GAZING AT GREAT MOUNT TAI
What can we tell of the mountain god?
Creation distilled its beauty there.
Its green height commands both Qi and Lu.
Its mass cleaves day into dawn and dark.
As returning birds heave into sight
breathless climbers meet layered clouds.
I should myself climb to the summit
to see at once other mountains as hills.
--Du Fu
Ci are Chinese poems written as lyrics to pre-existing tunes. The same tune may have accumulated multiple ci by various authors. As with most Chinese poetry, the lines are end-stopped, but the lines are irregular in length, that is, irregular in the number of syllables to fit the tunes to which they are written. Except for their names and the particular patterns of their line lengths along with some other specified prosodic elements, these tunes have all been lost. Sort of romantic to think about--words for lost songs.
To construct my versions of these poems, I have used Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger. This book has been very valuable for my purposes. It gives the ci in their original characters, in alphabetic transliteration, in a word-for-word translation, then as a "first draft," and finally as a literary version in English.
These final literary versions are, to my mind, constructed on very odd principles. I follow Douglas Hofstadter in believing that in doing translation, one must choose which aspects of the original to attempt to hold steady and which to let slip. Yang and Metzger made the choice to hold to the original syllable length of each line, and, when necessary, to let pretty much everything else slip.
Semantic content is omitted here and added there, sometimes resulting in a poem quite different in meaning from the what the Chinese poet wrote. Not only are lines not end-stopped, they are often broken with no regard for English syntax. What they call their first draft is almost always truer to the original, and, not infrequently, a better poem in English than their polished final version.
By the way, the Yuan Dynasty was the Mongol Dynasty. The first Yuan emperor was Kublai Khan, the emperor when Marco Polo arrived in China.
A WIFE'S LATE SPRING SONG
Red, blowing in the wind,
the fallen tung flowers.
Light fog, a willow deep in the courtyard.
Idle by the small window,
stopping my embroidery.
Layers of screens and curtains
breached by dreams of mutual longing.
--Li Chiyuan
--tune: Welcome to the Immortal Guest
[UNTITLED]
Qu's Encountering Sorrow,
who but the sun and moon
can fathom its deepest meaning?
Sadness lingers,
but the man is gone,
present only in the happiness
of fish, shrimp, and crabs
in the Xiang River.
That man's sins,
what are they
in the shadow of the green mountain?
Drink madness and sing pain,
find happiness without limit.
--Chang Yanghao
--tune: Happiness to the Wide World
Yang and Metzger note that Qu Yuan, author of a famous poem, "Encountering Sorrow," was slandered at the court of a late-Zhou king and banished despite his loyal service. Despairing, he drowned himself.
LOTUS SONG I
The lotus picker and his lotus song
pass the willows in an orchid boat,
heedless of breaking my dream
of lovers as mandarin ducks.
And how was the night?
Who climbed the river tower and lay down?
However heartbroken, don't sing
old songs of the southern dynasties.
The Records of the Grand Historian
already holds so many tears.
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
LOTUS SONG II
Lotus-gathering boats, gone from the lake.
Gentle wind, green silk gown.
One pipa tune, many lines of tears.
As I hope for your return,
mimosas bloom and fade without news--
and this evening's so cold.
Red ducks, white cranes,
don't they always fly in pairs?
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
A NEW LIFE
Since leaping from the fire pit of merit and fame,
coming to this faerie land of flowers and moonlight,
keeping these fields of good land,
watching for a while rain plowing, smoke tilling,
my heart is no longer turbulent
and every night I sleep till dawn.
Seeing Xiechuan village, chickens and dogs at peace,
green smoke rising from mulberries and hemp that ring the house.
Holding my cane, there's nowhere I can't walk.
With my eyes full of cloudy hills, my painting's never finished.
The sounds of new spring--listening with care.
Returning to the thorn gate and feeling quiet.
