dankodes | Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 31

x_los posting in

This is week 7/7 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 31 through 35, 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: Ch 4 of Chinese Poetry in Translation, “Purpose and Form: On the Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry”

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From:

x_los

觀公孫大娘弟子舞劍器行
Guān Gōng-sūn dà-niáng dì-zǐ wǔ jiàn-qì xíng

大曆二年十月十九日夔府別駕
Dà-lì èr nián shí-yuè shí-jiǔ rì Kuí-fǔ bié-jià
元持宅見臨潁李十二娘舞劍器，
Yuán Chí zhái jiàn Lín-yǐng Lǐ shí-èr-niáng wǔ jiàn-qì,
壯其蔚跂。問其所師，曰：余公孫大
zhuàng qí wèi qí. Wèn qí suǒ shī, yuē: ‘Yú Gōng-sūn dà-
娘弟子也。開元五載，余尚童稚，記於郾城觀
niáng dì-zǐ yě.’ Kāi-yuán wǔ zǎi, yú shàng tóng-zhì, jì yú Yǎn-chéng guān
公孫氏舞劍器渾脫。瀏灕頓挫，獨出
Gōng-sūn-shì wǔ jiàn-qì hún-tuō. Liú-lí dùn-cuò, dú chū
冠時。自高頭宜春梨園二伎坊內人，
guān shí. Zì gāo-tóu Yí-chūn Lí-yuán èr jì-fāng nèi-rén,
洎外供奉舞女，曉是舞者，聖文神
jì wài gòng-fèng wǔ-nǚ, xiǎo shì wǔ zhě, Shèng-wén-shén-
武皇帝初，公孫一人而已。玉貌錦衣，
wǔ-huáng-dì chū, Gōng-sūn yì-rén ér-yǐ. Yù-mào jǐn-yī,
况余白首！今茲弟子亦匪盛顏。既
kuàng yú bái shǒu! Jīn zī dì-zǐ yì fěi shèng-yán. Jì
辨其由來，知波瀾莫二。撫事慷慨，聊
biàn qí yóu-lái, zhī bō-làn mò èr. Fǔ shì kāng-kǎi, liáo
為劍器行。昔者吳人張旭善草書
wéi jiàn-qì xíng. Xī-zhě Wú-rén Zhāng Xù shàn cǎo-shū
書帖，數嘗於鄴縣見公孫大娘舞
shū-tiè, shuò cháng yú Yè-xiàn jiàn Gōng-sūn dà-niáng wǔ
西河劍器，自此草書長進，豪蕩感激。
Xī-hé jiàn-qì, zì-cǐ cǎo-shū zhǎng-jìn, háo-dàng gǎn-jī.
即公孫可知矣！
Jí Gōng-sūn kě zhī yǐ!

昔有佳人公孫氏
1. Xī yǒu jiā-rén Gōng-sūn-shì,
一舞劍器動四方
2. Yì wǔ jiàn-qì dòng sì-fāng.
觀者如山色沮喪
3. Guān-zhě rú shān sè jǔ-sàng,
天地為之久低昂
4. Tiān-dì wèi zhī jiǔ dī-áng.
㸌如羿射九日落
5. Huò rú Yì shè jiǔ rì luò,
矯如群帝驂龍翔
6. Jiǎo rú qún-dì cān lóng xiáng.
來如雷霆收震怒
7. Lái rú léi-tíng shōu zhèn-nù,
罷如江海凝清光
8. Bà rú jiāng-hǎi níng qīng guāng.
絳脣珠袖兩寂寞
9. Jiàng chún zhū xiù liǎng jì-mò,
晚有弟子傳芬芳
10. Wǎn yǒu dì-zǐ chuán fēn-fāng.
臨潁美人在白帝
11. Lín-yǐng měi-rén zài Bái-dì,
妙舞此曲神揚揚
12. Miào wǔ cǐ qǔ shén yáng-yáng.
與余問答既有以
13. Yǔ yú wèn-dá jì yǒu yǐ,
感時撫事增惋傷
14. Gǎn shí fǔ shì zēng wǎn-shāng.
先帝侍女八千人
15. Xiān-dì shì-nǚ bā qiān rén,
公孫劍器初第一
16. Gōng-sūn jiàn-qì chū dì-yī.
五十年間似反掌
17. Wǔ-shí nián jiān sì fǎn-zhǎng,
風塵澒洞昏王室
18. Fēng-chén hòng-tóng hūn wáng-shì.
梨園弟子散如煙
19. Lí-yuán dì-zǐ sàn rú yān,
女樂餘姿映寒日
20. Nǚ-yuè yú-zī yìng hán rì.
金粟堆南木已拱
21. Jīn-sù-duī-nán mù yǐ gǒng,
瞿唐石城草蕭瑟
22. Qú-táng shí chéng cǎo xiāo-sè.
玳筵急管曲復終
23. Dài-yán jí guǎn qǔ fù zhōng,
樂極哀來月東出
24. Lè jí āi lái yuè dōng chū.
老夫不知其所往
25. Lǎo-fū bù zhī qí suǒ wǎng,
足繭荒山轉愁疾
26. Zú jiǎn huāng shān zhuǎn chóu jí!

