it corresponds more closely to the relaxing and pleasant environment described in this poem.

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”.

杂诗 Miscellaneous Poem

无名氏 （Author: Anonymous, Tang Dynasty）

近寒食雨草萋萋，close cold food rain grass luxuriant luxuriant
著麦苗风柳映堤。blow wheat seedling wind willow shine embankment
等是有家归未得，equal is have family return not can
杜鹃休向耳边啼。cuckoo no towards ear beside cry

 

Translation:

It’s almost Sweep the Graves Day, and the rain has made the grass grow thick.
The wheat seedlings tremble in the wind, and the river mirrors the willow trees.
Why can’t I return to my family?
Cuckoo bird, don’t make your mournful cry where I can hear you.

 

Translation note:

In the first couplet of the poem, the name of the festival is the “Cold Food Festival,” if translated literally. It is a traditional Chinese holiday which originated from the commemoration of the death of a nobleman during the Spring and Autumn period (around 7th century BC). It gradually evolved into an occasion for the Chinese to worship their ancestors. During the Tang dynasty, ancestral observance became a single-day event that is now the “Sweep the Graves Day,” which is how we translated it. We assume that most American readers wouldn’t know what “Cold Food Festival” is but that “sweep the graves” would convey the meaning. Whether we call it cold food festival or sweep the graves day, it is a time for returning to your home town and being with family.

This poem reflects the nostalgia of a traveler who was unable to return home. The second couplet of the poem was quoted by a Chinese netizen showing her sympathy towards those overseas Chinese who were unable to return to China due to the tough border controls imposed by the Chinese government to deal with COVID.

Since the COVID breakout, it is increasingly difficult for Chinese living abroad to travel to China due to frequent flight cancellations, skyrocketing ticket prices, and the strict pre-departure COVID testing requirements. Some were complaining that nowadays, travelling to China is as if they were purchasing “a lottery ticket”.

紫毫笔歌  Song of the Purple Writing Brush

白居易      (Author: Bai Juyi, 8th century)

紫毫笔，               purple writing brush
尖如锥兮利如刀。sharp like awl connection word sharp like knife
江南石上有老兔，river south stone on have old rabbit
吃竹饮泉生紫毫。eat bamboo drink spring water grow purple fur
宣城之人采为笔，Xuan city connection word people pick make into brush
千万毛中拣一毫。thousand ten thousand fur among choose one brush
毫虽轻, 功甚重。 hair though light work very heavy
管勒工名充岁贡，tube handle neatly name use as year tribute
君兮臣兮勿轻用。emperor connection word official connection word not easily use
勿轻用，将何如？not easily use shall how? 
愿赐东西府御史，wish give east west official residence enquiry censors
愿颁左右台起居。wish issue left right terrace rise reside
搦管趋入黄金阙,   take hold brush walk into golden imperial city
抽毫立在白玉除。take out brush stand at white jade stairs
臣有奸邪正衙奏，court official have evil heretical upright administrative center report
君有动言直笔书。emperor have move word straightforward brush write
起居郎, 侍御史，  Imperial Secretaries enquiry censors
尔知紫毫不易致。you know purple hair not easy make
每岁宣城进笔时，Every year Xuan city pay tribute brush time
紫毫之价如金贵。purple hair connection word price like gold precious
慎勿空将弹失仪，carefully not in vain use accuse (others) of lose manner
慎勿空将录制词。carefully not in vain record the emperor’s word

Translation:

These purple calligrapher’s brushes
Sharp as an awl, sharp as a knife

In the south, an old rabbit sits on a stone
Eating bamboo and drinking spring water
The people of Xuan city harvest its purple-tipped fur.
From 10,000 hairs they find one that’s worthy.
They do heavy labor with these light hairs,
And finely carve the handles to use it as yearly tribute.

Oh, emperors and high officials, do not use them carelessly,
I can tell you a better way.
Give them to enquiry censors at the eastern and western imperial houses
Give them to Imperial Secretaries of the left and right terraces.

