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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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3.27 On Wilted Plum Blossoms
殘梅
小閣藏春
閒窗銷晝
畫堂無限深幽。
篆香燒盡 日影下簾鉤。 手種江梅更好 又何必臨水登樓。
無人到 寂寥恰似何遜在楊州。
從來知韻勝
難堪雨藉 不耐風揉。 更誰家橫笛 吹動濃愁。
莫恨香消玉減 16 須信道
掃跡情留。
難言處
良宵淡月
疏影尚風流。
To the tune “Fragrance Fills the Courtyard”
On Wilted Plum Blossoms
This small building conceals the spring season, the lattice windows lock the morning inside, the painted hall is infinitely deep and secluded.
Seal-character incense has all turned to ash, the sun’s shadows move down the hooked curtain. The river plums I planted myself grow ever more attractive, why bother going to the river or climbing to the balcony?
No one comes, the loneliness here is just like He Sun’s in Yangzhou.
From olden times, such outstanding beauty,
could hardly bear being pelted by rain 12 or tossed about by winds.
What’s worse is when the flute song being played somewhere buffets it with such deep sadness!1 Do not regret the fragrance fading or the snow melting—
you must understand the feeling lingers after the form is swept away. Yet the hardest part is recalling these lines, “On a fine evening in pale moonlight,
the delicate shadows retain their charm.”
Re: 3.27 On Wilted Plum Blossoms
“Seal-character incense” ?
“the feeling lingers after the form is swept away.” Particularly nice
The Lin Bu she’s adapting is great
Re: 3.27 On Wilted Plum Blossoms
Re: 3.27 On Wilted Plum Blossoms
Re: 3.27 On Wilted Plum Blossoms
Baike also says the title was added by later people.