Chinese 323 Reflecting on History (3)Kelley's Selection:
Zuo Si/Tso Ssu (d. circa 306)
"Three Historical Poems"
No. 6
Jing Ke was drinking in the market-place at Yan,
Once he got drunk, his spirit grew bolder still.
He joined Jianli in a melancholy song,
Oblivious of the people standing around.
Although he lacked a hero's principles
There was nobody to touch him in the world.
His lofty gaze disdained the whole Four Seas,
Can mere aristocrats be ranked with him?
Though noblemen consider themselves so noble,
He looked on them as worth less than the dust.
Though common folk consider themselves so common,
He treasured them like two thousand stone of gold.
(Frodsham, J.D., An Anthology of Chinese Verse, p.97)
Valerie's Selection:
Bao Zhao/Pao Chao (414?-466)
"Imitation of 'the Hardships of Travel'"
Spring birds are chirping days and nights,
They most afflict a worthyís troubled thoughts.
When I first left home to join the army,
My glorious ambition, my zealous spirits, reached as high as the clouds.
Three years have drifted by slowly since we wandered from place to place,
Suddenly I found my hair and beard turning white.
In the evening by the riverside I had plucked out all the white hair,
But the next day in the mirror, I saw it thick again.
I feared I would die on the road and be a wandering ghost,
My mind disappearing into Nothingness, reduced to Essence in the Great Void.
Whenever I thought of my homeland,
I groaned with dismay as I remembered my old acquaintances.
Suddenly there came a passing stranger, asking me who I was.
"Can it be that you know my family back in Southern Town?"
He answered: "I once lived in your town,
And knew you were serving in office here.
I have traveled thousands of miles from that city,
And still I am on the road to distant assignments.
Before I set out I heard that your wife
Lived alone in her chamber like a widow, her chastity well-known.
Some said she wept bitterly in her quiet room in the morning,
Others told how she grew mournful at night, her tears soaking her robes.
Her face was haggard, unlike her former cheerfulness,
With her hair disheveled, her face grown thin, she never again adorned herself.
Looking at her makes one said,
I hope you will never forget her."
(Kang-I Sun Chang, Six Dynasties Poetry, pp. 99-100.)
Adeline's Selection:
Du Fu/Tu Fu (712-770)
"Lament by the River"
That woman, who was first of all
in the Zhao-yang Galleries,
went with her lord in the same palanquin
and attended by his side.
The Handmaidens who rode in front
all bore bows and arrows,
on white horses that chomped and foamed
on bits of yellow gold.
They bent back and faced the sky,
shot arrows into clouds,
A single shaft brought plummeting
a pair of wings in flight.
Those bright eyes and sparkling teeth-
where are they today?
blood had stained her roaming soul,
and she cannot get to return.
(Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature, p. 441.)
Catherine's Selection:
Li He/Li Ho (791-817)
"A Song for Xu's Lady, Zheng" (note)
(She Having Asked Me to Write This When I Was in Her Garden)
Imperial relatives on the distaff side,
Generations of Xus and Shis,
With a thousand yards of palace brocade
He bought his drinking-bouts.
By the Brazen Camels he mulled his wine,
Clear as warm glue,
On ancient banks, where emerald mist
Drapes the great willows.
A stranger came, a cassia-flower,
The renowned Zheng Xiu.
When she reached Luo, her fragrance wafted
From Tripod Gate.
First he gave her a peony,
Then a vanity mirror,
And after this a nugget of gold,
Big as a bushel.
As Never Sorrow let him dally
Behind the screen,
She played her lute for his delight,
Fifty melodious strings.
Music sobbed on the wind of spring,
Stirring his soul,
Enraptured, he was moved to saddle
Both their horses.
Twin steeds pacing on twice four hooves
Through an orchid park!
Love clasping tight as a knit bamboo--
No prying eyes.
Jade pillows gleaming in the dark,
Phoenix at rest,
Heavy curtains shrouding the portals,
Silk passementerie.
On a long scroll of costly paper,
The ballad of Mingjun.
Gliding from note to note, her song
Pierced the sapphire clouds
Vanity-patches on her cheeks,
She trod the eastern road--
Now the long-browed girls of the gay quarters
See very few guests.
'On Xiangru's tomb the autumn cypress
Flourishes still. (note)
But who are the poets who sing of love
In the capital today?'
Hair piled high, eyes wild with wine,
She asked her friends,
Then came to this scion of a royal house,
To entreat Cao Zhi. (note)
(J. D. Frodsham, The Poems of Li Ho, page 244.)
Heidi's Selection:
Li He/Li Ho (791-817)
"An Arrowhead from the Ancient Battlefield of Chang-ping"
Lacquer dust and powdered bone and red cinnabar grains:
From the spurt of ancient blood the bronze has flowered.
White feathers and gilt shaft have melted away in the rain,
Leaving only this triple-cornered broken wolf's tooth.
I was searching the plain, riding with two horses,
In the stony fields east of the post-station, on a bank where bamboos sprouted,
After long winds and brief daylight, beneath the dreary stars,
Damped by a black flag of cloud which hung in the empty night.
To left and right, in the air, in the earth, ghosts shrieked from wasted flesh.
The curds drained from my upturned jar, mutton victuals were my sacrifice.
Insects settled, the wild geese swooned, the buds were blight-reddened on the reeds,
The whirlwind was my escort, puffing sinister fires.
In tears, seeker of ancient things, I picked up this broken barb
With snapped point and russet flaws, which once pierced through flesh.
In the east quarter on South Street a pedlar on horseback
Talked me into bartering the metal for a votive basket.
(A. C. Graham, Poems of the Late T'ang, p. 99.)
Travis' Selection:
Du Mu/Tu Mu (903-952)
"Mooring at River Qinhuai"
Smoke shrouds cold water, moonlight shrouds sand.
Night-mooring at Qinhuai, close to wineshops.
Gay girls know no lost kingdom's sadness.
Still sing across the river "Jade Flowers in Rear Court."
*Emperor Chen Houzhu (the last emperor of Chen, 583-587) indulged in sensual music and asked his courtiers to compose many sensual lyrics. Among them the most famous was "Jade Flowers in Rear Court."
(Wai-Lim Yip, Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres, p. 331.)