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Grass withered and leaves fallen—I so get that Song Yu’s grief:
Outstanding writer, cultured man, and also he’s my master.
Hopes dashed a thousand autumns since—I scatter tears alone—
Though living at different times, our lives are desolate the same.
His former home in rivers and mountains—in vain his splendid words.
Mt. Yangtai wreathed in clouds and rain—how could he think it a dream?
And most of all, there’s this: Chu Palace was completely destroyed.
This boatman faces that far speck, my arrival now in doubt.
咏怀古迹 之二
摇落深知宋玉悲，
风流儒雅亦吾师。
怅望千秋一洒泪，
萧条异代不同时。
江山故宅空文藻，
云雨荒台岂梦思。
最是楚宫俱泯灭，
舟人指点到今疑。
Song Yu was a poet of the Warring State of Chu, attributed author of a handful of poems in Songs of Chu, including the first known use of the “being grieved by autumn” topos. His “former home” was Guizhou (now Zigui, Hubei) at the mouth of Xiling Gorge, the lowest of the Three Gorges. Yangtai is a mountain in Wushan, Chongqing (formerly eastern Sichuan)* that’s the setting of a rhymed-prose rhapsody spuriously attributed to Song Yu about a dream visitation by a divine maiden. I am amused that for once “1000 autumns” is close to literal: Song Yu died around 263 BCE and this was written 766 CE. The capital of Chu was down the Yangzi from Baidi, where Du Fu wrote this.
I so get is possibly a too idiomatic rendering of what’s literally “(I) deeply know/understand,” but I couldn’t resist.
* Yeah, this is something I’ve been avoiding—Baidi, Qutang Gorge, and Wu Gorge are all technically not in Sichuan. Well, they were, but in 1997 Chongqing and much of southeastern Sichuan (including those historic locations) was split off as an autonomous municipality, outside provincial authority, with the same status as Beijing and Shanghai. I’ve been sloppily saying they’re in Sichuan anyway, and I need to stop that. And go back and correct myself.
---L.
Outstanding writer, cultured man, and also he’s my master.
Hopes dashed a thousand autumns since—I scatter tears alone—
Though living at different times, our lives are desolate the same.
His former home in rivers and mountains—in vain his splendid words.
Mt. Yangtai wreathed in clouds and rain—how could he think it a dream?
And most of all, there’s this: Chu Palace was completely destroyed.
This boatman faces that far speck, my arrival now in doubt.
咏怀古迹 之二
摇落深知宋玉悲，
风流儒雅亦吾师。
怅望千秋一洒泪，
萧条异代不同时。
江山故宅空文藻，
云雨荒台岂梦思。
最是楚宫俱泯灭，
舟人指点到今疑。
Song Yu was a poet of the Warring State of Chu, attributed author of a handful of poems in Songs of Chu, including the first known use of the “being grieved by autumn” topos. His “former home” was Guizhou (now Zigui, Hubei) at the mouth of Xiling Gorge, the lowest of the Three Gorges. Yangtai is a mountain in Wushan, Chongqing (formerly eastern Sichuan)* that’s the setting of a rhymed-prose rhapsody spuriously attributed to Song Yu about a dream visitation by a divine maiden. I am amused that for once “1000 autumns” is close to literal: Song Yu died around 263 BCE and this was written 766 CE. The capital of Chu was down the Yangzi from Baidi, where Du Fu wrote this.
I so get is possibly a too idiomatic rendering of what’s literally “(I) deeply know/understand,” but I couldn’t resist.
* Yeah, this is something I’ve been avoiding—Baidi, Qutang Gorge, and Wu Gorge are all technically not in Sichuan. Well, they were, but in 1997 Chongqing and much of southeastern Sichuan (including those historic locations) was split off as an autonomous municipality, outside provincial authority, with the same status as Beijing and Shanghai. I’ve been sloppily saying they’re in Sichuan anyway, and I need to stop that. And go back and correct myself.
---L.