Take hold of the brush and enter the golden, imperial city.
Hold it aloft and stand before the white jade stairs.
Use it to report to the emperor during court meetings any official who does evil.
Use it to write clearly the edicts of the emperor.

Imperial Secretaries and enquiry censors,
You know these purple brushes are not easy to make.
Every year Xuan city pays tribute with these brushes
These brushes are as costly as gold.

When you use them, be careful not to make false accusations.
Be careful not to mistake the emperor’s words.

 

Translation notes:

This poem gives us some interesting insight into scholarly and imperial customs. The “four treasures of the study,” that is the paper, block of ink, whetstone for the ink, and the brush, were highly revered, and rabbit fur brushes made in Xuan city were considered so valuable that they were sent to the palace every year in tribute. This purple-tipped rabbit hair brush was used only by the emperor and palace officials. It was so highly associated with the court that when an aristocrat was found to be in possession of such a brush, he and his whole family were put to death. The reason for such a harsh punishment was the belief that the brush could be used to forge imperial decrees and thereby allow its owner to usurp the throne.

The enquiry censors of the eastern and western imperial houses and the imperial secretaries of the right and left terraces were court officials who transcribed the emperor’s words, recorded the functioning of the court, and monitored the behavior of court officials during morning assembles. They were tasked with the important responsibility of ensuring that the court was an example for the rest of the country of upright behavior in accordance with Confucian principles and royal tradition.

The line 搦管趋入黄金阙 (Take hold brush hurry enter golden capital) and the following line 抽毫立在白玉除 (take out brush stand at white jade stairs) can be read both as ordinary lines that advance the overall meaning of the poem, and as an elegant literary tour de force that deserve attention in themselves. In a technique known as parallelism that was commonly employed by classical writers, each word of the first line parallels the corresponding word of the next line by having either a related or opposite meaning. “Take hold” matches “take out.” “Hurry” matches “stand.” “Enter” matches with “at.” “Yellow” matches “white.” “Gold” matches “jade,” and “imperial city” matches “stairs.” We could not replicate this parallelism in English, but we thought that the elevated language of the original at least merited the grandiose word “aloft.”

游子吟  A Traveller’s Chant

孟郊     (Author: Meng Jiao, 8th century)

慈母手中线， loving mother hand center thread
游子身上衣。 travel son body on clothes
临行密密缝， just before leaving thick thick sew
意恐迟迟归。 thought dread late late return
谁言寸草心， who say inch long grass heart
报得三春晖。 repay able three spring sunshine

 

Translation:
Thread in a mother’s loving hand,
Sewn into her wandering son’s clothes.

Careful, tiny stitches just before he leaves,
She dreads the thought that he’ll come home late.

Who says that the heart of an inch of grass,
Can ever repay three months of spring sun?

 

Translation Notes:

This poem is well known to contemporary Chinese readers, as it is routinely taught to school children. The poet, Meng Jiao, was born during a difficult time — shortly after Meng’s birth, the An Lushan Rebellion broke out, which devastated the Tang Dynasty. Meng grew up during a period of disturbance and lived as a recluse when he was young. He failed the imperial exam twice. At the request of his mother, he took the exam a third time in his late 40s and finally passed. He was appointed to a low-ranking provincial post but never achieved a higher rank in court. In the third line, we translated the word “thick” as “careful, tiny” because the word for thick has a secondary meaning of “meticulous.” Making careful, tiny stitches would be a meticulous way of sewing and would create a thick seam. We also attach another version of the translation by Witter Bynner (please see pp. 19-20). We encourage readers to compare other translations with ours.

Chinese poets often wrote about famous historical figures, and poets living in different eras sometimes had astonishingly similar views on the same historical figure. The three poems that follow span more than five hundred years and are all about the first emperor of China.