--Chang Yanghao
--tunes: The Twelfth Month, The Song of the People of Yao
Yang and Metzger say that Xiechuan, a small village, was once visited by Tao Qian, perhaps the greatest of the pre-Tang poets, and that Xiechuan is usually associated with peace and quiet. Actually, the whole poem follows pretty closely the outline of a well-known poem by Tao Qian:
Returning to My Country Home, No. 1
From the first, I was unsuited to society,
but I had a natural love of hills and valleys.
Still, I fell into the snare of the world.
One little slip and thirteen years were gone.
Birds in cages love their old forests.
Fish in ponds still miss their home waters.
Tilling the south field at the edge of the wild,
still just a rustic, I've returned to my farm.
Around my house are ten or so acres,
dotted with the thatch of eight or nine huts.
Elm and willow overhang the back eaves.
Peach and plum lead away from the front hall.
A distant village is faint in the haze.
Thin smoke curls from the abandoned hamlet.
A dog barks from deep in the lane.
A cock crows in the mulberry tree.
This shuttered house, still free of the dust of the world,
its empty rooms full of time and quiet.
After so long, long in a cage,
I can at last get back to nature.
--my tr.
[UNTITLED]
Heart-break places:
remnant sunset at the edge of heaven,
clouds at the edge of the sea.
A goose sleeps by a withered lotus.
Crows perch in distant trees.
Fallen leaves thick on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
Lamentation enters the lute.
--Bo Pu (a ci from the song chain "Tears from the Boudoir")
--tune: Mud River Dragon
[UNTITLED]
My house by Parrot Island,
home to an illiterate fisherman
in a shallow boat among the waves.
Sleeping through the smoky rain on the south river.
Waking with eyes full of green mountains.
Returning, I shake my green grass raincoat.
So I was wrong to rage at heaven,
which has made a place for me.
--Bai Ben
--tune: Parrot Song
SADNESS IN SPRING
Morning dreams are clouds.
A little rouge remains.
A little bit of tender heart hates him
for ten years without a letter to say sorry,
by the bank of the green river,
in the spring of blue grasses,
in the village of red apricots.
--Zhang Kejiu
--tune: Four Pieces of Jade
SAD PARTING
Tune: Four Pieces of Jade
Unbearable
since you left,
the weight of two hearts.
When will they
stop throbbing?
Leaning on the railing.
Sleeves brushing away
willow flower snow.
Out of sight
beyond the hill,
the river winds away.
--Kuan Han-ch'ing
NIGHT AT THE WESTERN OUTPOST
The evening of the year--day hurries off.
Fallen snow at World's End--night clear and cold.
Sad drums and bugles announce the fifth watch.
The River of Stars track the Three Gorges.
Families wail, hearing of new battles.
Fishers and woodsmen sing barbarian songs.
Ancient statesmen and tyrants, now yellow dust.
No peace, no letters--sadness to no end.
--Du Fu
*********************************************************************************
Ci are Chinese poems written as lyrics to pre-existing tunes. The same tune may have accumulated multiple ci by various authors. As with most Chinese poetry, the lines are end-stopped, but the lines are irregular in length, that is, irregular in the number of syllables to fit the tunes to which they are written. Except for their names and the particular patterns of their line lengths along with some other specified prosodic elements, these tunes have all been lost. Sort of romantic to think about--words for lost songs.
To construct my versions of these poems, I have used Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger. This book has been very valuable for my purposes. It gives the ci in their original characters, in alphabetic transliteration, in a word-for-word translation, then as a "first draft," and finally as a literary version in English.
These final literary versions are, to my mind, constructed on very odd principles. I follow Douglas Hofstadter in believing that in doing translation, one must choose which aspects of the original to attempt to hold steady and which to let slip. Yang and Metzger made the choice to hold to the original syllable length of each line, and, when necessary, to let pretty much everything else slip.
Semantic content is omitted here and added there, sometimes resulting in a poem quite different in meaning from the what the Chinese poet wrote. Not only are lines not end-stopped, they are often broken with no regard for English syntax. What they call their first draft is almost always truer to the original, and, not infrequently, a better poem in English than their polished final version.
