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This week we start working with Li Qingzhao’s ci poetry. As usual, the book is 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). We're reading the poems 3.1 through 3.8 inclusive.

This collection uses footnotes and endnotes to explicate the work. There are three endnotes for this week’s group of poems, but these aren’t very rich in exegesis.


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

Date: 2022-01-29 06:03 am (UTC)

Re: 3.1

From: [personal profile] pengwern
the screens are lowered as it’s the night time, and the diancui (featherwork) making the lotus pods and gold embroidered lotus leaves on the rich garment have turned small and become loosened as the years weather the clothes worn when her finances were good and when the country had not fallen to invaders...so much trauma like most of the song poets ;-;
oh wow her life is so sad ;^;
天上星河轉
人間簾幕垂。is such a gorgeous thing to say though
Edited Date: 2022-01-29 07:12 am (UTC)

Re: 3.1

From: [personal profile] douqi - Date: 2022-01-29 02:12 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.1

From: [personal profile] superborb - Date: 2022-01-29 06:12 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.2

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 06:11 am (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 07:01 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.2

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
Baike notes three versions of the poem: the first is the one that most use, but has some gaps, the second is the one from Yuefu Ya Ci, and the third is the one passed down from the Qing dynasty. This text uses the latter.

Baike's annotation on the 'jade hook', which is found only in that third version, is that it doesn't have much connection to the next line, so is an error or later addition.

Baike notes that the last character of line 5 is not recorded in the book, but should be read with this sound as an auxiliary word according to the rhythm. (Perhaps it's not recorded because it's assumed to be present along with the tune? Interesting.)

Baike also says the later filling in of the 'pear blossom' is inappropriate, as there is an inconsistency in meaning with the previous sentence. Pear blossoms bloom /before/ thornberries, so it is seasonally inappropriate.

And there were a handful of other additions that Baike comments on, but didn't have much to say.

Baike is also very insistent on interpreting this through the lens of LQZ and her history.

Re: 3.3

From: [personal profile] ann712 - Date: 2022-01-27 10:25 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.3

From: [personal profile] douqi - Date: 2022-01-29 02:18 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 07:40 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.3

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
Huh, when I went on regular Baike to look for this poem, it only had a stub with a vernacular tl, which I thought was unusual-- and I found it on Baike's Hong Kong page with more annotation. I wonder why that happens? I checked for another poem on this page, and both Baike pages were identical for that one.

The 'thousands of miles' are glossed a Zhuangzi reference where it is said the Dapeng (bird of legend) flew 90000 miles.

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 06:29 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] douqi - Date: 2022-01-29 02:22 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 04:21 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 02:27 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.4

douqi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] douqi
Digression but: the tune known as 'As If in a Dream' was originally known as 'In Memory of a Celestial's* Beauty' by its creator. Then Su Shi** came along and decreed that 'In Memory of a Celestial's* Beauty' wasn't elegant enough. He renamed the tune 'As If in a Dream' as the poem from which the tune originates has the repeated lines 'as if in a dream, as if in a dream'.

*That would be xian (仙), for survivors of the Great Xian Debate of 2021.
**Of course it would be Su Shi.

On a more related note: 'lost myself in the depths of the lotuses' is so evocative, and of course lends itself well to CQL fic.

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-30 04:00 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] llonkrebboj - Date: 2022-01-30 01:14 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.4

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-30 06:04 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 07:58 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.4

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
Baike is convinced this was written when she was around 16 and so is her earliest work.

Re: 3.5

From: [personal profile] ann712 - Date: 2022-01-27 10:26 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.5

From: [personal profile] superborb - Date: 2022-01-29 08:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.5

From: [personal profile] llonkrebboj - Date: 2022-01-29 08:27 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 12:56 am (UTC)

Re: 3.5

llonkrebboj: (Default)
From: [personal profile] llonkrebboj
Oh this is the one that has been made into a song for Story of Minglan!
Here's an adorable pair of girls singing it.

I wonder at which point in her life did she write this and if she is the speaker. Is this a little sketch of what happened one morning, or a something from her imagination...?

It has very /youth/ vibes if that makes sense. Mood being influenced that the time has passed for the blooming flowers and being sad that the season is over.

Love how she describes the crabapple blossoms as 'reds' supposed to be thinning (the literal word is thin! What's this 'spindly' nonsense?), and the green leaves 'fattening' i.e. growing dense. It's such a fresh and slightly playful turn of phrase. Oh - and I just looked up images of crabapple trees, and in spring aka flowering season, they are absolutely COVERED in red or pink blossoms. You can hardly see any green. It's very pretty.

Also this whole little scene - it made me laugh!

Can you imagine someone maybe upset and drinking the night away while the wind is whooooooooooooing outside, and drizzling raindrops tap-tapping on the roof. Then they fall asleep and wake up still sort of drunk, feeling all melancholy about like, the going away of beautiful things. (/o\ I'm not going to look out the window!) When the maid comes in all matter-of-factly rolling up the blinds, they mock-casually ask, "hey would you just take a look and tell me how are the flowers today?"

The maid is like ???? "Nothing's changed, miss? They're all still out there." If she's ever been upset about fallen blossoms, it's probably when thinking about how much there is to sweep.

And the person is so exasperated like aaaaaaa she doesn't get it! 'Don't you know? Don't you know?! It's time for them to all be falling!"

EXACTLY like when I was trying to tell my dad about how it feels to sit on the work bus with a childhood friend when we used to take the morning school bus together, and he DIDN'T get it until I came right out to say "Ah, time passes fast!"
Edited Date: 2022-01-29 01:01 am (UTC)

Re: 3.5

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 05:54 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] llonkrebboj - Date: 2022-01-29 04:58 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 07:01 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 06:45 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] douqi - Date: 2022-01-29 02:34 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] llonkrebboj - Date: 2022-01-29 10:25 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

From: [personal profile] superborb - Date: 2022-01-29 08:53 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 08:44 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.6 咏白菊 On the White Chrysanthemum

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
I was wondering if I was reading this poem as sharp critique because of the previous sections where she's critiquing people directly, but Baike agrees that she is expressing contempt of vulgarity.

Also an expression of how LQZ feels that a poem must have allusion to have deeper meanings. I guess with the footnotes and Baike gloss the references are there, but it's not quite as expressive as it could be otherwise.

Re: 3.7

From: [personal profile] pengwern - Date: 2022-01-29 07:09 am (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 09:28 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.7

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
I would not think that sun being weak was associated with being warm and pleasant, but sure, Baike. I guess context from the poem says it must be a positive adjective.

Baike says some say the plum blossom could also be the plum blossom makeup, but its first gloss of 'spring plums inserted at the temples' seems more logical. Though I guess either technically works, since the makeup could also be ruined.

Re: 3.8

From: [personal profile] ann712 - Date: 2022-01-27 10:31 pm (UTC) - Expand
Date: 2022-01-29 09:39 pm (UTC)

Re: 3.8

superborb: (Default)
From: [personal profile] superborb
Cyan-green is an interesting translation. The original word is given in the dictionary as 'green jade; bluish green; blue; jade' and glossed by Baike with a word the dictionary gives as 'lush green; dark green; turquoise'. I guess I would have just expected something that picked up that jade implication in the original character? And 'cyan-green' is not really a standard word, so it feels more of a Choice.

Baike specifies that these cutouts would have been made of gold foil.

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