 

古风 其三  Ancient Style (number three)

李白           (Author: Li Bai, 8th century)

秦皇扫六合， Qin Emperor sweep six combine
虎视何雄哉。 tiger look how powerful
挥剑决浮云， wave sword decide/breach floating cloud
诸侯尽西来。 warlords all west come
明断自天启， bright judge/decide come heaven enlighten/start
大略驾群才。 big strategy drive/harness many talents
收兵铸金人， collect weapon cast gold person/statue
函谷正东开。 HanGu just east open
铭功会稽岭， inscribe/record achievement Kuaiji Ridge
骋望琅琊台。 open up look Langya terrace
刑徒七十万， sentence criminal seven ten ten thousand
起土骊山隈。 rise soil Li mountain bay/cove
尚采不死药， still pick no die medicine
茫然使心哀。 At a loss/ignorant make heart sad
连弩射海鱼， connect crossbow shoot sea fish
长鲸正崔嵬。 long whale just/straight gigantic appearance
额鼻象五岳， forehead nose similar to five mountains
扬波喷云雷。 raise wave spout/gush cloud thunder
鬈鬣蔽青天， dorsal fin shield/cover green sky
何由睹蓬莱。 How can see PengLai Island
徐市载秦女， Xushi (emissary) carry Qin girls 
楼船几时回。 building ship several time/when return
但见三泉下， only see three springs under
金棺葬寒灰。 gold coffin bury cold ashes

 

Translation:

The Qin emperor conquered heaven and earth
And gazed upon the world with fearsome tiger eyes.

With a wave of his sword, he cut the floating clouds apart
Defeated, the warlords all came to the West

His wise judgement sprang from heaven’s enlightenment
His grand design harnessed the nation’s genius.

He transformed his enemies’ weapons into spectacular statues
He opened Hangu Gate and let his people go to the East.

He inscribed his great works on Kuaiji Ridge.
From Langya terrace, he looked all the way to the sea.

He sentenced seventy thousand criminals
And raised a palace from the soil by Li mountain.

Still, he sought the elixir of immortality,
And his heart grieved because he couldn’t find it.

How could he see Penglai Island, renowned for its enchanted herbs?
Great whales blocked his view.

Their heads were like five mountains
They raised waves, spouted clouds and thunder

Their dorsal fins covered the blue sky.
Over and over again, the Qin emperor shot them with a crossbow.

His emissary sailed away with thousands of girls to give to the gods.
When will those boats ever return?

All that remains beneath the underworld’s three streams
Are cold ashes buried in a gold coffin.

 

Translation Notes:

Perhaps the single most interesting thing about this strange and fascinating poem is that the poet was a Taoist himself, and therefore probably also sought the elixir of immortality. We think that Li Bai’s approach of contrasting the emperor’s almost limitless earthly power with his wasted efforts to defeat death created a more complex and thoughtful poem than the other two in this series which only focus on the emperor’s inability to create a lasting dynasty. This poem was written as part of a group of 59 poems which used historical events to explore such timeless issues as our limitations in the face of death. China’s current administration, however, appears to have no wish at all to discuss anyone’s death or limitations. It has produced a t.v. series glorifying the first emperor and using the first half, and only the first half, of this poem as its theme song.

Despite its many concrete images, this was a difficult poem to translate. “Hangu Gate” is normally translated as “Hangu Pass,” which is confusing in this context. Since the part of “Hangu Pass” that the emperor opened is a manmade structure (discovered by archeologists in 2014), the use of the word “gate” seemed both more accurate and easier to understand in this poem. A glance at the word for word translation shows that we did take a number of liberties, however, the greatest of which may have been to change the order of the line which asks how the emperor could see Penglai Island. By putting the question at the beginning on the efforts to get rid of the whales, we hoped to make that section clearer to the reader. We could not clarify the line about the thousands of girls being given to the gods as neither the poem nor the legend is at all clear about what happened to the children. The legend does specify that both boys and girls were taken, but Li Bai only mentioned girls. Did he want to make the children’s disappearance sound more salacious or more pitiful? Did he think that the use of “girls” instead of “children” flowed more easily when the poem was sung? Had he simply heard a different version of the legend? We don’t know.

