Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 31 - 35

[x_los]

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”

Comments

33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[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!

Re: 33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[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?

Re: 33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[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

Re: 33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[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

Re: 33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[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.

Re: 33. 登高 Dēng gāo

[x_los]

Oh of COURSE it's greying hair, gotcha.