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

15. 生年不滿百 – The Years of Life Reach Not One Hundred

[x_los]

生年不滿百
shēng nián bù mǎn bǎi
[life] [year] [not] [fulfil] [hundred]
The years of life reach not one hundred,

常懷千歲憂
cháng huái qiān suì yōu
[eternal] [bosom] [thousand] [year] [worry]
yet the heart is in constant worry for a millennium.

晝短苦夜長
zhòu duǎn kǔ yè cháng
[daytime] [short] [bitter] [night] [long]
The day is short while the bitter night is long -

何不秉燭遊
hé bù bǐng zhú yóu
[why] [not] [grasp] [candle] [roam]
why not go wandering by candle light?

為樂當及時
wéi lè dāng jí shí
[for] [happiness] [act] [in time] [time]
Work for happiness without delay -

何能待來茲
hé néng dài lái zī
[how] [can] [wait] [come] [herewith]
how can you wait for the time to come?

愚者愛惜費
yú zhě ài xī fèi
[fool] [one who] [love] [cherish] [expense]
Fools cherish their expenditure,

但為後古嗤
dàn wèi hòu gǔ chī
[but] [for] [later] [old] [laugh at]
yet earn no more than laughter at the old from those in the future.

仙人王子喬
xiān rén wáng zǐ qiáo
[immortal] [person] [_Wang_] [_Zi_] [_Qiao_]
The immortal Wang Ziqiao -

難可與等期
nán kě yǔ děng qī
[hard] [can] [with] [equal] [term]
how difficult to be able to match him!

Notes on this poem
The line ‘何不秉燭遊’ contains the modern binome 秉燭 (bǐngzhú), meaning ‘by candlelight’. In the classical language, though, this could be interpreted more literally as ‘taking a candle’ or ‘grasping a torch’. As the meanings are pretty similar, I opted for the more elegant ‘by candlelight’.

A similar issue is presented by ‘愚者愛惜費’, which contains the modern binome 愛惜 (àixī). I chose to translate the characters separately as ‘love’ and ‘rue’, as they do not appear to form a binome in Classical Chinese.

Wang Ziqiao, in the penultimate line, is the name of a famous Daoist Immortal (仙人) who achieves either immortality or very long life in various legends.

Re: 15. 生年不滿百 – The Years of Life Reach Not One Hundred

[x_los]

'Fools cherish their expenditure,
yet earn no more than laughter at the old from those in the future.' really not getting this one, like--they marshall their resources to live long lives and are only disrespected as doddering elderly people in their maturity?

And this is contrasted with Wang Ziqiao (about whom I know nothing), who is immortal but vigorous and youthful in it?

Re: 15. 生年不滿百 – The Years of Life Reach Not One Hundred

[superborb]

Baike thinks this is about being happy in a short life, and satirizing those who are greedy for wealth. Also to not admire immortals.

Re: 15. 生年不滿百 – The Years of Life Reach Not One Hundred

[superborb]

Baike glosses 'the time' as 'the coming year' through an extension of the meaning of grass being born once a year.

I was thinking that this set was allll about the shortness of life, enjoying what you have, but this poem does add extra mockery about misers.

Re: 15. 生年不滿百 – The Years of Life Reach Not One Hundred

[x_los]

Yeah, in a sense connecting miserliness with wealth with miserly attitudes to life itself.