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Presented to Yang Yunzhong, Xue Tao
Wednesday, 11 September 2019 07:50The jadite water-clock drips long, the lamp’s so very bright.
Eastern wall and western wall—when will shadows appear?
The moon shines bright outside the window, the cuckoo’s crying out.
Endure being made a lonely soul—worry about the long, long night.
赠杨蕴中
玉漏声长灯耿耿，
东墙西墙时见影。
月明窗外子规啼，
忍使孤魂愁夜永。
Xue Tao (c770–832) was a courtesan and poet who spent her adult life in Chengdu, with a successful enough literary career that she was officially appointed unofficial secretary to the governor of Sichuan. (She couldn’t be an official secretary because woman, so he gave her a job title (“editor”) not used by the bureau of personnel.) A collection of 450-odd of her poems survived until at least the 15th century, and about 100 are known today, more than for any other Tang woman poet.
The story attached to this poem is that while scholar-official Yang Yunzhong was in the Chengdu prison for an unrecorded offence, he dreamed that she came to him and said, “Your death is far from this room,” and then recited this poem. After which, it’s implied, he was given a reprieve. (So is the poem his or hers?) The cuckoo named (the large hawk-cuckoo, Hierococcyx sparverioides) is a summer singer that continues calling well after dusk. Of the two words for “long time” used in the poem, the one at the end has the connotation of “eternal.”
(I no longer remember why I picked out this one of hers for translating—but regardless I didn’t know the story at the time.) (Source)
---L.
Eastern wall and western wall—when will shadows appear?
The moon shines bright outside the window, the cuckoo’s crying out.
Endure being made a lonely soul—worry about the long, long night.
赠杨蕴中
玉漏声长灯耿耿，
东墙西墙时见影。
月明窗外子规啼，
忍使孤魂愁夜永。
Xue Tao (c770–832) was a courtesan and poet who spent her adult life in Chengdu, with a successful enough literary career that she was officially appointed unofficial secretary to the governor of Sichuan. (She couldn’t be an official secretary because woman, so he gave her a job title (“editor”) not used by the bureau of personnel.) A collection of 450-odd of her poems survived until at least the 15th century, and about 100 are known today, more than for any other Tang woman poet.
The story attached to this poem is that while scholar-official Yang Yunzhong was in the Chengdu prison for an unrecorded offence, he dreamed that she came to him and said, “Your death is far from this room,” and then recited this poem. After which, it’s implied, he was given a reprieve. (So is the poem his or hers?) The cuckoo named (the large hawk-cuckoo, Hierococcyx sparverioides) is a summer singer that continues calling well after dusk. Of the two words for “long time” used in the poem, the one at the end has the connotation of “eternal.”
(I no longer remember why I picked out this one of hers for translating—but regardless I didn’t know the story at the time.) (Source)
---L.