The Works of Li Qingzhao, Ci Poems 3.9 - 3.16

[x_los]

This week we continue 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 3.9 through 3.16 inclusive.

Three of this week’s poems have endnotes, but these offer only small points of Chinese language exegesis. 

How to Read Chinese Poetry has three chapters on the ci forms Li Qingzhao uses here:

 

Chapter 12, Ci Poetry: Short Song Lyrics (Xiaoling) 

Chapter 13, Ci Poetry: Long Song Lyrics (Manci) 

Chapter 14, Ci Poetry: Long Song Lyrics on Objects (Yongwu Ci)

From next week, we’ll be looking at these as recommended reading.

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Comments

3.11

[x_los]

浣溪沙

淡蕩春光寒食天。
玉爐沉水裊殘煙。
夢回山枕隱花鈿。
海燕未來人鬭草 江梅已過柳生綿。 黃昏疏雨濕鞦韆。

To the tune “Sands of the Washing Stream”

Genial, the spring sunlight, in Cold Food Festival weather.1 Aloeswood burns in the jade censer, a wavering trail of fading smoke. Returned from a dream, the pillow hides my inlaid flower hairpin.
The coastal swallows have not returned, people play the stalk guessing game;
the southern plum has faded, willows shed their cottony fluff. A light rain at sunset moistens the garden swing.

Re: 3.11

[x_los]

“the stalk guessing game” ?

This is a weird thing to be surprised by, but I didn’t know they’d have garden swings.

Re: 3.11

[superborb]

I guess there's actually several games it could be, but the top level Baike hit is to a game where you try to break another person's grass using your own.

Baike's gloss recounts the origins of the swing, from the Spring and Autumn Period's Duke Huan of Qi, popularized by Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (bc it was a homonym for a thousand years).