dankodes | Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 11-15

This is week 3/7 on David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but as this book contains considerable exegesis I advise you to grab this copy.

This week we're reading poems 11 through 15, inclusive.

How to Read Chinese Poetry has two chapters on forms Du Fu uses extensively:

Ch 8, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Pentasyllabic Regulated Verse (Wuyan Lüshi)

Ch 9, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Heptasyllabic Regulated Verse (Qiyan Lüshi)

Three other chapters on other verse forms that Du Fu sometimes employs, or which people quoting Du Fu employ, also mention him:

Ch 10, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Quatrains (Jueju): some mention of Du Fu’s “Three Quatrains, No. 3”

Ch 14, Ci Poetry, Long Song Lyrics on Objects (Yongwu Ci): some mention of Du Fu's “Beautiful Lady” (Jiaren)

Ch 18, A Synthesis: Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry: some mention of Du Fu’s poem “The Jiang and Han Rivers”

Additional Reading for this Week: Chapter 8

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佳人
Jiā-rén

絕代有佳人
1. Jué-dài yǒu jiā-rén,
幽居在空谷
2. Yōu-jū zài kōng gǔ
自云良家子
3. Zì yún liáng-jiā-zǐ,
零落依草木
4. Líng-luò yī cǎo-mù.
關中昔喪亂
5. Guān-zhōng xī sāng-luàn,
兄弟遭殺戮
6. Xiōng-dì zāo shā-lù.
官高何足論
7. Guān gāo hé zú lùn,
不得收骨肉
8. Bù-dé shōu gǔ-ròu.
世情惡衰歇
9. Shì-qíng wù shuāi-xiē,
萬事隨轉燭
10. Wàn-shì suí zhuǎn zhú.
夫壻輕薄兒
11. Fū-xū qīng-bó-ér,
新人美如玉
12. Xīn-rén měi rú yù.
合昏尚知時
13. Hé-hūn shàng zhī shí,
鴛鴦不獨宿
14. Yuān-yāng bù dú sù.
但見新人笑
15. Dàn jiàn xīn-rén xiào,
那聞舊人哭
16. Nǎ wén jiù-rén kū!
在山泉水清
17. Zài shān quán-shuǐ qīng,
出山泉水濁
18. Chū shān quán-shuǐ zhuó.
侍婢賣珠廻
19. Shì-bì mài zhū huí,
牽蘿補茅屋
20. Qiān luó bǔ máo-wū.
摘花不插髮
21. Zhé huā bù chā fà,
采柏動盈掬
22. Cǎi bǎi dòng yíng jū.
天寒翠袖薄
23. Tiān hán cuì xiù bó,
日暮倚修竹
24. Rì mù yǐ xiū zhú.

Read Aloud: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV165411V7wP/

A Fine Lady

There is a fine lady of matchless beauty who lives obscurely in a lonely valley. She says she is the daughter of a good family, driven by misfortunes into the wilds. When of late the heartlands were convulsed with disorder, her brothers met their deaths at the hands of the rebels. The high rank they had held was all unavailing: she could not entreat their dead bodies for burial.

The way of the world is to hate what has had its day; and fortune is as fickle as a lamp-flame. Her husband is not faithful to her. His new woman is as lovely as a jewel. Even the vetch-tree knows when it is evening; and the mandarin ducks do not sleep alone. Yet he has eyes only for the smiles of the new woman: no ear for the sobbing of the old. In the mountain the waters of the stream are clear, but once they have left the mountain they are muddy.

When her servant-girl gets back from selling her pearls, she has to pull creepers to cover the holes in the thatched roof with. The flowers which the lady picks are not for wearing in her hair; of bitter cypress she plucks many a handful. Her gay blue sleeves are thin against the cold. As evening falls she rests by the tall bamboos.

“There is no reason at all why we shouldn’t think of it as a faithful record of a real encounter.” Is there any compelling reason to think his poetry diaristic in that way?

“it is only when we know something about a person’s history that the trivialities of his dress and deportment begin to take on significance” nice point

“Nineteen Old Poems” oooh it’s the same style as those!

“Vetch is a well known legume also known as common vetch or tares.”

“Hé-hūn: the albizzia julibrissia, a tree whose vetch-like leaves fold up at night time: hence the lady’s remark about its ‘knowing the time’.” I don’t exactly know this line does, what is the significance of sensitivity to the time?

“Once a woman has left her husband a thousand things will be said and believed of her, even though she is innocent, and her reputation is ruined past recovery.” Is this really the meaning of the spring water line? I find it rather unclear.

What’s the final line doing?

—

How to Read Chinese Poetry, on another poem’s usage of a quote from this one: “Another level of equation is found in the second strophe, which contains an allusion to a couplet from the poem “Beautiful Lady” (Jiaren), by Du Fu (712–770): “The day is cold, her green sleeves thin; / The sun sets as she leans on slender bamboos.”11 Du Fu’s “Beautiful Lady” depicts a highbred woman who has become a wanderer after having lost her brothers and been abandoned by her husband in a time of chaos and disorder. To preserve her integrity and purity, she lives in seclusion and solitude. This comparison of the blossoming plum and the beautiful lady provides the background for the subsequent strophes.”

Baike suggests this poem is dealing with how Du Fu sees his situation reflected in her.

Baike mentions in their analysis that the flickering light is a metaphor for time passing rapidly and the world changing.

Baike says multiple possible interpretations of the spring water line. In addition to the interpretation that Hawkes takes, there's also the interpretation that she is the clear water and the husband the muddy, and by staying on the mountain, she's refusing to become muddy. Or it's about chastity, or the two wives.

Baike's gloss is the tall bamboo is a metaphor for the noble principles of the lady.

Ah, that makes sense re the final line. I do wonder if it's pulling on like, friends of winter bamboo imagery et al that doesn't occur to me. And of course that bamboo kicker works better if you take Baike's line on the immediately preceding spring water question as relating to her withdrawal as moral choice, as abstention from sin.

Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 11-15

12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén

Re: 12. 佳人 Jiā-rén