Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: Poems 13-18

[x_los]

 This week, we're reading poems 13-18 in, and thus finishing up, 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. In case it's useful, here is a plain-text version of the scroll. 

This is the final week we'll be spending on this poem cycle. Please check the previous two entries if you'd like further background information.

Comments

13. The Farewell

[x_los]

第十三拍 (5 columns in standard script)
童稚牽衣雙在側，將來不可留又憶。
還鄉惜別兩難分，寧棄胡兒歸舊國。
山川萬里復邊戍，背面無由得消息。
淚痕滿面對殘陽，終日依依向南北。

My child pulls at my clothes, one on either side;
I cannot take them with me, but in leaving them behind, how I shall miss them!
To return home and to depart in sorrow – my emotions are mixed.
Now I must abandon my children in order to return home.
Across ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers, I shall arrive at our border stations.
Once having turned away, forever there shall be no news from my children.
With tear-stained face I turn toward the setting sun;
All day long I have stood there, looking to the south and then to the north.

Re: 13. The Farewell

[x_los]

Crane Wife vibes?

Does she actually have any choice re going or staying?

Arguably her adult male children could seek her out and come live as Chinese citizens off her patrimony?

And can no one really send a letter, ever?

Other than the hair, the artist hasn’t made any big effort to present these subjects as ‘racially distinct’ from the Han emissaries 

Covered qin AGAIN

Re: 13. The Farewell

[superborb]

I suppose her children are sons of a high ranking member of the Xiongnu, so probably not able to move freely into Han China? Also wiki seems to say that during this time period ish, the Xiongnu are relatively less powerful than they had been, but probably any news between them would be politically inflected?

14. The Return Journey Begins

[x_los]

第十四拍 (5 columns in standard script)
莫以胡兒可羞恥，恩情亦各言其子。
手中十指有長短，截之痛惜皆相似。
還鄉豈不見親族，念此飄零隔生死。
南風萬里吹我心，心亦隨風渡遼水。

Do not think that the nomad children cause me shame;
Anyone would speak of his or her children with love.
The ten fingers of the two hands are of different lengths,
Yet the pain of one cut off is the same as for any other.
Upon my return, I shall be reunited with my kinsmen,
Then this part of my life will be as remote as the dead are from the living.
The southern wind blows across ten thousand miles to stir my heart;
My heart will follow the wind and cross the Liao River.

Re: 14. The Return Journey Begins

[x_los]

Does different lengths indicate that her attachment to her birth family is of longer duration, or is it a remark on the quality of her sons as opposed to her Han family members?

So the envoy is clean shaven

What is this cake stand the prince is carrying?

Lots of pink clothing today

The banners are curiously minimal, without sigils 
I don't know that I've ever seen a carriage with a camel before

No other women on this trip?

Re: 14. The Return Journey Begins

[superborb]

I read it just as 'they're different', but I guess it could be a small insult?

Huh, this very sketchy site (https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/cn-early.html) seems to describe the banners as anachronistic for that era, disagreeing with the PDF.

Re: 14. The Return Journey Begins

[x_los]

The banners struck me because the shijing talked so much about banner-designs as signifying.

15. The Nomad Husband Turns Back

[x_los]

第十五拍 (5 columns in standard script)
歎息襟懷無定分，當時怨來歸又恨。
不知愁怨情若何，似有鋒鋩擾方寸。
悲歡並行情未快，心意相尤自相問。
不緣生得天屬親，豈向仇讎結恩信 。

I sigh that my feelings are undefined:
I was grieved then by coming away, and now I hate returning;
I no longer understand such emotions of worry and sorrow,
And I feel only a sharp knife stabbing at my heart.
Sorrow mixed with joy is not a happy feeling.
My thoughts are at cross-purposes. I keep asking myself this:
Unless it was fate that preordained such a marriage,
How could I have become bound to my enemy in love and trust?

Re: 15. The Nomad Husband Turns Back

[x_los]

This is the first and only time she seems to possibly mention her husband (and she may just be talking about their shared kids) in a positive light. It’s interesting that the gloss materials are determined to infer closeness between them. I don’t believe they even think it’s a Project of theirs, they’re just highly assumptive regarding women’s attitudes towards their ‘husbands’. Arguably it does increase the poignancy of the piece if the captor and captive have positive feelings for one another, but that’s not necessarily something I’d take on trust, given that the period between Wenji’s extreme depression and her ransom doesn’t illustrate any great acceptance of this life or this man.

Wenji struggling to make sense of not just her ambivalent present, but of the meaning of this twelve-year period in the whole course of her life.

The dappled grey and white horses are cool; the husband and youngest child looking back is good. The older son’s expression of mourning is more like Wenji’s.

I don’t know that I got before that this husband is supposed to be the same guy as initially abducted her.

Re: 15. The Nomad Husband Turns Back

[superborb]

Does the gloss say that much about their relationship? Not sure if I'm missing something?

