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The Works of Li Qingzhao, Ci Poems 3.57 - 3.66
The FINAL instalment of Li Qingzhao’s 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 3.57 through 3.66, 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'.
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’.)
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’.)
3.57
庭院深深深幾許
雲窗霧閣春遲。
為誰憔悴損芳姿。
夜來清夢好 應是發南枝。
玉瘦檀輕無限恨
南樓羌管休吹。 濃香吹盡有誰知。
暖風遲日也 別到杏花肥。
To the tune “Immortal By the River”
Deep the deep courtyard, how deep is it? Cloudy windows and misty halls, late in spring. For whom are you so weakened, your fragrant beauty diminished?
Last night in my lovely dream you were fine, I thought you’d be filling the southern branches.
The jade is grown frail, the sandalwood hue faded, how sad!
Don’t let the Tibetan flute play its melody in the southern loft.
When your fragrance is blown away who will know?
The wind is warm, the days of sunshine long, and the apricot blossoms plump.
Re: 3.57
“I thought you’d be filling the southern branches.” Wait I thought the addressee was a girl?
“Another song on plum blossoms, the red plum this time.” huh
“Don’t let the Tibetan flute play its melody in the southern loft.” ? why not?
Re: 3.57
It glosses the Tibetan flute bit with: don't play the song 'Plum Blossom Fall' with a plaintive tone. The discussion makes it seem like it means the narrator is saying in that stanza that one shouldn't be too sad and longing.
3.58
揉破黃金萬點輕。
剪成碧玉葉層層。
風度精神如彥輔
太鮮明。
梅蕊重重何俗甚
丁香千結苦粗生。
熏透愁人千里夢
卻無情。
To the tune “Wildflower Seeds”
Yellow gold, as if torn apart, into myriad dots of blossoms. Green jade, shaped with scissors, the multiple layers of leaves. In style and spirit like Yanfu,
so fresh and bright!
Plum blossoms, row after row, how vulgar they are! The thousand-petal lilac is crude by comparison. But your perfume wakes the dreamer from her distant journey home—
how could you be so heartless!
Re: 3.58
“thousand-petal lilac” what is that, sounds cool
The end turn is a bit abrupt
Re: 3.58
praising the osmanthus for its gold petals and jade leaves and comparing them to yanfu (who was a dude that lived about eight to nine hundred years before her time xD he was particularly praised for being modest, pure and very frank and lively) but then a quick turnaround here, calling them both too vivid, too bright (太鮮明). and then the mood plunges even further when she starts on the plum blossoms and lilacs lmao, then turns right around and accuses the osmanthus'
fragrancepungency for waking her from her dreams of a place (or someone?) she misses. as if you can smell things in your sleep!Re: 3.58
3.59
病起蕭蕭兩鬢華。
卧看殘月上窗紗。
豆蔻連梢煎熟水
莫分茶。
枕上詩書閑處好
門前風景雨來佳。
終日向人多蘊藉
木犀花。
To the tune “Wildflower Seeds”
Arising in my illness, hair grown wispy and streaked grey at the temples. Lying down, I view the crescent moon through window gauze. I infuse joined sprigs of cardamom in boiling water
instead of preparing tea.
Books in my bed make the leisure hours pleasant, the view outside my door is lovely in the rain. All day they face me with such elegance and feeling,
the osmanthus flowers.
Re: 3.59
This is a surprisingly upbeat-in-resignation poem, for the oeuvre
Re: 3.59
Re: 3.59
Re: 3.59
3.60
後庭梅花開有感
玉瘦香濃
檀深雪散。
今年恨
探梅又晚。 江樓楚館。 雲閒水遠。 清晝永
憑欄翠簾低卷。
坐上客來
樽中酒滿。
歌聲共
水流雲斷。 南枝可插
更須頻剪。
莫直待 西樓數聲羌管。
To the tune “The Distressed Lady’s Charm”
Moved at the Sight of Plum Blossoms in the Rear Courtyard
The jade has grown frail but the fragrance is thick, the sandalwood hue is deep but the snow has begun to scatter. This year I regret
being late once more to view the plum blossoms. In the Yangzi building and Chu region hall, clouds are leisurely and the waters stretch afar. The clear morning lasts forever
as I lean on the railing, the kingfisher blinds hanging down.
