The Works of Li Qingzhao, introduction and poems 1.1 to 1.5

[x_los]

This week we're reading The Works of Li Qingzhao, freely available via De Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities in Mandarin and English and via several publication formats, including two open access options (the pdf appears to be better formatted than the ebook; it might be worth someone letting them know as much). We're starting with the introduction and poems 1.1 to 1.5, inclusive.

This collection uses footnotes and end notes to explicate the work (though none of this week's poems has an end note).

We might get into more English exegesis, but this week the Introduction gives us more than enough of that to be getting on with.

CLP has an episode on Li Qingzhao you might find relevant.

Comments

1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

[x_los]

感懷

宣和辛丑八月十日到萊，獨坐一室，平生所見，皆不在目 前。几上有《禮韻》，因信手開之，約以所開為韻作詩。 偶得「子」字，因以為韻，作《感懷》詩云:

寒窗敗几無書史
公路可憐合至此。
青州從事孔方君
終日紛紛喜生事。
作詩謝絕聊閉門
燕寢凝香有佳思。
靜中我乃得至交
烏有先生子虛子。

Stirred by Feelings

I arrived in Lai on the tenth day of the eighth month of the xinchou year of the Xuanhe period (1121) and found myself sitting alone in a single room. Nothing of what I was used to seeing my entire life was there before my eyes. A copy of Rhymes for Rituals was on the table, and I opened it randomly, having decided that I would use whatever rhyme I opened to write a poem. By chance I opened to the character “son” and used it for my rhyme, composing a poem titled “Stirred by Feelings.”

A cold window, a broken desk, and no books in sight,
now I know the pitiful condition that Gonglu endured!
Qingzhou wine attendants and Lord Square Hole
enjoy causing no end of trouble all day long.
I shut my door, declining all inquiries, to compose poetic lines;
as incense suffuses the prefectural room, I find relief in elevated thought.
In quiet and solitude I obtain perfect companions:
Lord No-such and Sir Vacuity.

Re: 1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

[x_los]

So where is this again? This is the mid-conflict provisional capital, or the assignment he gets (where he deserts his post)?

"Rhymes for Rituals" ?

"honey sauce to go with his ground wheat" so he wants honey in his cream of wheat, and dies about it

'the prefectural room' ? so is this the husband's governor's palace?

It is kind of weird that people cast this woman as 'no thoughts head empty only Hubby', bc--and I know I'm primed--even from this she seems practical, somewhat exasperated and at times critical.

Re: 1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

[douqi]

'Rhymes for Rituals' — from a brief google and skim, one of two books of rhyme words you could officially use in poetry, including in the imperial exams.

Re: 1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

[douqi]

There's a subgenre of classical Chinese poetry called the 'boudoir lament' (闺怨), often associated with women poets (though men wrote these too) where a lonely, neglected woman laments the absence of her lover/husband. The Baike entry I saw for this poem situates it adjacent to this genre but highlights that, to the extent that this poem fits within this category, it's an unusual specimen.

Re: 1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

[superborb]

This is before the Jurchen invasions.

A rime book issued by the Song gov't.

Baike just glosses the prefectural room as the dwelling place of an official. I don't think he's governor yet-- Baike says he's a 知州 (senior provincial gov't official), though I guess that might be a translation choice because Wiki uses 'magistrate' for what this book is calling 'governor'.

Baike really wants to make this sound like Zhao Mingcheng is all about simplicity, which seems... wrong...