![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerIn Xiaoshan Tower at Jinling ferry crossing,
A one-night lodger would of course be anxious.
Tide’s falling, nighttime river in slant moonbeams—
Those two or three small sparks are in Guazhou.
题金陵渡
金陵津渡小山楼，
一宿行人自可愁。
潮落夜江斜月里，
两三星火是瓜州。
Jinling is modern Zhenjiang, a little downstream of Nanjing, and Guazhou is across the Yangzi, on the north bank. Xiaoshan is “small mountain”—I don’t see anything is gained by translating it. That the sparks are small is added to fill out the meter, possibly justified by the literal meaning of spark as “star-flame.”
—L.
A one-night lodger would of course be anxious.
Tide’s falling, nighttime river in slant moonbeams—
Those two or three small sparks are in Guazhou.
题金陵渡
金陵津渡小山楼，
一宿行人自可愁。
潮落夜江斜月里，
两三星火是瓜州。
Jinling is modern Zhenjiang, a little downstream of Nanjing, and Guazhou is across the Yangzi, on the north bank. Xiaoshan is “small mountain”—I don’t see anything is gained by translating it. That the sparks are small is added to fill out the meter, possibly justified by the literal meaning of spark as “star-flame.”
—L.