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The Works of Li Qingzhao, Ci Poems 3.41 - 3.48
The sixth 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 3.41 through 3.48, inclusive.
How to Read Chinese Poetry has three chapters on the ci forms Li Qingzhao uses here:
Recall from the introduction that everything after 3.35 is relatively likely to be misattributed. This is especially true after 3.45: these may be written deliberately 'in Li Qingzhao's style'.
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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)
Recall from the introduction that everything after 3.35 is relatively likely to be misattributed. This is especially true after 3.45: these may be written deliberately 'in Li Qingzhao's style'.
If you’d like to be added to the reminder email list, let me know the address you wish to be contacted via. (You can also unsubscribe from the reminders at any time simply by replying ‘unsubscribe’.)
3.41
繡面芙蓉一笑開。
斜飛寶鴨襯香腮。
眼波才動被人猜。
一面風情深有韻 半箋嬌恨寄幽懷。 月移花影約重來。
To the tune “Sands of the Washing Stream”
An embroidered lotus flower opens in a smile. Smoke from the duck censer brushes her fragrant cheek. As soon as her eyes move others can guess her mind.
Her face is full of feeling, with irresistible charm, coy sadness and secret longing are revealed on half a page: “When blossoms’ shadows move in moonlight, promise you’ll come
back again.”
Re: 3.41
“coy sadness and secret longing are revealed on half a page:” is she suddenly writing or is the ‘half a page’ somehow a description of her face
What’s this final quote do?
Re: 3.41
Baike's vernacular tl has the half page as a letter the woman has written to the narrator.
The bit about the blossoms' shadow is referring to a specific time of month when they're planning their next meeting.
3.42
風住塵香花已盡
日晚倦梳頭。
物是人非事事休。
欲語淚先流。
聞說雙溪春尚好
也擬泛輕舟。
只恐雙溪舴艋舟。
載不動 許多愁。
To the tune “Spring in Wuling”
When the winds stop, the ground is fragrant, the flowers all are down, as the day wears on I’m too lazy to comb my hair. The objects are right, the people wrong, everything is over now!
About to speak, tears first flow.
I’ve heard spring is still lovely at Twin Streams, I’d like to go boating in a light skiff. But I fear the little grasshopper boats they have
could not carry such a freight of sorrow.
Re: 3.42
It’s kind of funny that people trying to attribute this might have been like, ah, she’s too lazy to comb her hair because she’s sad, sounds like Li Qingzhao to me—
3.43
寂寞深閨
柔腸一寸愁千縷。
惜春春去。
幾點催花雨。
倚遍闌干
祗是無情緒。
人何處。
連天芳樹 望斷歸來路。
To the tune “Dabbing Crimson Lips”
Lonely, deep in the women’s quarters, every inch of fragile innards has a thousand threads of sorrow. I cherish spring, but spring departs.
Drops of rain hasten the blossoms.
Having leaned everywhere on the balcony’s railing, I have no enthusiasm for anything. Where is that person now?
Fragrant trees stretch to the horizon, I gaze to the end of the road back home.
Re: 3.43
I know this attribution is somewhat dubious, but this one does make me think about how much time in this body of work Li Qingzhao seems to spend waiting, rather than in action—and waiting for impossible or indeterminate things, with no fit thing to do with herself that could possibly re-channel her emotions and ease them. In a way you could argue there’s something modern/capitalist in wanting someone to use their time better, but then also, is there not something classed as well as gendered in her miserable ‘leisure’? She can’t really take up a position as mistress of a house for *herself*, and in unsettled days. What is she supposed to do?
Re: 3.43
Re: 3.43
3.44
素約小腰身
不奈傷春。
疏梅影下晚妝新。
裊裊婷婷何樣似 一縷輕雲。
歌巧動朱唇
字字嬌嗔。 桃花深徑一通津。
悵望瑤臺清夜月
還照歸輪。
To the tune “Waves Scour the Sand”
Her small waist, wrapped tight in white silk, cannot prevent spring sadness. Her evening makeup is fresh, in plum blossom shadows.
What does it resemble, her lithe swaying form? A single thread of wispy cloud.
Her crimson lips move as she sings skillfully,
Word after word, feigning a pout. Peach blossoms on a hidden path lead to a river crossing.1
She gazes sadly at the clear moon over Jasper Terrace2 that shines on his departing carriage wheels.
Re: 3.44
Man this poet (if all one body of work) is obsessed with spring, and failing that, autumn—you’d think there weren’t other seasons. Always winter and never Christmas.
