A Drunkard's Poem - 醉人詩

 
醉里作詩三十首, In [my] inebriation, 30 poems were composed,
醒來一句也難留. Upon awakening, nary a single word was retained.
可憐小我無知罪, Pity the little innocent me of not realizing my fault,
偷改高人不覺羞. In trying to change the masters' without shame

花落矯情空折柳, Falling blooms, pretentious and vain while listening to "The Breaking of Willow's Bough",
雁飛拼字亂悲秋. Ansers flying, rhyming wrongly, in chaotic sadness of autumn.
今宵封筆金樽伴, Tonight, my brush will be sealed, and the golden goblet be my companion
借酒佯裝萬古愁. Using wine as an excuse and pretend to lament the sorrows of eternity.

David Fang posted this in Chinese Poetry :

Translating this witty one into a decent English version is way beyond my capability. So I just give a rough explanation briefly:

1. Compose 30 poems while drunkard,
2. Awaken, I can not keep even just one.
3. Forgive poor me so innocent,
4. Shame on me for stealing poems from masters.
5. Seeing flowers fall, I gather emotion to "break the willow",
6. As swallows fly away, I jumble words to lament the Autumn.
7. Tonight I shall lock up the pen, fetch a very nice glass,
7. With help of wine, pretend having the million-years' old sorrows! 

I translated the poem on the fly to kill time during the pandemic...

醉里作詩三十首, In [my] inebriation, 30 poems were composed,
醒來一句也難留. Upon awakening, nary a single word was retained.
可憐小我無知罪, Pity the little innocent me of not realizing my fault,
偷改高人不覺羞. In trying to change the masters' without shame

花落矯情空折柳, Falling blooms, being pretentious and vain while listening to "The Breaking of Willow's Bough",
雁飛拼字亂悲秋. The ansers flying, rhyming wrongly, in chaotic sadness of autumn,
今宵封筆金樽伴, Tonight, my brush will be sealed, and the golden goblet be my companion
借酒佯裝萬古愁. Using wine as an excuse and pretend to lament the sorrows of eternity.

I could never come up with this sort of theme. The following is a partial conversation between me and David...

Make a short story long! Someone was pissed when I "followed" his poem and wrote a "similar one.  He accused me of "stealing", I felt so bad, so came up with this one to forgive and redeem myself......'

My reply: "'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  I am too then can be bashed for doing the same thing... I call it inspiration... Learning from the "masters", one can only prove.  I shall now "copy" yours and come up with a variant on the same theme :)"

At first, I tried to follow line by line but worded differently,  酒中詩仙揮百首, 醉後愚人盡無句.  However, I decided against this because it may be construed that I was correcting his poem.  To prevent such misunderstanding, I just have to proceed from a different angle while preserving the theme and his ideas i.e. in lines 3, 6, 7 and 8.

I have to thank David for without his post, this poem will remain in Never-neverland.  If I learn something new, no matter how paltry it may be, that other person is a master in my eyes.

1 風緩楊柳河畔翠 By the riverbanks, languid winds and willows green,

2 戀蝶紈扇賽花聚 Enthusiastic butterflies, silk fans and surpassing blossoms in togetherness.

3 一手筆墨另金樽 One hand with a brush dripped in ink and in the other, a golden goblet,
4 問君何解桃紅醉 To thee, why a face of stupor in peachy red?

5 醜字不識罪豈有 How is it a crime in not knowing refined words?

6 難與古人並相對 Hardly could I compare myself to those from ye days of olde,
7 酒中詩仙揮百首 In wine, a hundred poems spewed, a Li Po I had become,
8 醒後韵士盡無句 Once sobered, nary a word upon a rhymist’s lips.

2. 紈扇, a round silk fan, usually held by ladies. One of their pastimes was to “catch” butterflies (撲蝶) with it.

4.  Another translation is "Why are you inebriated under the peach red blossoms?"

5. Rhetoric question to mean the opposite! The next line confirms this. In a drunken state, even the coarse becomes refined to the author and the beholder.

6. 醜字不識 literally means “now knowing how to write the Chinese character ‘ugly’” or in English, how to spell it out. Figuratively, “unabashed, thick-skinned etc.”

7. 詩仙, “immortal poet” is a moniker given to Li Po, perhaps China’s greatest poet, because most of his poems are about things immortal or fairies. Trivia: 詩聖 - Tu Fu, 詩佛 - Wang Wei, 詩狂 - 賀知章, 詩魔 – Po Chu I, 詩鬼 - 李賀, 詩奴 - 賈島, 詩隱 - 孟浩然, 詩囚 - 孟郊, 詩傑 - 王勃, 詩豪 - 劉禹錫 and 詩神 - 蘇軾 who is the only one not from the Tang Dynasty.

8. 韵士 can also mean a person of refinement.

Before me, a beautiful scene of blooming flowers, colored butterflies and pretty girls I wished to describe but paltry words are all I could muster. No choice but to get drunk and pry out perceived words of refinement on to paper as I cannot compare with the masters of the old even though I am good at rhyming.

Friday, February 19, 2021