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Friday, December 9, 2022

At Least Autumn Cometh


Woke up around 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep. A line came into my head,

星落池塘月當空

However, I could not go further. Then my thinking got sidetracked to,

銀河雙星一年渡
鵲橋萬情七夕訴

Went back sleep and the next morning…

1 銀河雙星一年數 
Twin stars of the Milky Way counting the days of the year,
2 鵲橋萬世七夕渡 Forever more, they cross the magpie bridge on the Night of Seventh.
3 總有金風玉露時 At least the time of golden winds and jade dew will come,
4 廣寒長寞向誰訴 But to whom can the eternal loneliness of the Great Cold complained to?

1 The Cowherd and Weaver Maid stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qixi_Festival

2 On the Seventh Night, magpies would fly to the sky and made themselves into a bridge so that the lovers can cross to meet each other.

 "golden winds and jade dew" refers to autumn which the Seventh Night occurs in. Originally, this line was 流光瞬目去何處 but 處 rhymes with all the other final characters in Mandarin and so I had it changed. Thus, affecting line 4’s 落在天涯向誰訴 as well.

4 The Palace of Boundless Cold is where the moon Goddess, Chang’E lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

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