“What does it resemble, her lithe swaying form? A single thread of wispy cloud.” Awkward in a way that the ultimate realisation of female beauty is: being insubstantial, almost as good as not existing
“This line alludes to the story of Liu Chen 劉晨 and Ruan Zhao 阮肇 (Han dynasty), who followed a mountain stream lined by peach trees to a love tryst with goddesses they encountered. When they returned to the mortal world, they discovered that the few months they had spent with their lovers had lasted several generations of worldly time.” God this is so EXACTLY the fae lover motif from Western literature??
This makes it sound like possibly the poem’s speaker is one of these goddesses, abandoned.
Re: 3.44
3.45
看看臘盡春回。
信息到
江南早梅。
昨夜前村深雪裏 一朵花開。
盈盈玉蕊如裁。
更風清 细香暗來。
空使行人腸欲斷
駐馬徘徊。
To the tune “The Spring Scene is Fine”
Look to see how spring returns after the twelfth month: its first messenger appears, the Southland’s early plum.
Last night in the village amid heavy snow in the village, a single bud first opened.
How delicate—the jade petals look cut by scissors.
What’s more, borne by clear breezes,
its subtle fragrance silently arrives.
To no end it nearly breaks the hearts of passersby who halt their horses and linger there.
Re: 3.45
“Last night in the village amid heavy snow in the village,” copy edit error, or choice?
“To no end it nearly breaks” kind of strange phrasing
Re: 3.45
Note that though the translator has chosen to write it as "breaks the hearts," in the original it's breaking the intestines.
3.46
河傳 梅影
香雹素質
天賦與
傾城標格。
應是曉來 暗傳東君消息。 把孤芳 回暖律。
壽陽粉面增妝飾 說與高樓 休更吹羌笛。 花下醉賞
留取時倚闌干 鬬清香
添酒力。
To the tune “River Transport” Plum Blossom Shadows
The fragrant bud is white of substance, Heaven itself must have endowed it with city-vanquishing beauty.
It surely knows it is a silent harbinger of the Lord of the East, bringing its singular aroma returning us again to the warm musical mode.1
Shouyang’s powdered face was enhanced by its adornment,2 tell those in lofty towers not to play the Tibetan flute melody anymore.3 Let us drink under the blossoms and enjoy them,
or still savor them as we lean against the high railing, letting them vie with other pure fragrances and increase the power of the wine.
Re: 3.46
“city-vanquishing beauty.” Oh is this calamitous beauty again?
“The seasons had musical correlations,” huh!
This one seems to echo an earlier discussion more certainly attributed to Li Qingzhao of the origin of the huadian
3.47
清香浮動到黃昏。
向水邊
疏影梅開盡。
溪畔清蘂 有如淺杏。 一枝喜得東君信。
風吹只怕霜侵損。 8 更欲折來
插在多情鬢。
壽陽妝面
雪肌玉瑩。
嶺頭別後微添粉。
To the tune “Seventh Maiden”
The pure fragrance hangs in the air until sunset. At the water’s edge are cast the delicate shadows of the fully blossomed plum. Beside the stream the limpid petals resemble those of the pale apricot. A branch is a letter gladly received from the Lord of the East.
When wind blows we only fear frost will harm it.
We think of breaking off a twig
to tuck in the hair of a lady who’s full of feeling. On Princess Shouyang’s made-up face, it shone like jade on the snow-white skin.
A sheen of powder is added to the hilltop after parting.
Re: 3.47
“A sheen of powder is added to the hilltop after parting.” …it snows?
Re: 3.47
3.48
疏疏整整
斜斜淡淡
盈盈脈脈。
徒憐暗香句 笑梨花顏色。
羈馬蕭蕭行又急。
空回首 水寒沙白。
天涯倦牢落 忍一聲羌笛。
To the tune “Recalling Youthful Years”
Delicate yet correct, slanting and pale, brimming, full of feeling.
How touching, the lines about subtle fragrance, that put the appearance of pear blossoms to shame.
The horse whinnies and gallops off quickly again.
In vain I turn my head, seeing only a cold river and white sand.
At the end of the earth, weary in loneliness, how can I bear the Tibetan flute’s melody?
Re: 3.48
These couplets seem a bit randomly joined.
Re: 3.48
(Anonymous) 2022-04-01 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)There is a dreary sameness to the angst expressed in the above odes, albeit the setting for it is (mostly) nicely crafted.