Married Wrongly

While practising in writing the character, 夜, I wondered about other characters that rhyme with it. The first that came into my mind was 斜. From then onwards, three lines came flowing forth and was able to complete it before my jog began.  During my jog, refinements were made, and a second stanza was created.

1 柳月彎彎斜 Curvy is the crescent moon in declination,
2 依舊照寒夜 Still shining upon a night of cold.
3 瓊液暖何人 For whom does the jasper elixir is cozying to?
4 温醨向誰借 And, whose cheap wine I can borrow to warm?

5 長門斷根草 Uprooted grasses of the Gate of Eternity,
6 金屋花影謝 Withering flower shadows in the Golden House.
7 水流久無偶 And if time passes long enough, lovers nary be,
8 錯嫁郎心野 Wrongly married to a heart filled with scheming ambitions.

1 A crescent moon is so called a “Willow moon” is its shape looks like willow leaves.

3 The finest wine is served in jasper goblets. It could mean that the author is drinking it but does not warm her heart no matter how good it is.

4 Wine dregs and hence inferior wine. Together with the previous line, it is better to have someone to be with than no one at all even he is a nobody.

5 The Gate of Eternity is the name of the place where the now deposed Empress Chen Ah Chiao’s was imprisoned. Lifting an idea from Li Po’s “妾薄命“… 昔日芙蓉花，今成斷根草.

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

6 When Emperor Han Wu Ti was a child, he boasted if Chen Ah Chiao were to become his wife, he would build her a house of gold. Most probably, he was coached by his mother to say such words to impress the Princess Imperial, Ah Chiao’s mother to help him gain the throne. See the link of previous comment for the full story. No longer the empress, and banished from court, she is now a shadow of herself.

7 Originally, I had the line as 流光戀無人, “time cherishes no one” with 戀 used as a verb. I find that this is quite ordinary. Turning it into an adjective, the meaning changes to “given enough time, even lovers are no longer” is a better choice. Then I discovered that 人 was used in the previous stanza and so I had to change the wording.

8 郎 is used as a pun for 狼, a wolf. 野心 is scheming ambition - not a good trait to have. This line establishes that the poem is not about the deposed empress because the subject in the poem still loves her husband but he loves his ambitions more. Hence, even the circumstances are vastly different, the result is the same – loneliness.

Thursday, 20 April 2023