Four In A Row!

Today, I was on a roll from my brush writing practice.  Four new poems were created.  However, the most refinements were done during the next day flight from LA to Seattle.  With three hours to kill, my beloved Muse was kind enough to linger till the plane had landed. I was glad...

1 歌盡杯傾殘星看 The songs had ended and the cups had runneth over. I looked up at the fading stars,
2 橋頭水靜行人罕 Quiet is the water flowing at the bridge’s head and passers-by so rare.
3 華燈昨夜滿天紅 Gorgeous lanterns of last night brightly filled the sky in red,
4 胭脂今辰秦淮寒 All the powdered rouge of Qinghuai at this hour had gone cold.

3 Red is an auspicious color. It is used on festive days, celebrations or to attract customers to their establishments.

4 秦淮 was a red light district area. The best entertainment establishments are by the river. The first line infers that morning is approaching and hence all the courtesans are retiring to bed. In Tang Dynasty, though entertainments starts early in the night, the actual visitation takes place just after midnight and leave by the first light of the day. Po Chu-I’s 花非花 describes such encounters in a most elegant way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinhuai_River

Thursday, June 2, 2022

This came after the previous one was completed.  However, the final refinements came much later when I tried to digitize it.

1 萬星九天處 Where a myriad stars are bounded to the Nine Heavens,
2 三宮六院語 Are gossips of the Three Palaces and Six Courtyards.
3 侍君能幾時 Oh when it’s my turn to serve my Lord?
4 霄漢流星雨 I see only the tears of shooting stars.

1 It is believed that there are nine tiers in Heaven, equivalent to Western’s seven. Here it refers to the imperial palace. The imperial harem is represented by “stars”. Ten thousand, 萬, does not mean the actual number but “numerous”.

2 The three palaces refer to the places where the emperor, grand empress dowager (the emperor’s grandmother) or the empress dowager and the empress lived. The “courtyards” are used by various lower ranking harem ladies. Actually they are a dozen of them with six on each side of the main axis of the imperial complex, known as the East West “apartments”.

3 This line can be ambiguous. The harem woman may never get a glimpse of the emperor in their lifetime let alone in serving him or that even if she had the chance to serve and be in favor. Then question would be for how long before being replaced by another. There is only one Emperor in the Ming Dynasty who did not want any concubines but his Empress. Even the founder of the Sui Dynasty, who is known to be deathly scared of his wife. He would not dare to sow wild oats while she lived! These emperors are a rarity, less than a handful.

4 霄漢 is another world for heaven. I did not translate this because shooting stars are in the sky! Here, shooting stars refer to the tears of those in the imperial harem.

Thursday, June 2, 2022

1 廣寒寂寞人間語 The mortal world speaks of loneliness in the palace of Great Frigidity,
2 長門更寥冷宮如 Lonelier still is the Gate of Eternity like the earthly Cold Palace.
3 曾比瑤池仙子貴 Once, more precious than the fairies of the Jasper Pool,
4 今同九天流星雨 Now, like falling stars tearing from Ninth Heaven.

1 Because of the concise grammar in classical Chinese, 語 can be a noun or a verb. As a noun, the line can be translated textually as, “The Palace of Great Frigidity is a lonely place and the mortal full of human voices”.  This palace is where the Goddess of the Moon lives.

2 Again, this is an allusion to the story about Han Wu Ti’s first Empress.  Long or Eternal gate was once owned by the Empress' mother, the Royal Princess, the aunt of the emperor.  She gifted it to the emperor as a bribe for not inquiring into her private affairs when her husband died.  When the empress was deposed, she was interred in luxury in this place but the emperor never visited her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Jiao

3 The pool name in the abode of the Queen Mother of the West.  The female attendants of the Goddess would gather by this pool on their days off.

Thursday, June 2, 2022

I was stuck with this line, 雲海無疆接青天 until I had two and a half hours in the plane flying from LAX to Seattle that I finally was able to complete the skeletal draft. The final version took me another two weeks.

1 騰空萬里九霄靜 Flying unceasingly into the quietness of the Nine Heavens,
2 覓尋何方一遍寧 To search for a place where tranquility exists.
3 雲海無疆接青天 Boundless is the sea of clouds where its end meets the sky of blue,
4 凡塵有遏夢泡影 Limited is the mortal realm but one still dreams of illusions.

1 It is said that there are nine layers in heaven.

2 Being quiet is not the same as being tranquil.

3 Although there are no physical boundaries, there is an illusion of one in the form of a horizon.

4 There are limitations in life but one still has illusory dreams.

Thursday, June 2, 2022