By the way, the Yuan Dynasty was the Mongol Dynasty. The first Yuan emperor was Kublai Khan, the emperor when Marco Polo arrived in China.
A WIFE'S LATE SPRING SONG
Red, blowing in the wind,
the fallen tung flowers.
Light fog, a willow deep in the courtyard.
Idle by the small window,
stopping my embroidery.
Layers of screens and curtains
breached by dreams of mutual longing.
--Li Chiyuan
--tune: Welcome to the Immortal Guest
[UNTITLED]
Qu's Encountering Sorrow,
who but the sun and moon
can fathom its deepest meaning?
Sadness lingers,
but the man is gone,
present only in the happiness
of fish, shrimp, and crabs
in the Xiang River.
That man's sins,
what are they
in the shadow of the green mountain?
Drink madness and sing pain,
find happiness without limit.
--Chang Yanghao
--tune: Happiness to the Wide World
Yang and Metzger note that Qu Yuan, author of a famous poem, "Encountering Sorrow," was slandered at the court of a late-Zhou king and banished despite his loyal service. Despairing, he drowned himself.
LOTUS SONG I
The lotus picker and his lotus song
pass the willows in an orchid boat,
heedless of breaking my dream
of lovers as mandarin ducks.
And how was the night?
Who climbed the river tower and lay down?
However heartbroken, don't sing
old songs of the southern dynasties.
The Records of the Grand Historian
already holds so many tears.
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
LOTUS SONG II
Lotus-gathering boats, gone from the lake.
Gentle wind, green silk gown.
One pipa tune, many lines of tears.
As I hope for your return,
mimosas bloom and fade without news--
and this evening's so cold.
Red ducks, white cranes,
don't they always fly in pairs?
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
A NEW LIFE
Since leaping from the fire pit of merit and fame,
coming to this faerie land of flowers and moonlight,
keeping these fields of good land,
watching for a while rain plowing, smoke tilling,
my heart is no longer turbulent
and every night I sleep till dawn.
Seeing Xiechuan village, chickens and dogs at peace,
green smoke rising from mulberries and hemp that ring the house.
Holding my cane, there's nowhere I can't walk.
With my eyes full of cloudy hills, my painting's never finished.
The sounds of new spring--listening with care.
Returning to the thorn gate and feeling quiet.
--Chang Yanghao
--tunes: The Twelfth Month, The Song of the People of Yao
Yang and Metzger say that Xiechuan, a small village, was once visited by Tao Qian, perhaps the greatest of the pre-Tang poets, and that Xiechuan is usually associated with peace and quiet. Actually, the whole poem follows pretty closely the outline of a well-known poem by Tao Qian:
Returning to My Country Home, No. 1
From the first, I was unsuited to society,
but I had a natural love of hills and valleys.
Still, I fell into the snare of the world.
One little slip and thirteen years were gone.
Birds in cages love their old forests.
Fish in ponds still miss their home waters.
Tilling the south field at the edge of the wild,
still just a rustic, I've returned to my farm.
Around my house are ten or so acres,
dotted with the thatch of eight or nine huts.
Elm and willow overhang the back eaves.
Peach and plum lead away from the front hall.
A distant village is faint in the haze.
Thin smoke curls from the abandoned hamlet.
A dog barks from deep in the lane.
A cock crows in the mulberry tree.
This shuttered house, still free of the dust of the world,
its empty rooms full of time and quiet.
After so long, long in a cage,
I can at last get back to nature.
--my tr.
[UNTITLED]
Heart-break places:
remnant sunset at the edge of heaven,
clouds at the edge of the sea.
A goose sleeps by a withered lotus.
Crows perch in distant trees.
Fallen leaves thick on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
Lamentation enters the lute.
--Bo Pu (a ci from the song chain "Tears from the Boudoir")
--tune: Mud River Dragon
[UNTITLED]
My house by Parrot Island,
home to an illiterate fisherman
in a shallow boat among the waves.
Sleeping through the smoky rain on the south river.
Waking with eyes full of green mountains.
