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

Re: 3.12

[x_los]

“the bedcover is tossed crimson waves,” good image

“as the sun climbs to the curtain hook.” So a hook on the side of the window to secure the curtains when they’re pulled back?

“She dreads now this longing for a distant one and parting pain, How many things have happened!” This is interestingly ambiguous, at least in English, re: whether the longing encompasses parting pain as well as distant one, whether she dreads the longing as a painful sensation or because the situation’s changed (how many things have happened) since she and the distant one were parted.

The last line is evocative. Presumably she wants to address some comment to the distant one, but is alone.

“that should remember me” does this idea take the reflection in the water and imbue it with a sense of permanence?

“from today on will be added
a layer of new sorrow.” Paralleling the accretive power of her emotional response to alter the landscape (even as these stories have made Wuling and Qin more, culturally, than they are in and of themselves)

Re: 3.12

[superborb]

Baike doesn't gloss curtain hook, but looking up the term separately says that ancient people had curtains around their bed and they hung the curtains to the side with curtain hooks during the day.

Baike's vernacular tl simplifies it to merely the parting pain, but I think the original reads more ambiguously.

The vernacular tl for 'should remember me' is 'should pity me', which is very different to me? No gloss though.