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The Works of Li Qingzhao, Ci Poems 3.25 - 3.32
The fourth instalment of Li Qingzhao’s ci poetry. This 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 3.25 through 3.32, inclusive.
Four 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)
This week, we look at Chapter 13 as recommended additional reading.
It may interest you to know that if you’ve been doing the additional reading, you’re now more than 1/3 of the way through How to Read Chinese Poetry:
Ch 1 (Shi Jing)
Ch 5 (19 Old Poems)
Ch 8 (Du Fu
Ch 9 (Du Fu)
Ch 10 (Du Fu)
Ch 12 (Li Qingzhao)
Ch 18 (Du Fu)
These next two chapters related to ci poetry will see us to the halfway point.
In contrast, I’ve been neglecting Chinese Poetry in Context: I believe we've read only Ch 15. I hope to be more assiduous about recommending it in future, when we cover pertinent people. So far, we’ve been a bit misaligned (or I wasn’t yet recommending specific chapters for discussion, when something pertinent came up).
THIS WEEK, recall from the introduction that 3.24 - 3.28 may be misattributed.
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3.26
世人作梅詞，下筆便俗。予試作一篇，乃知前言不妄耳。
藤床紙帳朝眠起。
說不盡
無佳思。
沈香煙斷玉爐寒
伴我情怀如水。
笛聲三弄
梅心驚破
多少春情意。
小風疏雨瀟瀟地。
又催下千行淚。
吹簫人去玉樓空
腸斷与誰同倚。
一枝折得
人間天上
沒個人堪寄。
To the tune “The Solitary Wild Goose”
People say that when writing songs on the plum blossom, as soon as your brush touches the page the piece is vulgar. I tried writing one, and discovered it’s true.
A rattan bed, paper curtain, awaking in the morning. I could never describe it, this mood with no pleasant thoughts.
The aloeswood incense no longer burns, the censer is cold, the despair that attends upon me is like a stream that never stops. Three tunes on the flute,2 startle open the plum blossoms,
but the excitement of spring—how much is there?
A light breeze brings fine rain that moistens the ground. It also hastens the shedding of a thousand lines of tears. The flute-player has left, the jade tower is empty,
with whom can my broken heart fly off ?1 A sprig of blossoms may be picked, but not in this world, nor in heaven, is there anyone to send it to.
Re: 3.26
“thousand lines of tears.” Why lines of tears—like is that the way they drip down her face? Or is this primarily a nature image, where the storm shakes loose lots of petals?
“the jade tower is empty,” look it’s all very well to say this is a reference, but drop a line or two of explanation, please
Re: 3.26
If it takes a couple of flute blasts to open the plum blossom buds, how much more to ‘open’ all of spring? ? ?
Really don’t get this one. Thought it was about the frustration of not being able to capture a response to natural beauty but then it seemed to morph into being abandoned by a lover - unless the flute player is a metaphor for creative inspiration
Re: 3.26
I read the excitement of spring line as "how much spring affection" -- mourning for past springs with her husband.
Yeah, the lines of the tears down her face.
This http://chineseaesop.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-phoenix-terrace.html is the story being referenced.
Re: 3.26