 

焚书坑   The Book-Burning Pit

章碣       (Author: Zhang Jie, 9th century)

竹帛烟销帝业虚， bamboo silk smell disappear emperor business vain/empty
关河空锁祖龙居。 strategic pass river in vain lock ancestor dragon residence
坑灰未冷山东乱， pit ashes not cold mountain east in chaos
刘项原来不读书。 Liu Xiang originally come not read books

 

Translation:

The bamboo books and silk scrolls all vanished in the flames
But neither the emperor nor his empire could be saved.

It did no good to bar the strategic pass or the Yellow River
Where that old dragon, the First Emperor, lived.

The burning pit’s ashes weren’t even cold yet
When chaos broke out east of the Mountains

The rebels, after all, weren’t the ones who read books.

 

Translation Notes:

The Book Burning Pit has made some very dramatic headlines recently. Some people are calling it the poem that cost $26 billion dollars. The CEO of a large Chinese tech firm, Meituan, posted The Book-Burning Pit on a small social media platform, an act that touched off massive sales of Meituan stock and personally cost the CEO over $2 billion. https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/a-1-100-year-old-poem-cost-meituan-s-outspoken-ceo-2-5-billion

Why did posting one poem, written over a thousand years ago and regularly taught to school children have such an effect on the market? We presume it is because the poem is so well known to the Chinese people and was immediately understood as a comment on the current government. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has begun to compare himself to China’s first emperor, and this poem is a scornful denunciation of that same emperor. The Book-Burning Pit refers to a famous historical incident, “the burning of books and burying of scholars,” Legend has it that in about the year 213 BCE, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty tried to strengthen his rule by ordering both the destruction of scholarly works and the live burial of many Confucian scholars. Although it is not certain that there really was a mass burning of books or mass murder of scholars, the Dynasty was very short-lived, collapsing only after around 15 years of its establishment, despite the first emperor’s supposedly brutal measures taken to strengthen his rule. We are surprised that the CEO of a Chinese business would publicly imply that China’s current president is a tyrant whose regime would be short lived, but we are not at all surprised that when he did so, the value of the company immediately plummeted.

The poem is a bit difficult to translate. We had to expand the first two lines to four, in order to explain what was happening. In the last sentence, we substitute “Liu” and “Xiang” with “the rebels” because we assume that most American readers wouldn’t know who Liu Bang and Xiang Xu are but would get the idea we convey with the words “the rebels”.

We also attach another version of the translation, and encourage readers to compare other translations with ours.

 

博浪沙  Bo Lang Sha

陈孚     (Author: Chen Fu, 13th century)

一击车中胆气豪，one strike carriage inside guts courage heroic/bold
祖龙社稷已惊摇。ancestor dragon temple god rice god already startle shake
如何十二金人外，How (question word) ten two gold person outside
犹有民间铁未销？still there is people within iron not destroy?

 

Translation:

With one hammer blow to that carriage, the air was filled with valor,
And the old dragon’s order began to tremble.

How is it that weapons could be melted down, made into statues,
And still, people found the iron they needed?

 

Translation Notes:

This poem refers to an assassination attempt against China’s first emperor. A large hammer was thrown into a royal carriage out of the mistaken belief that the emperor was riding in the carriage. Though the attempt failed, it was widely admired as a herald of the rebellion that would soon bring down the short-lived empire. The third line refers to twelve immense statues that were displayed as a symbol of imperial power; the statues were made of the melted-down iron weapons seized from conquered troops. This poem was written during the Yuan dynasty, a period in which the Chinese people were ruled by conquering Mongols. It is easy to see how a call for rebellion against a powerful ruler would have great appeal for Chen Fu’s contemporaries.

