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Resentful Love, Li Bai (Tang Shi #234)
Monday, 27 May 2019 07:46A beauty rolls the bead curtain up,
Then sits still, knitting her moth brows.
We only see her wet tear-stains—
We don’t know whom her heart resents.
怨情
美人卷珠帘，
深坐蹙蛾眉。
但见泪痕湿，
不知心恨谁。
I sometimes see 蛾眉 (éméi) rendered as butterfly eyebrows, which is more vivid in English, but the Chinese phrase really is moth—the comparison is to the feathery antennae. “We” seems the best implied pronoun for the second couplet—reading it as still the woman, as I initially tried to, gives garble. (Still not rhymed.)
—L.
Then sits still, knitting her moth brows.
We only see her wet tear-stains—
We don’t know whom her heart resents.
怨情
美人卷珠帘，
深坐蹙蛾眉。
但见泪痕湿，
不知心恨谁。
I sometimes see 蛾眉 (éméi) rendered as butterfly eyebrows, which is more vivid in English, but the Chinese phrase really is moth—the comparison is to the feathery antennae. “We” seems the best implied pronoun for the second couplet—reading it as still the woman, as I initially tried to, gives garble. (Still not rhymed.)
—L.