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

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?