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lnhammerThis one rode a painted carriage,
A youth rode a fresh buckskin horse.
“Where are you from—we’re so like-minded!”
“Xiling, beneath the pines and cedars.”
钱唐苏小歌一首
妾乘油壁车，
郎骑青骢马。
何处结同心，
西陵松柏下。
(This poem immediately follows the one in my previous post.) Su Xiaoxiao (as she’s usually known) was a famous singer and courtesan who lived from 479-c.502. Qiantang here is an alternate name for Hangzhou, a city a little south of modern Shanghai; her tomb still exists today near one of the bridges on West Lake. Her lyrics were admired and name-checked by several later poets, including Bai Juyi and Li He.
Untranslatable wordplays: 青 (qīng), here rendered as “fresh,” can also mean “natural colored,” in contrast to the paint on the carriage; and echoing that, “pines and cedars” (松柏: sōngbǎi) also has the figurative meaning of “chaste” (and no, I haven’t found the story behind that idiom). Put all those together, and we’ve got an experienced courtesan accosting an inexperienced youth. (Buckskin, I learned from translating this, is a horse color—something like a cream bay; I’ve no idea if there are cultural connotations.) FWIW, Xiling is the lowermost of the Three Gorges of the Yangzi, way upstream of the singer’s home.
(*bounce bounce* I recognized wordplay and double meaning! Without and commentary or pony to help!)
—L.
A youth rode a fresh buckskin horse.
“Where are you from—we’re so like-minded!”
“Xiling, beneath the pines and cedars.”
钱唐苏小歌一首
妾乘油壁车，
郎骑青骢马。
何处结同心，
西陵松柏下。
(This poem immediately follows the one in my previous post.) Su Xiaoxiao (as she’s usually known) was a famous singer and courtesan who lived from 479-c.502. Qiantang here is an alternate name for Hangzhou, a city a little south of modern Shanghai; her tomb still exists today near one of the bridges on West Lake. Her lyrics were admired and name-checked by several later poets, including Bai Juyi and Li He.
Untranslatable wordplays: 青 (qīng), here rendered as “fresh,” can also mean “natural colored,” in contrast to the paint on the carriage; and echoing that, “pines and cedars” (松柏: sōngbǎi) also has the figurative meaning of “chaste” (and no, I haven’t found the story behind that idiom). Put all those together, and we’ve got an experienced courtesan accosting an inexperienced youth. (Buckskin, I learned from translating this, is a horse color—something like a cream bay; I’ve no idea if there are cultural connotations.) FWIW, Xiling is the lowermost of the Three Gorges of the Yangzi, way upstream of the singer’s home.
(*bounce bounce* I recognized wordplay and double meaning! Without and commentary or pony to help!)
—L.
no subject
Date: 14 July 2019 15:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 July 2019 15:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 July 2019 19:03 (UTC)(Sorry if butting in with a suggestion is unwelcome, but it's the first time I've read one of your translations and actually had an idea of what I would do in that situation. <g>)
no subject
Date: 15 July 2019 19:10 (UTC)"Raw" is a little too far from the senses of 青 -- "young" seems to be the closest to that as it gets. Besides, "raw horse" makes me think a) the guy's just ridden out of the American West and b) that the horse is untamed, and either one's enough to make me giggle.