dankodes | Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 16-20

This is week 4/7 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 16 through 20, inclusive.

How to Read Chinese Poetry (https://dankodes.dreamwidth.org/1483.html?thread=16843#cmt16843) 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 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 9

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

蜀相
Shǔ xiàng

丞相祠堂何處尋
1. Chéng-xiàng cí-táng hé-chù xún?
錦官城外柏森森
2. Jǐn-guān-chéng-wài bǎi sēn-sēn.
映堦碧草自春色
3. Yìng jiē bì cǎo zì chūn-sè,
隔葉黃鸝空好音
4. Gé yè huáng-lí kōng hǎo-yīn.
三顧頻煩天下計
5. Sān gù pín-fán tiān-xià jì,
兩朝開濟老臣心
6. Liǎng cháo kāi-jì lǎo-chén xīn.
出師未捷身先死
7. Chū-shī wèi jié shēn xiān sǐ,
長使英雄淚滿襟
8. Cháng shǐ yīng-xióng lèi mǎn jīn.

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UmsKxAnIx8

The Chancellor of Shu

Where is the shrine of the Chancellor to be found?—Beyond the walls of the City of Brocade, amidst densely growing cypresses. Vivid against the steps, the emerald grass celebrates its own spring unseen. Beyond the trees a yellow oriole sings its glad song unheard.

The importunate humility of those three visits resulted in the grand strategy which shaped the world for a generation; his services under two reigns, both as founder and as maintainer, revealed the true loyalty of the old courtier’s heart. That he should have died before victory could crown his expedition will always draw a sympathetic tear from men of heroic stamp.

“Repeatedly shuttled from one side of the empire to the other, members of this class tended to cling to the contacts they had established in the course of their official careers” civil servants are still like this

“City of the Brocade Officer” I wonder if this is sort of civil service specific, like what THEY call it
“The cypresses were popularly supposed to have been planted by Chu-ko Liang himself.” Nineteen Old Poems taught me to associate the cypress with grave sites, so the interred having planted them beforehand feels weird

“Yìng can mean ‘cast a shadow’, ‘make a reflection’, or ‘shine on’, these three functions being not very precisely distinguished in Chinese usage.” The ambiguity of these functions is gonna be an important source of contention when we get to Wang Wei’s Deer Park and how it’s translated into English

“The oriole ‘has a lovely voice’ (i.e. sings beautifully) ‘in vain’ (literally ‘emptily’) because there is no one there to hear it. The grass wears its spring colours ‘for itself’ because there is no one there to look at it. ” So like, virtue unregarded and unrewarded?

“At the time Chu-ko Liang was living in retirement in a cottage on Sleeping Dragon Hill in Honan, and the soldier-adventurer Liu Pei, who had come to call on him and ask him to be his adviser, was subjected to a series of deliberate snubs designed to test his seriousness of purpose. Liu Pei countered with such humility and persistence that Chu-ko Liang finally gave him his wholehearted support and helped him to carve out an empire for himself in the south-west. ‘His late Majesty,’ says Chu-ko Liang in the proclamation, ‘utterly disregarding my humble status, thrice called on me in my thatched abode to consult me about the state of the empire” uh this is really cute?

“Even in Modern Chinese, simple predication can be used to express a causal relationship. For example, you can say: ‘His doing this is he doesn’t love her any more’ where in English we should have to say ‘is because he doesn’t love her any more’, or ‘shows that he doesn’t love her any more’.” Oh, you know, I think we’ve run into this verb elision in translation issues before

“Jīn: The Chinese word means that part of the dress which covers the chest. I think ‘bosom’ is the best we can do with it in English, though in fact it means part of the clothing, not part of the body.” Is it more ‘bodice’?

Baike says the cypress lives for a long time and is lush year round, is lofty and straight,. and has symbolic significance. It is often used as an ornamental in temples.

Baike's vernacular translates ying to its 'to shine upon' meaning.

Jin is more lapel -- where the clothes overlap.

Hawkes's choice to use Chu-ko Liang meant I had to read Baike before I understood this was Zhuge Liang, smh.

Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 16-20

16. 蜀相 Shǔ xiàng

Re: 16. 蜀相 Shǔ xiàng

Re: 16. 蜀相 Shǔ xiàng

Re: 16. 蜀相 Shǔ xiàng