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

3.13

[x_los]

一翦梅

红藕香殘玉簟秋。
輕解羅裳
獨上蘭舟。
雲中誰寄錦書來 雁字回時 月滿西樓。
花自飄零水自流。
一種相思
兩處閑愁。
此情無計可消除
纔下眉頭
却上心頭。

To the tune “A Single Cutting of Plum Blossoms”

The scent of red lotuses fades in jade mat autumn. Lightly she unties her gauze robe
to board the magnolia boat alone.
Amid the clouds, who sends a brocade letter? As the wild geese character comes back moonlight fills the western tower.
Blossoms fall on their own, the water flows by itself.
One type of longing,
idle sadness in two places.
There’s no means to get rid of this feeling. As soon as it leaves the brow
it surfaces in the heart.

Re: 3.13

[x_los]

“jade mat autumn.” ?

“magnolia boat” ?

Again the image of a woman on a boat alone

“a brocade letter” is the letter embroidered somehow? Or does she just mean—the clouds look like brocade, and also like characters?

Re: 3.13

[superborb]

Baike glosses jade mat as a bamboo mat as smooth as jade. The vernacular tl editorializes here by adding that the jade mat reveals the coolness of autumn.

Magnolia boat is even in the dictionary as just 'poetic name for a boat'. Baike adds some context for this history and says some say that it is indicating a bed.

Baike glosses brocade letter as a poetic way to say letter and gives the origin story for this term.

Re: 3.13

[douqi]

Most commentaries seem to date this poem quite early in her career, when her husband had to travel away from home not long after their marriage. Not sure of the veracity of that, but it's the conventional read.

Possibly the mat is also cool because she is feeling Lonely(TM).

The final line 'As soon as it leaves the brow it surfaces in the heart' is said by many commentators to be a riff on 眉间心上 无计相回避 (very roughly: there's no escaping this emotion: whether twixt my brows or upon my heart), the final line from fellow Song poet Fan Zhongyan's ci poem set to the tune of 御街行 (Walking on Imperial Streets). Li Qingzhao's version is often held to be superior (though there are dudebros who Want To Be Different who hold to the contrary) because it captures the rippling ups-and-downs of emotions more effectively and evocatively than Fan Zhongyan's relatively 'plain spoken' line.

Re: 3.13

[pengwern]

I was wondering at one point about how some chinese poetry are like aesthetic moodboards to me - not super clear on how things work in other languages, although the symbolists were mentioned, but the way the poet links a thing with something else and expects an aspect of the thing used as adjective to cling to what's being described, which makes for very strong visuals and which I enjoy greatly...also I know absolutely nothing about poetry in general so there's probably a 101 thing I'm missing XD so you get these super compact phrases that contain a bunch of imagery like clown cars. All the coolness of the jade mats (that you'd probably want in summer, the way people use bamboo woven mats too) in autumn
the magnolia boat as baidu says is a reference to a place with magnolias that was carved by legendary figures into a small vessel, or also the wooden bed/couch
兰舟 and 锦书 are pleasing terms...
the brocade letter was (as baidu says) the woven missive of an exiled official's wife.
The moon filling the western tower is <33333