Guests arrive at the banquet, wine fills the cups. The sound of the singing
flows with the waters and halts the drifting clouds. Southern branch blossoms can be tucked into topknots, But they often must be trimmed. Don’t wait until
the Tibetan flute melody plays repeatedly in the western tower.
Re: 3.60
“In the Yangzi building and Chu region hall,” any significance?
“Don’t wait until the Tibetan flute melody plays repeatedly in the western tower.” Uh, why not?
Another day, another usage of charm I'm curious about.
Re: 3.60
The word being translated to Yangzi is river, presumably the Yangtze River. Chu indicates the Hebei and Hunan provinces.
The word being translated to charm is literally 'lovable, pampered'.
3.61
禁幄低張
雕欄巧護
就中獨占殘春。
容華淡佇 綽約俱見天真。 待得群花過後 一番風露曉妝新。
妖嬈態 妒風笑月 長殢東君。
東城邊
南陌上
正日烘池館
競走香輪。
綺筵散日
誰人可繼芳塵。 更好明光宮裏 幾枝先向日邊勻。
金尊倒 拚了畫燭
不管黃昏。
To the tune “Celebrating a Fine Morning”
Palace bed curtains hang down, carved railings ingeniously protect the flowers that alone guard the end of spring.
Pale and elegant in appearance their slender beauty displays their inborn innocence. Waiting until all the other flowers have faded Brushed by wind and dew, their morning makeup is fresh.
Their bewitching manner makes the wind jealous and mocks the moon, delaying the departure of the Lord of the East.
In the east of the imperial city, on the roads of the southern outskirts
beside shimmering pools and halls on festival days where perfumed carriage wheels race, and colorful banquets while away the day,
Who can prolong their fragrant dust? Or, better yet, to Brilliant Palace, present several branches to face the Sun itself.
So when the golden goblet is upturned,
as painted candles are squandered,
no one notices the onset of twilight
no subject
“carved railings ingeniously protect” how so?
“mocks the moon” ? Just because they’re potentially more beautiful?
“Lord of the East” him again!
“Who can prolong their fragrant dust?” ? so like, who can make them last, but why dust? Is that--pollen?
End is a bit confusing
no subject
Baike says the fragrant dust is a play on words, but the reference is to a line I don't understand. The vernacular just uses 'fragrant' though.
3.62
賣花擔上。
買得一枝春欲放。
淚染輕勻。
猶帶彤霞曉露痕。
怕郎猜道。
奴面不如花面好。
雲鬢斜簪。
徒要教郎比並看。
To the tune “Magnolia Flowers, Short Version”
A street vendor with a pole was selling flowers. I bought a branch, just ready to put forth spring. Their tear-stained rouge is lightly brushed,
still bearing traces of morning dew from crimson clouds.
Afraid he might say my face isn’t as pretty as the flowers, I put some in my cloud-locks of hair,
so he’d be forced to look at us together.
Re: 3.62
“Afraid he might say my face isn’t as pretty as the flowers” dump him
“cloud-locks” ?
Re: 3.62
Cloud locks is a literal translation for the term, which means a 'woman's beautiful, thick hair' (from the dictionary).
3.63
風韻雍容未甚都。
尊前甘橘可為奴。
誰憐流落江湖上
玉骨冰肌未肯枯。
誰教並蒂連枝摘
醉後明皇倚太真。
居士擘開真有意
要吟風味兩家新。
To the tune “Auspicious Partridge” On the Doubled Ginkgo
It is elegant and genial, not especially enticing, but the orange tree and tangerine are slaves by comparison. Who pities them, laying strewn beside rivers and lakes?