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

On Seeing a Pupil of Kung-sun Dance the Chien-ch’i—A Ballad

On the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Ta-li (15 November 767), in the residence of Yüan Ch’ih, Lieutenant-Governor of K’uei-chou, I saw Li Shih-erh-niang of Lin-ying dance the chien-ch’i. Impressed by the brilliance and thrust of her style, I asked her whom she had studied under. ‘I am a pupil of Kung-sun’, was the reply.

I remember in the fifth year of K’ai-yüan (717) when I was still a little lad seeing Kung-sun dance the chien-ch’i and the hun-t’o at Yen-ch’eng. For purity of technique and self-confident attack she was unrivalled in her day. From the ‘royal command performers’ and the ‘insiders’ of the Spring Garden and Pear Garden schools in the palace down to the ‘official call’ dancers outside, there was no one during the early years of His Sagely Pacific and Divinely Martial Majesty who understood this dance as she did. Where now is that lovely figure in its gorgeous costume? Now even I am an old, white-haired man; and this pupil of hers is well past her prime.

Having found out about the pupil’s antecedents, I now realized that what I had been watching was a faithful reproduction of the great dancer’s interpretation. The train of reflections set off by this discovery so moved me that I felt inspired to compose a ballad on the chien-ch’i.

Some years ago, Chang Hsü, the great master of the ‘grass writing’ style of calligraphy, having several times seen Kung-sun dance the West River chien-ch’i at Yeh-hsien, afterwards discovered, to his immense gratification, that his calligraphy had greatly improved. This gives one some idea of the sort of person Kung-sun was.

In time past there was a lovely woman called Kung-sun, whose chien-ch’i astonished the whole world. Audiences numerous as the hills watched awestruck as she danced, and, to their reeling senses, the world seemed to go on rising and falling, long after she had finished dancing. Her flashing swoop was like the nine suns falling, transfixed by the Mighty Archer’s arrows; her soaring flight like the lords of the sky driving their dragon teams aloft; her advance like the thunder gathering up its dreadful rage; her stoppings like seas and rivers locked in the cold glint of ice.

The crimson lips, the pearl-encrusted sleeves are now at rest. But in her latter years there had been a pupil to whom she transmitted the fragrance of her art. And now in the city of the White Emperor the handsome woman from Lin-ying performs this dance with superb spirit. Her answers to my questions having revealed that there was good reason to admire, my ensuing reflections fill me with painful emotion.

Of the eight thousand women who served our late Emperor, Kung-sun was from the first the leading performer of the chien-ch’i. Fifty years have now gone by like a flick of the hand—fifty years in which rebellions and disorders darkened the royal house. The pupils of the Pear Garden have vanished like the mist. And now here is this dancer, with the cold winter sun shining on her fading features.

South of the Hill of Golden Grain the boughs of the trees already interlace. On the rocky walls of Ch’ü-t’ang the dead grasses blow forlornly. At the glittering feast the shrill flutes have once more concluded. When pleasure is at its height, sorrow follows. The moon rises in the east; and I depart, an old man who does not know where he is going, but whose feet, calloused from much walking in the wild mountains, make him wearier and wearier of the pace.

From:

x_los

Is that ALL the fuckin title? Du Fu. We gotta talk about what a title is.

Recording skips most of the title/preface.

Interesting for being one of few poems in the collection about women artists.

“danced by a female performer in military costume and seems to have been some kind of war dance involving much violent movement.” Oh huh, just as art or for any ceremonial reason?

