MORE locust imagery. I can see that the specific things being picked are to represent the passage of time, but do they have other meanings?
I was startled when the Baidu summary mentions that at the end of stanza one the narrator meets the husband in her dreams and 聊以自慰, which google translate turned into "masturbates"?! I /think/ this is an incorrect translation and the whole idiom means "to find relief in"; the latter part only carries the meaning of masturbate. However, when discussing the word 覯 at the end of the stanza, it says it means "meet" but also that one source points to the pun of 媾, which means... copulate. So maybe masturbation /is/ meant.
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Re: Cao Chong
Date: 2020-10-26 12:39 am (UTC)I was startled when the Baidu summary mentions that at the end of stanza one the narrator meets the husband in her dreams and 聊以自慰, which google translate turned into "masturbates"?! I /think/ this is an incorrect translation and the whole idiom means "to find relief in"; the latter part only carries the meaning of masturbate. However, when discussing the word 覯 at the end of the stanza, it says it means "meet" but also that one source points to the pun of 媾, which means... copulate. So maybe masturbation /is/ meant.