When You are Old - 老態龍鍾

   
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,       老來蒼髮眠滿間
And nodding by the fire, take down this book       壁爐火邊欲瞌時
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look         取落緩閱此書夢
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 曾經柔目現皺影
How many loved your moments of glad grace,     國色天香憐惜悅
And loved your beauty with love false or true,      真情色貪得若干
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,           戀心行者惟我一
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;      臉化容衰仍傾心
And bending down beside the glowing bars,        熱紅橫柱傍伏伴
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled                     自喃稍悲恩逃避
And paced upon the mountains overhead            奔騰山頭徘徊逛
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.                他顏群星當中隱

William Yates

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Lost Youth - 高飛年華

Ji Qingyan from Facebook’s Page of Chinese Poetry wrote a poem:

廿三自述

锦瑟拂思弦色泠，年华回首始堪惊。
遥期中岁云霄阔，漫对朽儒江海平。
难老终将成易老，多情却总作无情。
此生函谷西边寄，梦海萦纡烟水青。

His first two lines reminded me of Li Shanyin’s poem, 錦瑟.

錦瑟無端五十弦，一弦一柱思華年。
莊生曉夢迷蝴蝶，望帝春心託杜鵑。
滄海月明珠有淚，藍田日暖玉生煙。
此情可待成追憶？只是當時已惘然。

He later told me that it was indeed he was inspired by his first two lines. And so, thanks to Qingyan -- I too would try my paltry hand. My inspirational lines were

寒音五十段
條條撥心亂

1錦瑟挑撥亂 Plucking, strumming the zither in haphazardness,
2寒音五十段 Cold sounds in fifty parts.
3熱壺三兩杯 Pot of calescence but of two three cups,
4難使碎心暖 Could hardly warm this broken heart.

5花香逼人甚 Besetting is the rheumatic scent of flowers,
6月冷刺骨酸 And the moon’s cold pierces my very marrow.
7年華總是淚 Youth in the end are also tears.
8醉夢殷勤勸 So, let drunken dreams be my meticulous solace.

1. 挑撥 can also mean “to incite disharmony”.

2. The zither generally has twenty-five strings. The sounds produced by the two techniques adds up to fifty.

3. The pot of wine being warmed up.

My Own Seventh Night - 己身七夕

船頭夜釣孤燈前 was the inspirational line. However, I could not cap it and so I 
tried to give it a rest by doing a 5-character version with no capping. The line became 船頭漁歌聲 and it was a breeze. I was able to complete the one stanza within an hour. However, by the time after many revisions, refinements, and the addition of three more stanzas, the theme was completely different.

01 漁歌漂來驚 Startled by a drifting fisherman’s
02 觸起往日情 Stroking up memories of a love of long ago.
03 楚天七斗伴 The seven stars of the Big Dipper, a companion to the Southern sky,
04 玄武獨流星 One lone shooting star in the north.

05 若棄金風冷 If the cold of the golden wind could be abandoned,
06 豈有玉露明 How would jade dewdrops be in sparkles?
07 左右牛郎担 Left and right, the Cowherd shouldered their burden,
08 上下織女鳴 All around the Spinning Maid, twittering abounds.

09 鵲橋年一渡 Upon the Magpie Bridge, each year of one crossing,
10 蘭夢將許成 An orchid dream about to be allowed.
11 飛袖相擁淚 Sleeves a swirled as they embraced in tears,
12萬語却無聲 Countless words uttered without sound.

13 佳期時光速 Our beloved times are always too short to last,
14 可恨鶯啼醒 Spiteful is the mockingbird awaketh from my dream,
15 銀河盡難數 I tried counting the innumerable Milky Way,
16 煥爛醉浮萍 But too dazzling; inebriating this floating weed.

03 - 04. 楚天 – The State of Chu is situated in the south. 玄武 means the dark warrior, the God of the North. What these two lines mean, is that a shooting star is seen arcing on the top of the Big Dipper.

05 – 06. Attributes of autumn.

07. The Cowherd was carrying their two children in baskets hung at the ends of the pole as he chased his wife up into the heavens as she was forcibly taken by the celestial guards.

08. At their once a year reunion, magpies form a bridge for them to cross the Milky Way.

10. Literally, “orchid dream”. An allusion from story of a concubine of a duke in the time of Warring States. She dreamt that an angel had given her a son. Later the Duke, favoured both the mother and son greatly. Thus, it can mean “a good omen”, “greatly favored” and a euphemism for a pregnant woman.

12. Ambiguous. No word can convey their feelings; too many and not knowing where to start or happiness in preventing them.

16. As duckweed has no roots, they are at the mercy of the water current, i.e. someone with no useful goal in life – a dandy.

Thinking of the Six Ethereal Hermit - 懷六如居士

船頭夜釣孤燈前 came about as I woke up on Tuesday, June 04, 2019. Tried to cap it but I was unable to do so. What I had was so contrived. In the end I gave up and gave it a rest.

Then I started on 船頭漁歌聲 and was able to complete in an hour’s time. From this experience, I tried to use the same theme but then as time progressed and with each change, the theme turned out to be something totally different.

