The Works of Li Qingzhao, poems 1.6 to 1.12

[x_los]

Welcome back to 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). This week we're reading poems 1.6 to 1.12, inclusive.

This collection uses footnotes and end notes to explicate the work. A few of this week's poems have footnotes, so look out for that.

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

Comments

Re: 1.10 上樞密韓公工部尚書胡公 (一) Presented to Lord Han of the Military Affairs Burea

[x_los]

So what does the poem’s being addressed to them mean? Is it circulated, or simply about them? Do they have any opportunity to hear it?

‘awaiting, now, the official Poetry Collector’ ?

Don’t these beads get super fucking annoying?

Why ‘it seemed’? Bc she’s giving him dialogue and not quoting him?

“Gifts increase as our words become more humble.” ?

Is she discussing HER OWN EMPEROR without pretending it’s about the Han??

Oh no it seems we’re nominally discussing the Tang, phew!

“this Guo Ziyi” ?

“Perhaps we shall use the blood of horse and dog,” ?

“and Consort Earth wet,” …ah

What are 57&58 doing? [this is discussed in the footnote]

She seems to use a lot of rhetorical questions

What are 63 and 64 about?

Re: 1.10 上樞密韓公工部尚書胡公 (一) Presented to Lord Han of the Military Affairs Burea

[superborb]

(Wow, finding this poem on Baike was a hassle, as it's indexed under 上枢密韩肖胄诗二首 and any variant of the full title doesn't bring it up)

Maybe the 'seemed' is bc she's attributing thoughts to him that he might not have felt?

I think she's trying to say that 'as we give more money, our position gets lower' -- that they should stand up and be more forceful?

Guo Ziyi is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Ziyi. Also nothing like 'this' is in the original poem =.=

After reading back the poem twice, I realized that Baike simply does not have the dog and horse blood sentence in the original poem, but its vernacular tl specifies "dog and horse blood applied on the lip" (original does not have we, obviously). But-but then the next line about the sun in the sky is missing in the vernacular! I suppose this is what happens with a community edited wiki...