“the fu, a sort of euphuistic essay in mixed prose and verse.” Oh, neat clear def of a fu

Euphuism is a peculiar mannered style of English prose. It takes its name from a prose romance by John Lyly. It consists of a preciously ornate and sophisticated style, employing a deliberate excess of literary devices such as antitheses, alliterations, repetitions and rhetorical questions.

Astrakhan: this is a low dense curled wool russian style hat

The dancing mistress, her pupil and Du Fu, the observer, seem to jump between the palace and the regions they hail from originally or are otherwise active in (Yè-xiàn and Yǎn-chéng) in a way that I don’t quite get.

It’s interesting that Du Fu thinks, apparently after this calligrapher, that watching this artist in a very different field can inspire one’s own art practice. I wouldn’t necessarily have thought it of dance, particularly.

“Her flashing swoop was like the nine suns falling, transfixed by the Mighty Archer’s arrows;” this is interesting bc I might have identified her with Yi, the dextrous and skilled shooting agent, rather than the object of his skill

“This ‘freezing’ in the midst of violent action is familiar to anyone who has watched battle scenes in Chinese opera.” Oh neat

Du Fu seems very ambivalent re whether this elderly (?) woman is hot or not. She’s past her prime! She’s handsome! Her looks are fading! Just enjoy your admiration boner, Du Fu, it’s chill.

'will someone come and judge my boner??' it's like 767 and you're out of favour, living in the boonies: Nobody Cares

“like a flick of the hand” is this an invocation of the motion of the dance itself?

“Royal tombs, like other royal buildings, face the south.” Interesting. Why?

“On the rocky walls of Ch’ü-t’ang the dead grasses blow forlornly” what’s this do?

“The moon rises in the east;” any special significance?

What do we make of the ending?

“The grass writing is a kind of style of calligraphy that breakthroughs the strict forms of Chinese characters, making the Chinese characters being written simpler”

From:

pengwern

I cannot read grass/cursive _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_ Though apparently if you hand write enough it becomes clear (muscle...understanding of where the shortcuts occur?).
I think I’ve seen Gongsun daniang as a character in some games? Can’t remember where though.
The third from last line [When pleasure is at its height, sorrow follows. The moon rises in the east] is so very directional — feels almost like a description of a movie/video moment.
I feel like chinese/brush calligraphy is very close to dance though, even if western calligraphy with nibs doesn’t work out that way (I say, blithely swooshing away at it with flex nibs and shiny ink) there’s a video out recently that I’ll try to find of a performance of the Lan Ting Xu, a famous Wei-Jin era piece of calligraphy.
㸌如羿射九日落 About the shooting the suns line, there’s no comma or pause in the original, so maybe it’s just this translation!
Re title did you ever see one of those poems that in these days would be an i stagram post, I think li bai or someone with full date + tagged people in the picture.....they title poems like I label test tubes XD
Her dance is...I’ve never quite seen this particular way it gets used 剑器, where it’s sword....artifact? probably not the right word. Qi 器 is -ware, machines, things created by artifice etc https://baike.baidu.com/item/剑器/198168
I see it’s some kind of ceremonial object, or at least not an actual blade, which makes sense. Most dances from ancient (Xia dynasty on) times that were recorded are the shamanistic formal kinds for seasons turning, rain, large enterprises/events etc, all the way attenuated into the Tang as just performances now...
But back in the day you’d get the aristocrats participating in the dances too!

From:

x_los

"I feel like chinese/brush calligraphy is very close to dance though, even if western calligraphy with nibs doesn’t work out that way (I say, blithely swooshing away at it with flex nibs and shiny ink) there’s a video out recently that I’ll try to find of a performance of the Lan Ting Xu, a famous Wei-Jin era piece of calligraphy."

This is a real point, and the PERFORMANCE element I didn't think of, I can see in re dance. I was thinking really 2d about it, just--the end product.

Oh that's a REALLY neat temporal note, that it might well have once had religious dimensions and now it's largely artistic/entertainment.

From:

pengwern

from what I've seen glancingly in webnovels (>_>), even the final 2d product is spoken of as the marking left from the movement (and hand) that produced it? (I am assuming stuff like seal script etc doesn't count but I should look). all those comments on how sinewy, strong, or how delicate, or rushing like the wind etc the calligraphy is - I need to look it up later, but the term for the mark formed by the brush being semi-dry and thus leaving lots of empty white space has one of those energetic, sky or wind related names.

