Sep. 6th, 2021 04:10 am
Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Poems 1-6
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dankodesEighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute is "a series of Chinese songs and poems about the life of Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) poet Cai Wenji[;] the songs were composed by Liu Shang, a poet of the middle Tang Dynasty. Later Emperor Gaozong of Song (1107–1187) commissioned a handscroll with the songs accompanied by 18 painted scenes."
This week, we're reading poems 1-6, up to page 40, in this collection. Because of the nature of the book in question, I'll ask you to refer here for Chinese and English copies of the poems and the images together.
You can view the scroll as a whole more easily and read some background on the Met's website; the Wiki page will also help orient you.
This is the first of three weeks we'll be spending on this collection. I'll link us to some additional background information in the coming weeks, once we've had a chance to orient ourselves; this is the first time the piece we're looking at has come with its own explanatory material, and that's a sound starting-point.
This week, we're reading poems 1-6, up to page 40, in this collection. Because of the nature of the book in question, I'll ask you to refer here for Chinese and English copies of the poems and the images together.
You can view the scroll as a whole more easily and read some background on the Met's website; the Wiki page will also help orient you.
This is the first of three weeks we'll be spending on this collection. I'll link us to some additional background information in the coming weeks, once we've had a chance to orient ourselves; this is the first time the piece we're looking at has come with its own explanatory material, and that's a sound starting-point.
2. Departure from China
馬上將余向絕域，厭生求死死不得。
戎羯腥膻豈似人，豺狼喜怒難姑息。
行盡天山足霜霰，風土蕭條近胡國。
萬里重陰鳥不飛，寒沙莽莽無南北。
I was taken on horseback to the ends of the earth;
Tiring of life, I sought death, but death would not come.
The barbarians stink so. How can they be considered human?
Their pleasures and angers are like the jackal's and the wolf s— how
unbearable!
We travel to the end of Tien-shan,* enduring all the frost and sleet;
The customs are rude, the land is desolate— we are near the nomads'
territories.
An overcast sky stretches beyond ten thousand miles. Not a single bird
is in sight.
The cold sands are boundless: one can no longer tell the south
from the north.
* Mountains in the far west, in modern Sinkiang province. This is figurative
speech; Wen-chi's party did not go that far west.
Re: 2. Departure from China
Are these directional colours the fucking element wheel thing from the other day?
‘Blaze’, ‘remount’,
What’s this dumb parasol thing?
man EVERYONE has cheetah shit
Tiger hide too—what’s the white fur?
Maybe the music players are doing work songs to keep the travellers together, in step
Interesting embroidery on some of the horse blanket things
Good job visually evoking bleakness
Re: 2. Departure from China
Yeah red/green/yellow/white/black (dark blue) are the 5 element colours. I'd put a picture here if I had any idea how to do that in comments on dreamwidth.
The last couplet rhymes and has a pleasing weight even in modern mandarin, that's nice.
I'm not sure how I feel about this translation - "豺狼喜怒難姑息" well 豺狼 is straight up a word for 'evil/cruel people' dating from at least the Song dynasty and 姑息 seems more likely to be 'appease' in this context? like "the pleasure and passion of wolves and jackals are difficult to appease' like it isn't reeeeeally a metaphor it's obvious that the wolves and jackals are the Xiongnu.
Re: 2. Departure from China
Re: 2. Departure from China
Like this isn't - I don't want it to be like, Vorvayne arrives in the chat with their weekly complaints about translation, I just learn things when I try to pick them apart.