Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 31 - 35
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dankodesThis 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”
34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
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.
Re: 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
“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?
Re: 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
Re: 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
Re: 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu
Re: 34. 登岳陽樓 Dēng Yuē-yáng lóu