From:

superborb

Oh, euphuism sounds fascinating, esp since the wiki article says similar phenomena appeared in other European languages?

Optimally, Chinese buildings face south to maximize sunlight.

Weirdly, Baike says Du Fu was 6 when he saw the dancer?

Hawkes' “Bō-làn: lit. ‘big waves and little waves’: i.e. every movement and gesture.” is a bit odd to me. Baike's gloss is more like, "something with varying undulations, here used to indicate the artistic style of the dance".

I'd think the dead grasses are just to show how desolate it is?

The ending is lamenting the vicissitudes of life, no?

From:

x_los

"Weirdly, Baike says Du Fu was 6 when he saw the dancer?"

This is odd/interesting bc there's a big contention in Victorian circles over how old Dickens actually WAS when he saw the famous clown Grimaldi, whose autobiography he ghost wrote, and he was about this young. People were saying he couldn't possibly remember the performance itself, and he was 'how very dare you' about it. So there's sort of a repeated case in a way of artists having STRONG early memories of other artists' work.

mm, I think I'm just looking at "an old man who does not know where he is going, but whose feet, calloused from much walking in the wild mountains, make him wearier and wearier of the pace." and thinking, what are the specific details herein adding.

From:

douqi

Re titles: you will be grateful for Du Fu's titles after you meet Li Shangyin and his endless slew of poems all called 'Untitled', trust me.

Re: 'Her flashing swoop was like the nine suns falling, transfixed by the Mighty Archer’s arrows; her soaring flight like the lords of the sky driving their dragon teams aloft' — there's a mismatch in the translation, I think. The two lines are structured in the same way in the original, so their subjects should either be Mighty Archer/lords of the sky OR nine suns falling/dragon teams. Not the current pick-and-mix.

From:

x_los

ah right so agent/agent or object/object

From:

x_los

旅夜書懷
Lǚ yè shū huái

細草微風岸
1. Xì cǎo wēi fēng àn,
危檣獨夜舟
2. Wēi qiáng dú yè zhōu:
星垂平野闊
3. Xīng chuí píng yě kuò,
月湧大江流
4. Yuè yǒng dà-jiāng liú.
名豈文章著
5. Míng qǐ wén-zhāng zhù?
官應老病休
6. Guān yīng lǎo-bìng xiū.
飄飄何所似
7. Piāo-piāo hé-suǒ sì?
天地一沙鷗
8. Tiān-dì yì shā-ōu!

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK8UtYZ8p0

Thoughts Written While Travelling at Night

By the bank where the fine grass bends in a gentle wind, my boat’s tall mast stands in the solitary night. The stars hang down over the great emptiness of the level plain, and the moon bobs on the running waters of the Great River. Literature will bring me no fame. A career is denied me by my age and sickness. What do I most resemble in my aimless wanderings? A seagull drifting between earth and sky!

From:

x_los

“the two hundred and fifty mile journey down the Yangtze” gotta give it up for internal waterways, the handmaiden of travel

“Literature will bring me no fame. A career is denied me by my age and sickness.” The millennial energy

jejune /dʒɪˈdʒuːn/ Learn to pronounce adjective 1. naive, simplistic, and superficial.

Hawkes translation softens the rhetorical ‘name how’ in a way I don’t think gives it the plaintive sneer the original seems to carry, the unanswerable rhetorical

The ‘what am I like’ is a happy British colloquial similarity, imo

From:

douqi

For some reason this is one of the ones my brain has decided to memorise.

I have a vague memory of lines 5 and 6 being said to have a backhanded meaning, kind of 'I didn't want to be known for my poetry; I wanted to be known for being a good official. It's true that I am ill and elderly, but the true reason for my retirement is that I was ostracised at court'.

From:

pengwern

星垂平野闊/月湧大江流 is a really gorgeous image of the night sky! and the moon's light rushing and battered by the waters...it's one of those expansive, antonym-to-claustrophobic moods for sure.

[said to have a backhanded meaning] rip buddy

From:

x_los

I feel like there MUST be a thread of discourse about how with poet-statesmen, the poetry's influence on statecraft can have a longer tail, and constitute a greater *&material* as well as artistic success.

