A Poem Bao Linghui Sent to a Traveler (from New Songs of the Jade Terrace)

[lnhammer]

The cassia sprouts two or three new branches,
The orchid opens four or five new petals.
It’s time—and yet my lord has not returned;
The spring wind’s disciple is this laughing one.

鲍令晖寄行人一首
桂吐两三枝，
兰开四五叶。
是时君不归，
春风徒笑妾。

The speaker uses the humble pronoun used by women, rendered as "this one". "New" is interpretive padding in both of the first two lines, added to fill out the meter (even though I don't even come close to regular in the last line). It might be more idiomatic to render "two or three" as "a few" and "four or five" as "several," but that weakens the clear progression. In modern Mandarin, the tree literally "vomits" the branches, which is … startling. Bao Linghui, a younger sister of renowned poet Bao Zhao, flourished around 464.

---L.

Comments

[sovay]

In modern Mandarin, the tree literally "vomits" the branches, which is … startling.

Is that a shift in meaning since the fifth century or is the image just less shocking? (Could you render it "erupts" if you wanted that sense of suddenness or is that too geologic?)

[lnhammer]

It seems to be a shift, but I haven’t been able to confirm that with the resources at hand.

I do think I need to add/restore some sense of involuntary emission — I tinkered with “bursts forth” and similar; “erupts” might do the trick.

[sovay]

I do think I need to add/restore some sense of involuntary emission — I tinkered with “bursts forth” and similar; “erupts” might do the trick.

Cool!

[rushthatspeaks]

But what does it mean to be the spring wind's disciple?

[lnhammer]

Good question. My current understanding hinges on the secondary meaning of "spring" as "wanton" -- so "one who follows the precepts of the wanton wind" and is wanton theirself.

However, looking at that line again, I took 笑 ("laughing") as an adjective modifying "this one" -- but it may be easier to read it as a verb: "the spring wind's disciples are laughing at this one." As a complaint, this fits the Lonely Lady topos better: "their lovers are here, so why aren't YOU?"

*poke poke*