Yet their bones of jade and skin of ice never wither.
Who told them to grow on a single stalk, to be picked as a pair? After drinking, the Brilliant Emperor snuggles up to True One. Peeling one, the retired scholar had something in mind:
to sing of their charm, twin love ever new.
Re: 3.63
“Who pities them, laying strewn beside rivers and lakes? Yet their bones of jade and skin of ice never wither.” Wait why should we pity them for this?
“These lines are derived from lines that Su Shi (the “retired scholar of East Slope”) wrote not about the ginkgo nut but about lotus seeds (also eaten as a lovers’ ritual).” MXTX novels and magical lotus seed mpreg: get your poetic basis here
Re: 3.63
3.64
零落殘紅 恰渾似 胭脂色。
一年春事 柳飛輕絮 筍添新竹。
寂寞幽閨
坐對小園嫩綠。
登臨未足 悵遊子 歸期促。
他年清夢 千里猶到
城陰溪曲。
應有凌波 時為故人留目。
To the tune “Rankings”
Faded reds lie scattered, looking just like the rouge on her face.
What’s left of this year’s spring? The willows’ gauzy fluff has gone flying, shoots have formed into small bamboos.
Lonely now in the women’s quarters, she sits facing the small garden’s tender green.
It’s not enough to climb high to look out— she longs for the one traveling far away, hoping the day of his return comes quickly.
Or perhaps some future day her clear dream will cross a thousand miles even to a hidden place beside the wall, a bend in the stream, Where she, like the goddess who trod on waves,
will attract her lover’s fixed gaze.
Re: 3.64
“Or perhaps some future day her clear dream will cross a thousand miles even to a hidden place beside the wall, a bend in the stream, Where she, like the goddess who trod on waves,
will attract her lover’s fixed gaze.” This ending is a little unclear to me
3.65
枝上流鶯和淚聞
新啼痕間舊啼痕。
一春魚鳥無消息
千里關山勞夢魂。
無一語
對芳樽
安排腸斷到黃昏。
甫能炙得燈兒了
雨打梨花深閉門。
To the tune “Partridge Sky”
From the branch she hears the flitting oriole’s cries through tears, the stains of new cries mix with stains of old weeping. All spring, neither fish nor bird bring any news,
a thousand miles of hills weary the dreaming soul.
Without one word she faces the fragrant wine cup, trying to repair her broken insides, all day until dusk.
The lamp she just managed to light has burned out, rains strikes the pear blossoms outside the closed door.
Re: 3.65
anyone in china circa 1000, seeing any animal: is this a valid way of transporting information for free??
"All spring, neither fish nor bird bring any news,1" you amaze me, Li Qingzhao. truly, nothing?
“a thousand miles of hills weary the dreaming soul.” And once again we’re doing some kind of imagined dream road trip
“trying to repair her broken insides,” so just trying to drink until she feels better
“the great statesman and poet Wang Anshi (a generation older than Li Qingzhao)” oh, useful to know
Re: 3.65
3.66
一年春事都來幾。
早過了
三之二
綠暗紅嫣渾可事。 綠楊庭院 暖風簾幕 有個人憔悴。
買花載酒長安市。 爭似家山見桃李 不枉東風吹客淚。 相思難表
夢魂無據 惟有歸來是。
To the tune “Dark Jade Table”
How long does one spring season last? Before you know it, you’ve passed two parts in three.
Greens have darkened and reds faded, what does it matter? In the green willow garden as warm winds brush the blinds, a person sits, dispirited.
We buy flowers and wine in the Chang’an market. How could it compare with viewing peach and pear blossoms in my
hometown? Not in vain does the east wind blow the traveler’s tears. But this longing is hard to express,
the dreaming soul finds no support— the only answer is to return home.
Re: 3.66
“Not in vain does the east wind blow the traveler’s tears.” ?
Re: 3.66