From:

superborb

Baike gives as the alternative to the standard 765 year, instead of the 767 year Hawkes says, spring of 768-- the fine grass is more associated with a spring scene instead of autumn and the justification is the same as what Hawkes says. I guess they are not actually sure what year Du Fu was traveling?

Edited Date: 2021-11-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

登高
Dēng gāo

風急天高猿嘯哀
1. Fēng jí tiān gāo yuán xiào āi,
渚清沙白鳥飛迴
2. Zhǔ qīng shā bái niǎo fēi huí.
無邊落木蕭蕭下
3. Wú biān luò mù xiāo-xiāo xià,
不盡長江滾滾來
4. Bú jìn cháng jiāng gǔn-gǔn lái.
萬里悲秋常作客
5. Wàn-lǐ bēi qiū cháng zuò kè,
百年多病獨登臺
6. Bǎi-nián duō bìng dú dēng tái.
艱難苦恨繁霜鬢
7. Jiān-nán kǔ-hèn fán shuāng-bìn,
潦倒新停濁酒杯
8. Liáo-dǎo xīn tíng zhuó jiǔ bēi!

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Jv4CMmjs0

From a Height

The wind is keen, the sky is high; apes wail mournfully. The island looks fresh; the white sand gleams; birds fly circling. An infinity of trees bleakly divest themselves, their leaves falling, falling. Along the endless expanse of river the billows come rolling, rolling. Through a thousand miles of autumn’s melancholy, a constant traveller racked with a century’s diseases, alone I have dragged myself up to this high terrace. Hardship and bitter chagrin have thickened the frost upon my brow. And to crown my despondency I have lately had to renounce my cup of muddy wine!

From:

x_los

"The wind is keen, the sky is high; apes wail mournfully" ...du fu wtf. du fu I'm tired. I'm gonna have a shower, du fu. just. hold that thought.

This one feels almost TS Eliot. Homie slouching towards Babylon. is that just the translation, tho?

Tfw no muddy wine :(

Huge ‘diagnosed with lactose intolerance wtfff’ energy

‘Climb high’ is an interesting choice of title, for this one

threnody /ˈθrɛnədi/ noun a lament; A threnody is a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.

“apes wail mournfully” the fuck

“the frost upon my brow” remember earlier when he used ‘frost’ for wrinkly bark, as well? This doesn’t make sense to me as is, but maybe in that light?

From:

pengwern

Frost is like frosty hair! Till years snow white hairs on thee or however that Donne line goes. There’s one poem line that gets used ALL the time for angst especially in its original history poet rpf fandom on lofter about Bai juyi and his friend Yuan weizhi
https://baike.baidu.com/item/梦微之/12527296
君埋泉下泥销骨4，我寄人间雪满头5
You buried under the fountains (of the netherworld) bones melded into mud, I lingering in the mortal world snow heaped on my head.
the immortal analogue to “we deserve a softer epilogue” of the “it’s semi happy as long as they’re both dead” cn fandom tendencies ٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و
I think the wine is muddy bc it’s rice wine and so when it’s not fully settled, it’s still got lots of sediment? tfw no sediment laden wine...?

also I’m not sure but it seens there’s just one river (the three gorges) with lots of apes calling on its banks or something, famous in local lore. There’s the one li bai poem where he also comments on them somewhere

From:

douqi

Yeah in my head, 'muddy wine' is makgeolli-ish? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makgeolli

The Li Bai one with apes, I'm almost sure, must be 两岸猿声啼不住　轻舟已过万重山

From:

superborb

Baike says that it's a reference to 巴东三峡巫峡长，猿鸣三声泪沾裳, which is apparently a folk ballad.

Also that Du Fu quits drinking in his old age due to lung disease. How do we know that so specifically still, wow.

I enjoy the 394872374 variants of 'unfiltered rice wine' that exist. How are they different? No more easily described than the differences between grape wines, it seems.

From:

x_los

Oh of COURSE it's greying hair, gotcha.

