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Wasteland Prospect, Du Fu (300 Tang Shi #184)
Tuesday, 2 August 2022 07:41On the west mountains, white snow, three walled garrisons—
On the south bank, clear river, Bridge of Ten-thousand Li.
The whole world’s wind-blown dust, my younger brothers scattered—
On heaven’s edge I’m crying, by myself and distant.
Because my evening will provide me many ailments,
I’ve neither dirt nor droplet to repay the court.
I ride outside the city to eye a while the distance,
Unfit for human duties, all my days dejection.
野望
西山白雪三城戍，
南浦清江万里桥。
海内风尘诸弟隔，
天涯涕泪一身遥。
唯将迟暮供多病，
未有涓埃答圣朝。
跨马出郊时极目，
不堪人事日萧条。
Written a year after the previous in 762, while still living outside Chengdu. The peaks along the edge of the Tibetan Plateau west of the city have permanent snow-cover, and the three forts along that range were on the border with the Tibetan Empire. I translate the name of Wanli Bridge over the Jin River to bring out that the first couplet is also antithetical. Idiom: the whole world is literally “within the seas.” FWIW, he had four younger brothers, one of them also in Sichuan, the rest still scattered by the disruptions (“wind-blown dust”) of the An Lushan Rebellion.
I find it interesting that, in the final line, it’s not “I’m dejected” but “days (are) a dejected condition” —not ye standard poetic expression, that.
---L.
On the south bank, clear river, Bridge of Ten-thousand Li.
The whole world’s wind-blown dust, my younger brothers scattered—
On heaven’s edge I’m crying, by myself and distant.
Because my evening will provide me many ailments,
I’ve neither dirt nor droplet to repay the court.
I ride outside the city to eye a while the distance,
Unfit for human duties, all my days dejection.
野望
西山白雪三城戍，
南浦清江万里桥。
海内风尘诸弟隔，
天涯涕泪一身遥。
唯将迟暮供多病，
未有涓埃答圣朝。
跨马出郊时极目，
不堪人事日萧条。
Written a year after the previous in 762, while still living outside Chengdu. The peaks along the edge of the Tibetan Plateau west of the city have permanent snow-cover, and the three forts along that range were on the border with the Tibetan Empire. I translate the name of Wanli Bridge over the Jin River to bring out that the first couplet is also antithetical. Idiom: the whole world is literally “within the seas.” FWIW, he had four younger brothers, one of them also in Sichuan, the rest still scattered by the disruptions (“wind-blown dust”) of the An Lushan Rebellion.
I find it interesting that, in the final line, it’s not “I’m dejected” but “days (are) a dejected condition” —not ye standard poetic expression, that.
---L.