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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.