From:

x_los

登岳陽樓
Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu

昔聞洞庭水
1. Xī wén Dòng-tíng shuǐ,
今上岳陽樓
2. Jīn shàng Yuè-yáng lóu.
吳楚東南坼
3. Wú Chǔ dōng nán chè,
乾坤日夜浮
4. Qián-kūn rì-yè fú.
親朋無一字
5. Qīn-péng wú yí zì,
老病有孤舟
6. Lǎo-bìng yǒu gū zhōu.
戎馬關山北
7. Róng-mǎ guān-shān běi,
憑軒涕泗流
8. Píng xuān tì-sì liú.

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

On Yo-yang Tower

Long ago I heard about the waters of Tung-t’ing, and now today I have climbed up Yo-yang tower. The lake cleaves the lands of Wu and Ch’u to east and south. Day and night the world floats in its changing waters. Of friends and family I have no word. Old and ill I have only my solitary boat. The warhorse stamps north of the passes. I lean on the railing and my tears flow.

From:

x_los

“Tu Fu left K’uei-chou” Hawkes always obscures the movements of the family and any retainers in these announcements of Du Fu’s perambulations, and it confuses and irks me

“he was to spend all the rest of his life in the South” ouch

“the creative writer in China cannot have found his elaborately formal medium quite so cramping and inhibiting as is sometimes suggested by iconoclastic modern critics” fair, honestly

“Qián and kūn are the names of the first two hexagrams in the divination scripture of the Confucian canon” I ching, or something else?

“Rheumatic diseases affect your joints tendons, ligaments, bones, and muscles. Among them are many types of arthritis, a term used for conditions that affect your joints.”

“Also while in K’uei-chou he became deaf in one ear and lost all his teeth.” That fucking toast—

“it should not be thought, from the rather frequent references to ill health which occur in his poems, that Tu Fu was a hypochondriac. During the occupation of Ch’ang-an he contracted malaria and some chronic respiratory disease, suffered from rheumatism a great deal during his stay in Ch’eng-tu (the ‘river city’), and after his move to K’uei-chou was, at any rate for a time, paralysed in his right arm. Also while in K’uei-chou he became deaf in one ear and lost all his teeth." I think we can safely conclude that Du Fu was Really Going Through It

“Old and ill I have only my solitary boat.” Is it his boat?

From:

douqi

Yes, Qian and Kun are the first two I-Ching (or Yijing) hexagrams.

From:

superborb

Baike says something about how the little boat on a big lake is symbolic of Du Fu, as he gazes at the lone boat from the tower. But also that the lone boat indicates the poet's whole family having to survive in a small boat.

From:

superborb

Incredibly fascinated that Baike glosses qiankun as 'indicating sun, moon', when that is definitely not the dictionary defn of either the compound word or either individual component? I mean, baike is probably not really a Reliable Source.

From:

pengwern

my bad， I definitely misread parts of this! yeah I have no idea if sun/moon applies to this specific poem since all I'm familiar with is. fic plot points.

Edited Date: 2021-11-15 04:32 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

江南逢李龜年
Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

岐王宅裏尋常見
1. Qí-wáng zhái-lǐ xún-cháng jiàn,
崔九堂前幾度聞
2. Cuī Jiǔ táng-qián jǐ-dù wén.
正是江南好風景
3. Zhèng-shì Jiāng-nán hǎo fēng-jǐng,
落花時節又逢君
4. Luò huā shí-jié yòu féng jūn.

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-erKdyU0o7I

On Meeting Li Kuei-nien in the South

I often saw you in Prince Ch’i’s house and heard you a number of times in the hall of Ts’ui Ti. It’s true that the scenery in Chiang-nan is very beautiful. And here, in the season of fallen blossoms, I meet you once again.

From:

x_los

“It’s true that the scenery in Chiang-nan is very beautiful” what does this bit do?

***
Vocabulary: a really nice idea but imo should also include characters

From:

pengwern

...It’s good for putting on tourism brochures...(no >u< )
But also more like “Right now it’s really nice in Jiangnan”?

From:

superborb

Baike suggests the beautiful scenery is in contrast to the decline of the world and the old singer and poet and nostalgia for the past.

This 'vocabulary' without characters is pretty meaningless...

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x_los - 31. 觀公孫大娘弟子舞劍器行 Guān Gōng-sūn dà-niáng dì-zǐ wǔ jiàn-qì xíng
x_los - 32. 旅夜書懷 Lǚ yè shū huái
x_los - 33. 登高 Dēng gāo
x_los - 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
x_los - 35. 江南逢李龜年 Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

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Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 31 - 35

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