Sins Of Past Life

It was in one of those dream states while doodling nonchalantly on improving one’s handwriting that the mind drifted off to some place far away. This time, the line revealed to me as 又見沙雁東南飛.

1 重見飛雁東南去 Once more flying ansers seen leaving for the south-east,
2 沙漠夕陽幾滴淚 A few teardrops felt as the desert sun sets.
3 後庭孤月西北風 And in the backyard, a lonely moon shines upon the north-west wind,
4 引送妾夢與君醉 Sending this wife’s dream of their once drinking merriments to her Lord.

5 戰塲胡馬日侵亂 By day incursions of barbarian horses create chaos on battlefields,
6 瑤池青鳥夜倦累 And when nights do come, fatigued are the Jasper Pool blue birds.
7 春宵盡散鴛鴦枕 Spring nights had evaporated over the mandarin duck pillows,
8 有緣無份前生罪 Fated to be husband and wife but not in togetherness – Alas, sins of my previous life.

1 Implying that the current location is somewhere in the north-western boundaries of China.

4 引送 – to show, lead the way, to pave the road etc.

6 Blue birds are messengers of the Queen Mother of the West. This line infers that the husband is too tired even to dream after a day’s of battling.

7 Pillows or blankets with depiction of a pair of mandarin ducks symbolizes conjugal bliss as these birds are known to mate for life. This line infers that the bed had not been shared for many years.

8 緣 and 份 both mean destiny but with slight nuances. The former means destined meeting while the later, destined to be part of. Thus, 有緣無份 means the destiny to meet but not in togetherness.

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Broken Promises And Regrets

This life of this poem began with 美人紅 as I doodled with the brush and came up with the following line, 一杯暖壺美人紅.  A day later, I looked at the rough draft and the theme was just as rough.  As I copied the draft over and over again to practise my brush writing that the poem began to morph into a totally different theme.  I remembered reading a book in my youth...

1 金杯傾蕩明皇醉 The golden cup teetered as the Enlightened Emperor became tipsy,
2 夢遊廣寒與仙聚 In his inebriation, he met the fairies in the lunar palace of the Great Cold.
3 惻隱憐心釋孽龍 Out of pity, he released the cursed Dragon of Sins,
4 妖亂天下無安歲 Chaos unleashed, and the world knows no peace from year to year.

5 三百血汗基業散 After three hundred years of blood and sweat... The demise of a dynasty,
6 馬嵬兵變貴妃罪 At the Mawei slope, all blame was put on his beloved imperial concubine.
7 長生誓約白綾斷 The vow made in the Palace of Eternal Life was broken by a white sash,
8 上陽老人寂寞最 Loneliest is the old man in the Palace of Supreme Brightness.

1 The Enlightened Emperor is a title used by the common masses for Tang Hsuan Tsung. The golden cup represents decadence and 傾蕩, the collapse due to wantonness. The emperor began his reign in earnest but in later years became befuddled.

2 Ancient Chinese believes that dreams are the result of the soul leaving the body and went wandering elsewhere. The theme for the first stanza comes from the opening chapter of the novel, 月唐演義. The Emperor paid a visit to the lunar palace. Here 仙 refers to 嫦娥仙子, the goddess of the moon. It is during this visit that he heard the celestial music which inspired him to compose the “Feathered Rainbow Skirt”, a grand musical and dance piece of the Court, when he woke up.

3 The emperor was ruthless in securing his throne. He killed off his rivals including his aunt, the powerful Princess Taiping, the favourite daughter of Empress Wu. His older brother who was the crown prince knew how ambitious his younger is and yielded his position so that he could live in peace, unlike his grandfather’s time. Now in his old age, Tang Hsuan Tsung had grown soft under the beguiling breasts of his favorite concubine. They would indulge themselves in songs, dances and other merrymaking at the expense of running the empire. The theme of this poem is from the opening chapter of the novel, 月唐演義. The emperor dreamt that he flew to the lunar palace. Before the Emperor could meet the goddess of the moon, he came across a chained green dragon begging for its freedom. The kindhearted emperor released it and it escaped towards the north-east and reincarnated as the barbarian general which lead to the eventual demise of the Tang Dynasty. The novel is mainly about the adventures of the White Tiger spirit sent down to earth to subdue the Green Dragon.

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

4 I had deliberately used 安 instead of 寧 because it is the last name of the An Lu Shan.

5 The Tang Dynasty lasted about 300 years. Like in line 4, 基業, foundation, etc. is also a pun to mean the “enterprise of the emperor” because his personal name is 李隆基.

6 The place where Yang Guifei committed suicide. A white silk sash of three foot long was the preferred way of death for the high born in a dignified way. Usually, for women. The last Ming emperor hung himself from a tree in the Coal Hill Garden in the Forbidden City.

7 Name of the palace where the emperor and his beloved made their eternal vows on the Seventh Night.

8 Name of the palace where the “grand emperor” resides in retirement. Though living sumptuously, the former emperor felt loneliness without his beloved. He even hired a Taoist priest so that he could have a glimpse of her. The story goes that the priest went to the lunar palace and found her. As evidence, he brought back her comb broken in half to show that she had become an immortal and all that is past is in the past. They shall meet again when the time comes.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Autumn Nights

My mind wandered off to a literary dream as I was listening to some nondescript background music. Unconsciously, I began to write the characters on the paper…

1 夏色盡退秋霄漢 Faded are the colors of summer and the sky is now of autumn,
2 楓葉萬紅菊花黄 Endless reds of maple leaves and chrysanthemums in yellow.
3 日速夜長夢更多 Days are fast and nights a slow but even longer are fretful dreams,
4 月無彩霞寂寞寒 Alas, the lonely moon is cold without colored clouds for a wrap.

