![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Passing through, en route to another place,
I halt my horse beside your lonely grave.
Now that I’m near, my tears leave no soil dry.
Hanging down from the sky are broken clouds.
I played go with you, my Premier Xie—
I hold the coveted sword, my King of Xu.
I only see the flowers fall in the woods
And hear the twittering orioles see me off.
别房太尉墓
他乡复行役，
驻马别孤坟。
近泪无乾土，
低空有断云。
对棋陪谢傅，
把剑觅徐君。
唯见林花落，
莺啼送客闻。
Fang Guan, Du Fu’s mentor during his official career, was a general and confidant of Emperor Xuanzong but was dismissed from office by Suzong—vocally supporting him even after that was the proximate cause of Du Fu’s demotion in #108. After the accession of Daizong (see #111), Fang was summoned back to Chang’an for rehabilitation but died en route at Langzhou (now Langzhong in northern Sichuan) in 763, where he was buried. Written in 765 when Du Fu finally visited the grave.
Xie is Xia An, a prime minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who was famously so unflappable that when news of a vital victory arrived while he was deep in a game of go, he calmly continued playing. The sword refers to an incident from the Warring States period, where the sword’s owner planned to present it to the king the next time they met only to have the king die before that could happen, so the owner hung it over his grave. I’m guessing at the implied pronouns in the first line of this couplet, but the second is clearly a parallel to the speaker’s situation, and it feels right to make the whole poem about the poet's personal reaction.
Mistranslation: Xie is actually given the title “Tutor”.
---L.
I halt my horse beside your lonely grave.
Now that I’m near, my tears leave no soil dry.
Hanging down from the sky are broken clouds.
I played go with you, my Premier Xie—
I hold the coveted sword, my King of Xu.
I only see the flowers fall in the woods
And hear the twittering orioles see me off.
别房太尉墓
他乡复行役，
驻马别孤坟。
近泪无乾土，
低空有断云。
对棋陪谢傅，
把剑觅徐君。
唯见林花落，
莺啼送客闻。
Fang Guan, Du Fu’s mentor during his official career, was a general and confidant of Emperor Xuanzong but was dismissed from office by Suzong—vocally supporting him even after that was the proximate cause of Du Fu’s demotion in #108. After the accession of Daizong (see #111), Fang was summoned back to Chang’an for rehabilitation but died en route at Langzhou (now Langzhong in northern Sichuan) in 763, where he was buried. Written in 765 when Du Fu finally visited the grave.
Xie is Xia An, a prime minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who was famously so unflappable that when news of a vital victory arrived while he was deep in a game of go, he calmly continued playing. The sword refers to an incident from the Warring States period, where the sword’s owner planned to present it to the king the next time they met only to have the king die before that could happen, so the owner hung it over his grave. I’m guessing at the implied pronouns in the first line of this couplet, but the second is clearly a parallel to the speaker’s situation, and it feels right to make the whole poem about the poet's personal reaction.
Mistranslation: Xie is actually given the title “Tutor”.
---L.