We made several difficult choices in translating this short poem. The greatest was the “air was filled with valor.” The original use of the word air means “qi,” the animating spirit all people share, and a much more literate translation would simply refer to the would-be assassin’s courage. Since the purpose of the first two lines was to show the effect that the one courageous act had on the nation, we chose to interpret qi in its more metaphorical sense. In Chinese cosmology, the “qi” — air that gives life to an individual corresponds to the atmospheric air that gives life to the world. The one brave act infused the nation with courage, the personal, heroic air from the assassin, translating to the national will. A second choice was to translate “ancestor dragon temple god rice god” as “the old dragon’s order.” Typically, the “temple and rice god” would be translated as “nation”; however, we did not want to suggest that citizens would be defeated, only that the government would be brought down. Finally, we left the last line somewhat ambiguous, not explaining what the people did with the iron. We thought that the connotations of the word “iron” in English worked well to imply both the required iron will and the literal weapons.

 

遣怀   Dispelling Sorrow

杜牧   (Author: Du Mu, 9th century)

落魄江南载酒行， fall soul river south carry wine walk
楚腰肠断掌中轻。 Chu waist intestinal break palm inside light
十年一觉扬州梦， ten years one sleep Yangzhou dream
赢得青楼薄幸名。 win get blue building light favor reputation

 

Translation:

I grew so downhearted in the Southern Land,
Wandering with a bottle of wine

And breaking my heart over those slim waisted Chu girls
The ones who could dance in the palm of your hand

Ten years later I wake from my dream of Yang Zhou

And all I’ve won for myself is the reputation
Of a man who can’t be trusted in Blue Buildings

 

Translation Note:

Du Mu was a famous poet of the Late Tang Dynasty, best known for writing lyrical and romantic poems. He and another famous poet of the Late Tang Dynasty — Li Shangyin, were often mentioned together by later Chinese literary critics as “Little Li-Du”, to differentiate them from the “Li-Du” during the most prosperous period of the Tang Dynasty, that is, Li Bai and Du Fu.

Du Mu was born into an elite family, and held various provincial posts in different locales over his career. However, he never achieved a high-ranking position in court, and this poem is considered one of those which he implicitly showed his disappointment over his government career. The first line of the poem implies a dark note of despair as Du Mu clearly indicates that his soul “falls down” when he was at the South of the River. The second line refers to two Chinese legends. One is about the King of Chu favoring girls of slim waists. In elite circles, slender female bodies were so admired that some palace girls even starved to death when trying to lose weight. The second one is about Zhao Feiyan, a famous beauty who was so slim that she could dance on a man’s palm. These legends were used to demonstrate the beauty and slenderness of the prostitutes in the blue buildings in Yangzhou with whom Du Mu has spent time. However, when Du Mu looked back, he was regretful of his time spent in Yangzhou, which is reflected by the third and fourth line of the poem.

终南山   Zhongnan Mountain

王维       (Author: Wang Wei, 8th century)

太乙近天都， Taiyi close heaven capital
连山到海隅。 connect mountain arrive sea edge
白云回望合， white cloud return look converge
青霭入看无。 green haze enter look no
分野中峰变， divide field central peak change
阴晴众壑殊。 shade sunny many valley different
欲投人处宿， about to go to people place stay overnight
隔水问樵夫。 separate water ask woodcutter

 

Translation:

Taiyi Peak so close to heaven, so close to Chang An.
The mountains run all the way to the edge of the sea

When I look back, the white clouds converge
When I walk in, the green haze disappears.

And when I look from the center peak, the whole divided earth changes.
Sunlit or shaded, the countless valleys look so different.

Needing a place to sleep tonight,
I call to a woodcutter on the other side of the river.

