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

13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[x_los]

驅車上東門
qū chē shàng dōng mén
[drive] [chariot] [upper] [east] [gate]
I drive my chariot to the upper east gate,

遙望郭北墓
yáo wàng guō běi mù
[distant] [gaze] [city wall] [north] [tombs]
and gaze at the tombs beyond the northern city wall.

白楊何蕭蕭
bái yáng hé xiāo xiāo
[white] [poplar] [how] [desolate] [desolate]
How desolate the white poplars are.

松柏夾廣路
sōng bǎi jiá guǎng lù
[pines] [cypress] [lined] [spread] [road]
The pines and cypress lined out down the road,

下有陳死人
xià yǒu chén sǐ rén
[below] [has] [old] [dead] [people]
and below are the ancient dead.

杳杳即長暮
yǎo yǎo jí zhǎng mù
[dark] [dark] [and] [long] [evening]
It’s deepest black in their endless night,

潛寐黃泉下
qián mèi huáng quán xià
[submerge] [sleep] [yellow] [spring] [below]
as they sleep submerged in the yellow fountains.

千載永不寤
qiān zǎi yǒng bù wù
[thousand] [year] [forever] [not] [awake]
They will never wake in a thousand years,

浩浩陰陽移
hào hào yīn yáng yí
[vast] [vast] [positive] [negative] [shift]
through vast changes in forces positive and negative forces.

年命如朝露
nián mìng rú zhāo lù
[year] [fate] [like] [morning] [dew]
The years fate grants us are but morning dew -

人生忽如寄
rén shēng hū rú jì
[man] [life] [suddenly] [like] [reside]
the life of men is but a brief residence.

壽無金石固
shòu wú jīn shí gù
[longevity] [not have] [metal] [stone] [certain]
Long life has not the certainty of metal and stone,

萬歲更相送
wàn suì gèng xiāng sòng
[ten thousand] [year] [more] [each other] [see off]
as another ten thousand years are sent on their way.

賢聖莫能度
xián shèng mò néng dù
[wise] [sage] [none who] [can] [limit]
Of the wise and the sage, there are none who can hold it back.

服食求神仙
fú shí qiú shénxiān
[take medicine] [food] [seek] [spirit] [immortal]
In medicine and food, some seek immortality,

多為要所誤
duō wèi yào suǒ wù
[many] [do] [will] [that which] [harm]
but in this way many end up poisoned.

不如飲美酒
bù rú yǐn měi jiǔ
[not] [as] [drink] [beautiful] [wine]
Far better to drink exquisite wines,

被服紈與素
bèi fú wán yǔ sù
[cover] [garment] [white silk] [and] [plain]
and be clothed in plain white silk.

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[x_los]

' in the yellow fountains.' in the what now?

'through vast changes in forces positive and negative forces.' this feels like maybe a typo, and do they just mean--whatver massive upheavals transpire in the living world?

'and be clothed in plain white silk.' why is this opposed to fucking about with Daoist stuff?

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[superborb]

Yellow fountains is not glossed by Baike at all?! But it's a word for the underworld.

That does feel like a typo. Baike glosses that line as 'spring and summer are yang and autumn and winter are yin, this sentence means that the passage of time flows like a river, endlessly'

Baike makes it sound like you can't live forever, so wear silks and live your short life happily.

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[x_los]

Gotta be real with you, Yellow Fountains sounds too much like water sports now.

Yeah maybe it's just silks as luxurious living, rather than establishing any oppositional relationship between luxury and immortality-chasing in this specific respect.

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[superborb]

Really shows that people were critical of the alchemical practices contemporaneously.

Additional Baike tidbits:

Turmoil of late Eastern Han Dynasty, etc etc so intellectuals are criticizing society, as they cannot achieve a stable life or occupation.

In ancient times, trees like poplar, pine, cypress, etc were planted on tombs as a sign to make it easy for the descendants to sacrifice and sweep.

"Of the wise and the sage, there are none who can hold it back." -- 'it' here is death.

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[x_los]

It's really interesting you get this diversity of opinion at the time, because often our attempts to explain worldview flatten and universalise practice into The Opinion of the Time.

That's really interesting environmental engineering re the trees, and acknowledgement that environments change and grave markers might not last as long as the trees.