It's interesting that when her (new) husband gets in trouble later, she defends him by asking Cao Cao if he can provide her with another husband. Since she was married before the abduction as well, the Xiongnu chieftain isn't her first 'husband'.

Re: 15. The Nomad Husband Turns Back

[x_los]

A lot of fragmentary, small things.

"she was married before the abduction as well" oh I did NOT get that from this, huh, or understand she remarried. Interesting.

16. The Journey Continues

[x_los]

第十六拍 (5 columns in standard script)
去時只覺天蒼蒼，歸日始知胡地長。
重陰白日落何處？秋鴈所向應南方。
平沙四顧自迷惑，遠近悠悠隨鴈行。
征途未盡馬跡盡，不見行人邊草黃。

On my way here I noticed only the vast blue sky.
In the days of my return I realized how distant is the nomads’ land.
In the overcast sky it is difficult to know where the sun sets,
But the direction in which the geese fly must be the south.
Looking in all directions, across the flat sands, one easily gets confused,
So we follow the geese, near and far away.
Long before the end of the journey no more horse tracks can be seen.
No other humans are in sight, only the yellow grass of the steppes.

Re: 16. The Journey Continues

[x_los]

Eerie, vast, directionless space. You really do have a sense that this is a Chinese and not nomadic PoV, in terms of the unreal, extra-social character of places that might well be quite legible to nomadic peoples.

Cows for camels—the whole wagon is different and more decorated.

This is like the third painting where Wenji is absent/concealed and we’re supposed to be intuiting where she is, but she’s not even peeking out or anything.

Second time we’ve hung out with these geese.

Re: 16. The Journey Continues

[superborb]

Agree, this is so much from a Han perspective. Also, I'm wondering about the projection onto Wenji from a poet who may not even have been to these lands or spent a lot of time there if he did.

There's only one place she could be, though this does make me wonder about if she can ride a horse. Presumably yes, but would have been another source of difference if she didn't ride as well/easily.

Re: 16. The Journey Continues

[x_los]

I think in the painting of her additional abduction we see her riding (though when and how do well born Han ladies learn?).

17. A Chinese City in View

[x_los]

第十七拍 (5 columns in standard script)
行盡胡天千萬里，唯見黃沙白雲起。
馬饑跑雪銜草根，人渴敲冰飲流水。
燕山髣髴辨烽戍，鼙鼓如聞漢家壘。
努力前程是帝鄉，生前免向胡中死。

We traversed thousands of miles under the nomads’ sky,
Seeing only yellow sands and white clouds rising.
The horses are starving; they race across the snow to feed on grass roots.
The men are thirsty; they break through the ice in order to drink the rung water.
At Yen-shan we begin to see bonfires and the garrison;
The sound of military drums tells us that we are hearing the forts of China.
We rally and make our way, assured that the Emperor’s land lies ahead.
Life lies ahead, and I have escaped death among the nomads.

Re: 17. A Chinese City in View

[x_los]

Figures her life there as a kind of death.

Man ARE these two populated areas really all that far apart? It’s striking that it’s so arduous and dangerous even to move between them.

Rung water?

Oh so all along the cake stand has been his official staff

Impressive city walls

The horses are often interestingly-coloured in this, but don’t have much personality

Re: 17. A Chinese City in View

[superborb]

I don't think the nomadic areas are densely populated? And it's desert-y in between.

Running in the PDF.

18. Wen-chi Returns Home

[x_los]

第十八拍 (5 columns in standard script)
歸來故鄉見親族，田園半蕪春草綠。
明燭重然煨燼灰，寒泉更洗沉泥玉。
載持巾櫛禮儀好，一弄絲桐生死足。
出入關山十二年，哀情盡在胡笳曲。

I return home and see my kin;
The fields and gardens are half wild, but the spring grass is green.
Bright candles are lit again from ashes and ruins;
Cool spring water cleanses a jade that had sunk in the mire.
As I hold towel and comb, I rediscover the good rituals and etiquettes;
Touching the ch’in again enables me to live or die without regret.
From going out through the pass to my return was twelve years;
Now all my sorrows are told in this Song of the Nomad Flute.

Re: 18. Wen-chi Returns Home

[x_los]

So her house has gone a bit to shit since the raid and her abduction, presumably because many members of the household are dead

Is the jade a literal part of the clean up, or about her, or about the house

Homie you could play the qin before you just had it covered all the time

For almost the first time in these, she’s very surrounded by WOMEN

What’s this guy with a box on his back?

Why has this guy rucked up his tunic to display his loincloth?

This dog looks v emaciated, someone should feed this dog

I kind of expected her to finally play the qin in this

‘Nomad Husband’ sent her back with a lot of goods I guess

Pleasing bookending with the two paralleled scenes of the street

Where does the flute even come into it?

Re: 18. Wen-chi Returns Home

[superborb]

The jade seems more metaphorical to me, given that it's muddy.

Some coding about the family home as a place where women are? And inability to envision women among the nomads?

Shouldn't it be a qin of some kind since this piece was meant for guqin. What a weird choice; I guess the flute is more associated with the Xiongnu?