Returning, I shake my green grass raincoat.
So I was wrong to rage at heaven,
which has made a place for me.
--Bai Ben
--tune: Parrot Song
SADNESS IN SPRING
Morning dreams are clouds.
A little rouge remains.
A little bit of tender heart hates him
for ten years without a letter to say sorry,
by the bank of the green river,
in the spring of blue grasses,
in the village of red apricots.
--Zhang Kejiu
--tune: Four Pieces of Jade
AUTUMN: A Song Chain by Ma Zhiyuan
1.
A hundred years in a butterfly's dream.
Look back and lament the past.
Spring comes today.
Flowers fade tomorrow.
The night's deep. The lamp's out. Down three cups of wine.
Alt: Guzzle wine deep into darkness
then snuf out the light.
--tune: Running a Boat at Night
I'm very tempted to go with "Pound three cups of wine." I generally try to avoid slang that would wrongly place a line chronologically or geographically and use instead more or less neutral literary diction. But the literal translation is, "Hurriedly punish cups." I'll decide after I pound a few beers.
2.
Recall the palaces of Qin and Han.
All come down to grass, fields of cows and sheep.
No wonder
fishermen and woodsmen are wordless.
Tombs stand in wilderness.
Monuments lie broken.
Who can tell dragons from snakes?
--tune: Evergreen Tree Song
3.
Thrown into fox paths and hare caves,
how many heroes?
Strong legs, the tripod, but broken at the waist.
Wei-Jin?
--tune: Celebrating the Yuan He
I'm not sure that I really understand this part. I include it only to make the whole chain of ci complete. The tripod was an common form for ancient Chinese pots, often with three stubby, hollow, pointed legs that are of a piece with the body of the pot. Looking at some picture, I could see perhaps that the pot above the small legs could be construed as lower body missing the part above the waist.
3.
Thrown into fox paths and hare caves,
how many heroes?
Strong legs, the tripod, but broken at the waist.
Wei-Jin?
--tune: Celebrating the Yuan He
I'm not sure that I really understand this part. I include it only to make the whole chain of ci complete. The tripod was an common form for ancient Chinese pots, often with three stubby, hollow, pointed legs that are of a piece with the body of the pot. Looking at some picture, I could see perhaps that the pot above the small legs could be construed as lower body missing the part above the waist.
4.
So Heaven makes you rich--
don't be profligate.
Good days and fine nights aren't forever.
Rich families' sons,
your hearts more and like iron,
wind and moon missing from your painted halls.
--tune: Plum-Falling Wind
5.
Before me again, the red sun slanting west,
fast as a downhill carriage.
Not resisting the mirror that holds more snow white hair.
Going to bed, departing my shoes.
Don't laugh at the owl's ungainly nest.
Muddled, I'd been playing dumb.
--tune: Wind Entering the Pines
5.
Before me again, the red sun slanting west,
fast as a downhill carriage.
Not resisting the mirror that holds more snow white hair.
Going to bed, departing my shoes.
Don't laugh at the owl's ungainly nest.
Muddled, I'd been playing dumb.
--tune: Wind Entering the Pines
6.
Profit and name are gone.
Right and wrong have come to nothing.
No one kicks up red dust at my front gate.
A green tree roofs the corner of the room.
Blue mountains fill the cracks at the top of the wall.
And there is a bamboo fence and a grass hut.
--tune: Plucking Can't Harm It
7.
Crickets chirp through a long, peaceful sleep.
Roosters crow--the ten thousand things go on and on.
Will there be a year when this will end?
Look: ants massing, arraying themselves for battle,
bees frantically brewing honey,
flies desperately fighting for blood.
7.
Crickets chirp through a long, peaceful sleep.
Roosters crow--the ten thousand things go on and on.
Will there be a year when this will end?
Look: ants massing, arraying themselves for battle,
bees frantically brewing honey,
flies desperately fighting for blood.
In Lord Bei's Green Field Hall,
in Magistrate Dao's White Lotus Lodge,
I love the things of the coming autumn:
with dew, picking the yellow flowers,
with frost, parceling out the purple crabs.
