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

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?).