1 船頭獨釣孤燈前 On the boat’s bow; fishing in loneliness for that front light reflection,
2影伴寒山歎玉蟾 A shadow accompanies the cold mountains, sighing for the moon.
3玄穹無徑桂枝折 The dark vault of heaven has no road to break an osmanthus bough,
4微覺襟透湖上烟 Barely aware that the lapels are drenched in the mists of the lake.

5弘治若憐六如才 If Emperor Hongzhi had appreciated the talents of the Six Ethereal Scholar,
6莫求一生庶人淵 Upon the ravine of the common masses, his livelihood depended not.
7山路松聲宮伎圖 Then his paintings of Whispering Pines on the Mountain Path and Shu Palace Ladies,
8 難以今日世代傳 Would hardly be in existence; passing down from generation to generation.

01. A figurative translation if we follow exactly the syntax with no pause. “One solitary light by the boat’s bow, finishing in loneliness”. The best time to fish at night is when there is no moon.

03. It is believed together with the Goddess Chang-O and the three-legged jade toad, an osmanthus tree grows in the moon. It is believed that when a bough breaks, it is immediately replaced by another. Thus the tree can never crash and the moon is eternal. “Breaking an osmanthus branch” means one is successful in the imperial examinations.

05. The tenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty whose reign is known as the Silver Age. In Buddhism, the six ethereal are dreams, fantasy, bubbles, shadow, dew and lightning (夢幻泡影露電). 六如居士 is a name that Tang Yin, one of the “Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty” took when he withdrew from the world. His talents were already well known and there was high hope that he would pass the imperial examinations with ease. However, at the capital, perhaps at the wrong time and with the wrong crowd, he was implicated in an examination scandal which he was barred from all future examinations. With the road to officialdom denied, his livelihood depended on commissions and selling of his works.

07. These are two of his paintings. The first one is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei and the other in the Palace Museum, Beijing.

夜怨 Night Lament

The first draft for the first four lines from 紫霞深鎖水月天 was easily done as I had a storyline. The second verse was a bit more difficult as I need to match and contrast the mood in the first and refinements took another day.

夜怨 - Night Lament 

紫霞夢鎖水月天 Dreamily, the purple haze engulfs the watery sky of the moon,
船頭呻吟醉翁眠 By the bow, the drunken old boatman asleep in snores.
停針欲共春色夜 I ceased my embroidery, pondering if a spring night be shared in togetherness,
艄處勤讀出無言 Deep into his studies by the stern, my words had lost their voice,

曾似裙下花上蝶 Seemed that around my skirt's hem and flower tops butterflies once hovered,
現是眼前湖中烟 Are now but mists of the lake.
難回當日明媚時 Nary would the old days of splendor return,
惟向刺繡怨衷纒 My knotted-heart laments -- upon the brocade sewn.

Monday, June 03, 2019

The Grand Scheme of Things - 大道志

For this one, I have to thank Patrick Hulsman for posting this photo... The original first inspired line was 小橋莫識大道志.

小橋愚惷大道志, Clueless is the tiny bridge about the way of the great road1,

惟解穿越白灘止. Connecting to the white sandy beach is all it knows.
借問緣何此離索, And if I may ask, “Why such desolation?”,
凡胎見識凡眼視. Mere mortals see what is only sublunary.

浮雲滄海顯明來, For you -- only floating clouds and the ocean cometh,
飛天龍王隱若至. But half-hidden herald of Apsaras2 and Dragon Kings for me.
有緣同樂仙家逢, Destined that I enjoy the fairyness met,
蘆葦普渡恐我意. ‘tis not my intention to enlighten the common masses3.

1. A pun. 大道 can also mean "Great Principle/Truth"

2. Literally, "flying to heaven"

3. Literally, "common reeds"

Another Interpretation

This poem was started as I was waking up with the line lingering from my dream world, 花間霧罩烟鎖客 Fog engulfs the world of flowers as mists enshroud the traveller.  However, as refinements started, the theme became too mundane.  Then I remembered seeing photos of the deceased at an younger age in obituaries or at Chinese funerals...

船頭烟雨雲鎖客 Misty rain on the prow; fog enshrouding the traveller,
伸指難辨眼前白 Outstretched hands; disappearing into the whiteness ahead.
若緣仙氣散迷津 And if destined; fairy breaths will banish all this blurriness,
露出蟠桃兩岸隔 Revealing the peaches of immortality separated by both banks.

凡世恩怨眷不顧 All worldly amities and grudges no longer a concern,
兩袖清風再無責 Sleeves billowing; nary a responsibility to shoulder.
逍遙莫恐五更夢 Carefree; no longer afraid of daybreak dreams,
重回曾失弱冠刻 Returning once more to lost halcyon days of his youth.

For a less morbid setting, another intepretation for the photo in https://jeffinous.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-photo-inspired-poem.html. 

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Translation of the Iroha

I don't know Japanese. All I can do is to glean whatever information I can find in the English and other Chinese translations from Wikipedia. So take it with a grain of salt.

殘香徘徊,花身已去.
世上有誰,常駐罔易.
有為深山,今日攀越.

浮夢莫擁,醉生不任.

Thursday, 23 May 2019