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

Introduction

[x_los]

Too long to reproduce here, so I'll skip to my comments.

the purge of the so-called Yuanyou 元­祐 faction: what *about*

"collating multiple copies of each book their acquired" so are they PDFing these before proofing?

"a student in the National University." so what's this set-up like in this period? I only know about the exams.

"I couldn’t stand it, so I decided that we would eat no more than one meat dish per meal and dress in no more than one colored garment at a time.

I wore no pearls or feathers in my hair and kept no gilded or embroidered article in my household." what's the significance of this?

This introduction writer is a bit quick to assign sinister meanings to statements that could easily be read other ways.

"Hanlin academician" ayyy

"Li Qingzhao drifted about “on the rivers and lakes” until she died" oh as in /rivers and lakes/?

"how gen- erally unlike what we would expect from a woman’s hand they are" calling it, this intro writer is a guy. Ronald Egan rather than Anna M. Shields

One way of reading this location of her financial position is that she could have sounded MORE critical of her first husband than she actually was, in an effort to secure financial security. She could also have been Constanze in Amadeus, talking him up in an effort at same.

"who could readily pass, to the audience’s ears, as the singer herself" eugh, people are always sloppy about this

"But in that earlier appearance they had been attributed to another author or had appeared without any attribution, meaning that the earlier compiler had no idea who the author was." So are already popular anon pieces simply being attributed to her?

"There is a long-standing and seldom examined tradition of reading all of Li Qingzhao’s song lyrics as unmiti- gated expressions of her life and feelings. This habit is problematic for a couple of reasons." no shit dude, that sucks ass

"The two trends simultaneously brought more and more attention to what Li Qingzhao had accomplished as a writer and made her decision to remarry after Zhao Mingcheng’s death less and less easy to accept. Some- thing had to give, because the contradiction between her literary fame and her conduct as a widow was becoming unbearable." v interesting considered in light of the retrospective refashioning of Austen's reputation, which is similar on both counts

"memorial halls" ?

You could also view not mentioning the remarriage as--it was a 100 day non-event where she divorced him. It's like, hook ups with an abuser. How big a deal is it?

This is a convincingly argued point about the tenor of her reputation over time

1.1 春殘 The End of Spring

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春殘

春殘何事苦思鄉
病裏梳頭恨髮長。
梁燕語多終日在
薔薇風細一簾香

The End of Spring

At the end of spring, what causes me to miss my homeland so intensely?
In sickness I comb my hair, resenting how long it is.
Swallows in the rafters are full of chatter the whole day long,
a gentle breeze blows on the rose bushes, making the entire window fragrant.

1.2 浯溪中興頌詩和張文潛(二首) The Wuxi Restoration Eulogy Tablet, I

[x_los]

浯溪中興頌詩和張文潛(二首)

第一

五十年功如電掃
華清宮柳咸陽草。
五坊供奉鬪雞兒
酒肉堆中不知老。
胡兵忽自天上來
逆胡亦是姦雄才。
勤政樓前走胡馬
珠翠踏盡香塵埃。
何為出戰輒披靡
傳置荔枝多馬死。
堯功舜德本如天
安用區區紀文字。
著碑銘德真陋哉
迺令神鬼磨山崖。
子儀光弼不自猜
天心悔禍人心開。
夏商有鑒當深戒
簡册汗青今俱在。
君不見
當時張說最多機
雖生已被姚崇賣。

The Wuxi Restoration Eulogy Tablet, Matching a Poem by Zhang Wenqian (I)

I

Fifty years’ achievement was gone in a bolt of lightning.
[B]lossoms and willows of Huaqing Palace became the weeds of Xianyang.
Lads who trained fighting cocks in Five Imperial Pens
never worried about growing old amid their meat and ale.
Barbarian soldiers swooped down from the heavens,
the rebel barbarian was a hero of treachery.
Barbarian steeds galloped before Diligent Governance Tower,
crushing pearls and feathers until the dirt was fragrant.
Why were imperial armies routed so readily?
Too many horses had died transporting lychees from distant lands.
Yao’s merit and Shun’s virtue were as grand as Heaven,
what need had they to record it meticulously in writing?
To commemorate virtue in a tablet truly is debasing,
left then for spirits and ghosts to obliterate on a cliff.
Ziyi and Guangbi had no doubts or jealousies,
heaven regretted the tragedy, the people found ease.
The Xia and Shang are a mirror, we are sternly warned.
Their treated bamboo slips are still extant today.
Don’t you know—
Zhang Yue had the most wiles and ruses of his day,
yet Yao Chong managed to deceive him from the grave.

1.3 浯溪中興頌詩和張文潛(二首) The Wuxi Restoration Eulogy Tablet, II

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第二

君不見
驚人廢興傳天寶
中興碑上今生草。
不知負國有姦雄
但說成功尊國老。
誰令妃子天上來
虢秦韓國皆天才。
花桑羯鼓玉方響
春風不敢生塵埃。
姓名誰復知安史
健兒猛將安眠死。
去天尺五抱甕峯
峯頭鑿出開元字。
時移勢去真可哀
姦人心醜深如崖。
西蜀萬里尚能反
南內一閉何時開。
可憐孝德如天大
反使將軍稱好在。
嗚呼，奴婢乃不能道輔國用事張后尊
乃能念春薺長安作斤賣。

The Wuxi Restoration Eulogy Tablet, Matching a Poem by Zhang Wenqian (II)

II

Don’t you know—
Those stirring tales of Tianbao era rise and fall—
today the Restoration Tablet is covered with weeds!
It says nothing of treacherous ministers who betrayed the empire,
and speaks only of elder statesmen and their meritorious deeds.
Who was it allowed the imperial concubine to ascend into Heaven?
The ladies of Guo, Qin, and Han were surely divine!
A nomadic drum of mulberry wood, hanging chimes of jade,
the spring wind did not dare to stir up dust or dirt.
Who even knew the names of An and Shi?
Valiant warriors and fierce generals died peacefully in their sleep.
Baoweng Peak is barely five feet short of Heaven,
on its summit they planned to carve the words “Kaiyuan.”
How pitiful, the way power vanished as times changed,
the traitor’s wickedness was as precipitous as a steep cliff.
The former ruler managed to return ten thousand miles from Western Shu,
but once the southern enclosure was locked, it was never reopened.
What a shame! Filial love as expansive as Heaven itself
eventually caused a general to inquire timidly, “Is everyone well?”
How disgraceful! That slave could not mention Fuguo’s scheming with Empress Zhang,
but still recalled shepherd’s-purse sold by the catty in Chang’an.

1.4 分得知字 Written Upon Being Assigned the Rhyme “Zhi”

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分得知字

學語三十年
緘口不求知。
誰遣好奇士
相逢說項斯。

Written Upon Being Assigned the Rhyme “Zhi”

I’ve studied poetic language for thirty years
but kept my mouth shut, not seeking to be known.
Whoever sent a gentleman fond of the marvelous and strange
to meet Xiang Si and spread word of him?

1.5 感懷 Stirred by Feelings

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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.