Forgotten Humiliation

While jogging saw some red sunset clouds mixed with some dark one as the night was descending.

1 黑點紅霞夜臨快 Red clouds in dotted black as night comes swiftly,
2 華燈初上一律排 As rows of bright lanterns just being lit.
3 白日慮遣晚來休 Worries of the day – repose of the night,
4 船舟静泊登秦淮 As boats quietly parked alongside the river of Qinhuai.

5 萬花樓台瑤池影 The House of Myriad Flowers are mere shadows of the Jasper Pool,
6 千杯莫懷國恥棄 Humiliation of the country is easily forgotten by a thousand cups.
7 人間夢短今宵醉 Dreams of the mortal realm are short and let’s be drunk tonight,
8 上樑不正下樑歪 For it the upper beams are not straight, neither would the lower ones be.

4 The red light district of ancient China.

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

5 A typical name for brothels. “Flowers” here refer to “women.

8 This is a popular Chinese idiom to mean if the upper echelons are corrupt, so would its underlings. This poem is written with how loyal officials felt and given up their hopes of recovering lost lands when the Northern Sung Dynasty collapsed when the forces of the Liao Dynasty sacked the capital and took the entire imperial family of Sung Hui Tsung and himself as prisoners. A distant scion of another branch escaped and established the Southern Sung Dynasty. Obviously, he was in no hurry to ransom back the former emperor who died in captivity.

Thursday, October 12, 2023