Again, from doodling with my calligraphy and thinking along the same theme as the previous poem. I came up with this final version...
雪影飃飃雪山望 Gazing at the fleeting shadows of a snowstorm upon the snow mountains,
深宮半世別大唐 First half of my existence a palace life I lived – Now away from the Great Tang I go.
落雁何識昭君路 Little do descending Ansers know this road was once used by Chao Chun,
東土前生夢裡看 Only in dreams do I see in my earlier life of home.
This was to be the final version but when I was writing it out for digitization, the last three characters of the last line was changed to 夢歸還 because it sounded so much better. This meant the whole rhyming scheme had to be changed as well. After a day’s worth of thinking, the new version became,
雪山迢迢雪路難 The Himalayas are far away and the snow covered road is difficult,
深宮半世今刻殘 First half of my existence a palace life I lived – Died at this hour.
落雁何識昭君道 Little do descending Ansers know this is the way of Chao Chun,
東土前生夢歸還 Alas, my previous existence - In dreams I returned.
Alas, this was not to be the case, as a day later after I had digitized a copy of brush writing, my mind wondered if some juxtaposition from line one to line three would work out some parallelism. I worked the lines backwards. The result came about when I forgot how 腥 was written.
1 血雨腥風胡馬蠻 Barbarian horses running amuck in rains of blood and foul winds,
2 宮花寵慣今刻殘 A cossetted palace flower died at this hour.
3 雪山下世昭君道 By the Himalayas, a remaining life, like the way Chao Chun had taken,
4 東土前生夢歸還 And yet dreaming of a previous existence returning home.
1 The first four characters is an idiom to mean carnage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Wencheng
2 宮花寵慣今刻殘 A cossetted palace flower died at this hour.
3 雪山下世昭君道 By the Himalayas, a remaining life, like the way Chao Chun had taken,
4 東土前生夢歸還 And yet dreaming of a previous existence returning home.
1 The first four characters is an idiom to mean carnage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Wencheng
2 Together with the first line, it paints a picture of unrestrained horses trampling on the flowers growing in the palace. “palace flower” - princess
3 “Snow Mountains” is the term used by Tibetans.
下世 means “to die”, “the next life”, “to be reborn” can all be used in the translation since line two says, her life had ended figuratively. However, I felt that “her remaining years” is a better choice since the next line has 前生. 道, like in English can mean a road, path or style and manner of doing something.
3 “Snow Mountains” is the term used by Tibetans.
下世 means “to die”, “the next life”, “to be reborn” can all be used in the translation since line two says, her life had ended figuratively. However, I felt that “her remaining years” is a better choice since the next line has 前生. 道, like in English can mean a road, path or style and manner of doing something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zhaojun
4 “The eastern lands” refers to the Chinese empire. I felt it was redundant to translate as it has no added value. It is already implied in the poem.
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