Warm the wine over burning red leaves.
Think of the shallow cup of our lives--
how many autumn festivals can we enjoy?
If anyone asks after me, remember my boy,
should Beihai himself come to visit,
tell him that Dungli is already drunk.
--tune: Feast at the Departing Pavilion
Beihai was a person of the late Han dynasty known for his hospitality, particularly for the food and drink he provided. Dungli was the courtesy name of the author Ma Zhiyuan. A courtesy name was taken or given at the age of twenty as a sign of adulthood.
My source for constructing my English versions of these connected ci has again been Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger.
SAD WIVES AND COURTESANS: A Chain of Ci by Bai Pu
remnant sunset at the edge of heaven,
clouds at the edge of the sea.
A goose sleeps by a withered lotus.
Crows perch in distant trees.
Fallen leaves thicken on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
in Magistrate Dao's White Lotus Lodge,
I love the things of the coming autumn:
with dew, picking the yellow flowers,
with frost, parceling out the purple crabs.
Warm the wine over burning red leaves.
Think of the shallow cup of our lives--
how many autumn festivals can we enjoy?
If anyone asks after me, remember my boy,
should Beihai himself come to visit,
tell him that Dungli is already drunk.
--tune: Feast at the Departing Pavilion
Beihai was a person of the late Han dynasty known for his hospitality, particularly for the food and drink he provided. Dungli was the courtesy name of the author Ma Zhiyuan. A courtesy name was taken or given at the age of twenty as a sign of adulthood.
My source for constructing my English versions of these connected ci has again been Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger.
SAD WIVES AND COURTESANS: A Chain of Ci by Bai Pu
1.
Take out the golden hairpins.
The jade capital guest has gone.
In carefree autumn
evenings pass in pleasant idleness.
Needle and thread are put away.
The perilous tower leans alone
beyond the twelve-pearl screen.
The wind is stiff and cold.
Rain ends and sky clears.
Filling my eyes, mountains appear as if newly painted.
--tune: Paint the Red Lips
The meaning of "jade" here is something like "exceedingly fine," as it often is in Chinese poetry. In the fourth ci below, "jade" is jade.
The meaning of "jade" here is something like "exceedingly fine," as it often is in Chinese poetry. In the fourth ci below, "jade" is jade.
2.
Heart-break places:remnant sunset at the edge of heaven,
clouds at the edge of the sea.
A goose sleeps by a withered lotus.
Crows perch in distant trees.
Fallen leaves thicken on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
Lamentation enters the lute.
--tune: Mud River Dragon
3.
Recalling him, crazy impulsive, beyond now the edge of heaven.
How would he know what's muttered about him here,
with his singing whip and the drunken shakes, sitting a clever new horse?
Please don't drink the Green Tower's wine
or the Xie family's tea.
Don't you remember our words when we held hands at Linqi?
--tune: Window-Penetrating Moon
4.
A long time leaning on the banister.
Returning to the embroidered boudoir.
Descending the dangerous tower. Coming loose, a gold lotus shoe.
Deep courtyard, silent red gate.
Standing on the mossy terrace. The chill penetrating thin stockings.
Counting days till his return, painting with a short jade hairpin.
Wiping away tears, wetting the scented silk kerchief.
--tune: Parasitic Grass
5.
Since the wild goose letters stopped,
so many divinations by tortoise shell.
Eyebrows, however freshly drawn, locked in goodbye sadness,
jade features paling.
From one festival to the next,
no arrival home.
--tune: The Yuanhe Song
"Wild goose letters" are letters eagerly awaited. Sometimes there is a particular person who is the wild goose carrying the letters. The ancient Chinese practiced divination by reading the cracks in a tortoise shell exposed to fire.
6.
So few happy meetings.
So much sorrow.
Feelings confused as tangled hemp.
Wandering down to the east fence.
Sighing, sorry for myself.
So clear, so cold, a yellow flower facing the moon.
--tune: Charm While Mounting the Horse