 

Translation Notes:

The first line reads “Taiyi Peak, so close to heaven’s capital” and is usually translated as “Taiyi Peak, so close to Chang An.” We agree that the “heaven’s capital” is meant to refer to Chang An, but feel that this more literal translation loses some of the poem’s nuance. “Heaven’s capital” was a way of referring to the nation’s capital, and scholars in the later dynasties, such as during the Ming dynasty, used the same word to refer to Beijing. We thought that Wang Wei chose to use this less common way of referring to Chang An both to exalt the city and to suggest the immensity of the mountain which nearly pierced the heavens. By translating it as we did, we kept the dual implications of the original, but we disturbed the rhythm of the poem by inserting a repetition that is not repeated elsewhere. As is very common in Chinese poetry, the subject is omitted. We chose to use first person throughout, both because it is almost certainly required in the particular, individual action of the last stanza and because it gives a more immediate sense of entering the mountain landscape. We added the word “whole” to the fifth line because we believe that the poem implies that the mountain encompasses the entire earth, which is “divided” in accordance with Chinese astrology in which different sections of the earth correspond to different sections of the sky. This cosmic connection between earth and sky is another reason to emphasize the use of the word “heaven” in the first line.

秋来     The Arrival of Autumn

作者：李贺 （Author: Li He, 9th century)

桐风惊心壮士苦， parasol wind startle heart strong person bitter
衰灯络纬啼寒素。 feeble light cicadas cry cold white/clothes
谁看青简一编书， who read green bamboo slip one compile/volume book
不遣花虫粉空蠹。 no dispatch flower insect powder in vain moth-eaten
思牵今夜肠应直， think of connect today night bowel should straight
雨冷香魂吊书客。 rain cold fragrant soul pay tribute book guest
秋坟鬼唱鲍家诗， autumn tomb ghost sing Bao family poem
恨血千年土中碧。 hatred blood thousand year soil inside green jade

 

Translation：

The wind through the parasol trees startles a strong man’s heart,
And makes him bitter.
In the dying candle light, crickets cry out,
Warning us to weave winter clothes.
Oh, who will read this book of poems, written on green bamboo?
And keep the flower moths from turning it to dust?

This night of longing makes my intestines go limp.
But in the cold rain, a fragrant spirit comes to comfort me.
Among the autumn tombs, ghosts sing poems in the style of Bao Zhao.
After a thousand years, the blood of a wronged man
Turns to jade deep in the earth.

 

Translation Note:

This poem was written in the late Tang Dynasty by a young man who was not allowed to sit for the official government exams because of a naming taboo — the name of the highest degree obtained from the official government exam sounds very similar to the given name of Li’s father. In ancient China, the practice of sons using titles or names similar to their fathers’ would be considered unfilial. Although Li He died at the age of 26, he left behind more than 200 poems, many of which featured ghosts and death.

In the first stanza, the literal translation is that cicadas cry for winter clothes, but we do not believe that Li He was anthropomorphizing crickets; we think he meant that the crickets signified that winter was coming and warm clothes would be needed. Although the mention of intestines becoming straight or limp is not common, Chinese poetry often refers to broken or twisted bowels or intestines to signify a broken heart. In line six, the word “diao”(translated as comfort) is usually used in the context of a living person visiting someone’s grave to pay tribute to the dead. Here Li uses it to refer to the “fragrant spirit” (the dead) coming to comfort him, even though he is still alive. The mention of a wronged man whose blood turned to jade is a reference from the Zhou dynasty which ended more than a thousand years before the poem was written.The “wronged man” was a scholar who was exiled because of a false accusation. After he died, his blood was preserved in a box, and within three years it turned into jade. In ancient Chinese history, the “jade green blood” therefore often refers to someone who sacrificed himself and died for a good cause. Even in modern China, the concept of “jade green blood” is commonly used by writers — for example, Jin Yong, a novelist famous for writing “martial arts and chivalry” novels, wrote a novel in the 1950s named “Bi Xue Jian” (the literal translation of the novel’s name is Jade Blood Sword).

We also attach another version of the translation by Elizabeth Smithrosser: https://www.medievalists.net/2020/08/book-care-medieval-china/

We thought her translation of line three to five of the original is very striking “Who will see to it that the young bamboo is bound together as a book, And not left to the dappled silverfish To chew into holes and dust, Like tonight’s snaking thoughts unravel my innards?”, and that her linkage of the silverfish with Li He’s sad thoughts is not too much of a liberty. We encourage readers to compare other translations with ours.