Autumn Night Song, A Chang’an Ghost
Wednesday, 31 August 2022 08:17song:
The Sixth Street drums have ceased, pedestrians are gone—
Ninth Avenue’s so wide, and moonlight fills the space.
response:
The living of Ninth Avenue, why so troubled?
Within the grounds of Chang’an, scholar-trees grow tall!
秋夜吟
六街鼓歇行人绝，九衢茫茫室有月。（吟）
九衢生人何劳劳，长安土尽槐根高。（和）
I honestly do not have the background to do this justice, but translated it anyway. I’ll unpack what I can, starting with the authorship. This is from chapter 866 of Complete Tang Poetry, the second of two devoted to poems either about or ascribed to 鬼 (guǐ), spirits of the dead. Paging![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay: a collection of Chinese ghost poems ding ding ding. This one, picked at random because curious, is credited to 长安中鬼, “a ghost within Chang’an.” That said, the response looks like it’s by a still-living person trying to dispel/banish the ghost, or at least tell it off. Of note: each couplet is rhymed in the original.
Chang’an was a planned city square-gridded with broad principal streets, which were numbered in both directions. Large drums were used to toll the hours and give warnings. If I had any knowledge of the folklore of scholar trees (beyond they have been sometimes planted as grave markers in Buddhist temples), I might have a glimmer about what the point of that line is.
It’s entirely possible I’ll do a few more of these…
---L.
The Sixth Street drums have ceased, pedestrians are gone—
Ninth Avenue’s so wide, and moonlight fills the space.
response:
The living of Ninth Avenue, why so troubled?
Within the grounds of Chang’an, scholar-trees grow tall!
秋夜吟
六街鼓歇行人绝，九衢茫茫室有月。（吟）
九衢生人何劳劳，长安土尽槐根高。（和）
I honestly do not have the background to do this justice, but translated it anyway. I’ll unpack what I can, starting with the authorship. This is from chapter 866 of Complete Tang Poetry, the second of two devoted to poems either about or ascribed to 鬼 (guǐ), spirits of the dead. Paging
sovay: a collection of Chinese ghost poems ding ding ding. This one, picked at random because curious, is credited to 长安中鬼, “a ghost within Chang’an.” That said, the response looks like it’s by a still-living person trying to dispel/banish the ghost, or at least tell it off. Of note: each couplet is rhymed in the original.Chang’an was a planned city square-gridded with broad principal streets, which were numbered in both directions. Large drums were used to toll the hours and give warnings. If I had any knowledge of the folklore of scholar trees (beyond they have been sometimes planted as grave markers in Buddhist temples), I might have a glimmer about what the point of that line is.
It’s entirely possible I’ll do a few more of these…
---L.