1 霄漢 actually means the galaxy/universe and the Milky Way. It is now generally to mean “the heavens, skies”

2 Literally, “ten thousand red”. Autumn is the season when chrysanthemums begin to bloom.

3 夜長夢多has a negative connotation as sleep is punctuated by fretful dreams.

4 The author must have felt sorry for the moon as he is draped in warm clothing.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Poetic Setting Vs Reality

In reality, one was in the dining area writing while the other was in the kitchen preparing salad for lunch!

1 君在東窗字書畫 By the east window, my Lord is doing his calligraphy,
2 妾向後庭撲蝶華 While his beloved is heading towards the courtyard to frolic butterflies.
3 花月成雙敬醉紅 Two pledging under the moonlight and flowers to tipsiness in red,
4 莫羨廣寒伴飛霞 Envy not the moon accompanying the flying colored clouds.

1 君 is an honorific term referring to the husband.

2 妾 is a diminutive term for referring to oneself, the wife. Ancient Chinese considers using direct pronouns as rude.

3 花月means a beautiful scenery.

4 The “great cold” is the name of the lunar palace because only the moon goddess, the jade rabbit, a three-legged toad and an Osmanthus tree live there. Either because of her sin in stealing the elixir pills from her former husband or that she ate the pills to prevent him from being a tyrant living forever, she lives in loneliness.

Rather to have short-lived happiness than living in perpetual loneliness.

Monday, August 23, 2021

Destiny

Another doodling inspiration when I was updating a previous poem.

小帆自在渡長江 Little sailboat crossing the Yangtze River with nary a care,
無向漂蕩隨波浪 In no particular direction, it goes along with the current.
晴日順流雨天逆 On sunny days, smooth sailing and on rainy days against the flow,
總到東海水茫茫 Eventually, the vastness and great waves of the Eastern Ocean reached.

Rivers in China flows towards the east because of the geography of the land. Legend has it that the God of Water and Fire had a battle. The Fire God was so enraged that he lost the battle and charged at one of the pillars that supported the earth and knocked it down. The Goddess Nuwa had to use the Five-Colored Stones to repair it and the heavens. However, it is slightly lower and hence the direction of Chinese rivers.

Sunday, August 22, 2021

Heavenly And the Mundane

Another inspiration during my brush writing practice...

1 鵲橋急急渡霄漢 The magpies in haste to span a bridge across the heavens,
2 斜照江水秋月寒 While the cold nadir moon shines upon the river waters.
3 歌曲長樂醉嫦娥 Songs, an eternal joy to inebriate the lunar Goddess,
4 萬朶華燈映花黄 In the reflected glow of countless lanterns, colors of flowers fade away.

5 來風一陣掃夢破 A sweeping wind startled my dream of revelry,
6 莫似天淚霎時亁 Unlike streaks of heaven’s tears, ‘tis difficult for mine to dry.
7 低歎楚曲千首奏 In lowered sighs, a thousand southern melodies I sang,
8 沉星力盡寢西岸 Till lethargic slumbering stars descend into the western banks.

1 On the Seventh Night, magpies form a bridge for the Cowherd and the Spinning Maid to meet once again. 霄漢 actually means the heavens and the Milky Way.

3 長樂 can also mean long pieces of music with a change of tone in the pronunciation of 樂. The moon Goddess, Chang-O is a lonely deity living in the lunar palace, called the “Great Cold” with the jade rabbit, the three legged toad and an Osmanthus tree. The earthly gaiety of the mortal world reminded of her past.

4 Yellow in this case refers to the brown yellowish color of withered flowers. I lifted an opening line from “Princess Flower” 帝女花, a Cantonese opera - 倚殿陰森奇樹雙, 明珠萬顆映花黃.

3-4 While earthly joy may be short lived, the eternal loneliness of the heavens is eternal.

7 楚歌 originally means the songs from the State of Chu. It can also mean a forlorn mood as one steps into danger. This came from 四面楚歌 when the founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Pang used the native songs of his adversary, Hsiang Yu in the night to distract his troops by making them long for their hometown and lose their zeal for battle the next morning. As the state of Chu is situated in the south, it can also mean songs from the south as in 楚天, the southern skies of Chu.

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Far Away From the Maddening Crowd - 遠離紅塵喧囂

Another doodling inspiration.

1 天池一帆水上浮 Upon the heavenly pool, one sailboat a floating,

2 平靜無顧看波流 In calmness, serenity begets by gazing into the currents.
3 待月高照解胸懷 Wait till the moonrise for the heart to be loosened,
4 風塵此隔莫再愁 Frown no more with this parting from the turbulence of the mundane world.

1 The reflection of the sky on the ocean.

2 流 can also be used as a verb.

3 Truth is like the purity of the moon, clear and unhidden. “troubles lifted from the chest” is the original wording but sounds unnatural in English.

4 Literally, “wind and dust”.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021