Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 6-10

[x_los]

This is week 2/7 on David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but this book contains considerable exegesis, so I do advise you to grab this copy.

This week we're reading poems 6 through 10, inclusive.

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context's Chapter 15, "Du Fu: The Poet as Historian", is relevant to Hawkes' focus. (Next week's Additional Readings are more focused on poetics.)

Comments

Re: 8. 春宿左省 Chūn sù zuǒ-shěng

[pengwern]

ninefold sky 九重天 is a set phrase, as baidu explains nine is a stand in for multi/myriad/the largest number, so the manifold sky? all those layers of clouds... very fantasy novel fuel material
https://baike.baidu.com/item/九重天/5195

Re: 8. 春宿左省 Chūn sù zuǒ-shěng

[x_los]

Oooh, cloud layering. I got stuck on the nine and some set cosmology rather than going, Chinese likes Large Scale Numbers.