Nineteen Old Poems: Week 2 of 2

[x_los]

 * There were two votes in favour of East Asia Student's translations, so that's what I've gone with. If you prefer or would like to bring another translation into the discussion, please feel free. 

* Chapter Five of How to Read Chinese Poetry is specifically about the Nineteen Old Poems.

* Every week I search the poems' English results to see if I can find any scholarship or neat bits and pop the results in Resources. Here is this week's collection.

* Remember you can also look at How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context, though it doesn't specifically treat this collection.

* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.

* I found the best option for the weekly reminder emails, via Gmail. The external service options are more involved than our purposes require. Does anyone know anything about how to arrange an Apps Script? Basically all it has to do is tell ten people, on Saturdays, to come and get their juice/poems.

Until someone knows what to do there, I'll send out manual messages weekly. If you'd like to receive these and are not getting them, please let me know.

* Next batch of poems, the first half of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, MONDAY, AUGUST 30th.

 

Comments

11. 迴車駕言邁 – I turn the carriage, pull the reins and set off

[x_los]

迴車駕言邁
huí chē jià yán mài
[turn] [carriage] [drive] [say] [take step]
I turn the carriage, give the command to go and set off,

悠悠涉長道
yōu yōu shè cháng dào
[long] [long] [wade] [long] [road]
on and on over the endless road.

四顧何茫茫
sì gù hé máng máng
[four] [look] [how] [vast] [vast]
I look around – how boundless and vast!

東風搖百草
dōng fēng yáo bǎi cǎo
[east] [wind] [shake] [hundred] [herb]
The Eastern wind shakes the numerous flora,

所遇無故物
suǒ yù wú gù wù
[that which] [meet] [not have] [old] [thing]
and of all that I encounter, there is nothing of the past.

焉得不速老
yān dé bù sù lǎo
[where] [get] [not] [quick] [old]
In what can we escape the rapid onset of old age?

成衰各有時
chéng shuāi gè yǒu shí
[fulfil] [decline] [each] [have] [time]
Fulfilment and decline each have their time;

立身苦不早
lì shēn kǔ bù zǎo
[set up] [life] [bitter] [not] [early]
as for success in life, how bitter that it does not come sooner!

人生非金石
rén shēng fēi jīn shí
[human] [life] [not] [metal] [stone]
Human life is not set in metal or stone –

豈能長壽考
qǐ néng cháng shòu kǎo
[how can it be] [can] [long] [longevity] [verify]
how can longevity be certain?

奄忽隨物化
yǎn hū suí wù huà
[suddenly] [suddenly] [follow] [thing] [change]
In swiftly following changing things,

榮名以為寶
róng míng yǐ wéi bǎo
[glory] [reputation] [take] [as] [treasure]
glory and reputation are the only treasures.

Re: 11. 迴車駕言邁 – I turn the carriage, pull the reins and set off

[x_los]

'The Eastern wind shakes the numerous flora,' what does this material detail tell us about the rest of the poem?

How do we read the last two lines?

Re: 11. 迴車駕言邁 – I turn the carriage, pull the reins and set off

[superborb]

Baike glosses the eastern wind as spring wind, and the numerous flora as the newborn grass (generic word for plant), and notes that the next line's 'nothing of the past' is referring to the wind shaking the flora.

Baike also notes that the interpretation of 'rongming' 'glory and reputation' is the key to understanding the poem. I think, though am not sure?? that one of them is more like 'life sucks and is short, carpe diem and live happily' and then other is 'live well, but you must maintain your good name'.