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lnhammerBlue mountains are indistinct, the river is remote—
Autumn’s ending here, but Yangzi grasses aren’t withered.
A bright moon night above that bridge called Twenty-Four—
So where is Beauty: having a bamboo flute be played?
寄扬州韩绰判官
青山隐隐水迢迢，
秋尽江南草未凋。
二十四桥明月夜，
玉人何处教吹箫。
Yangzhou is in the Yangzi delta, just downstream of Nanjing—Du Mu served there for a while before moving on to another position, so he was familiar with the bridge. “Here” is an interpretive addition to clarify relative positions. Whether it really is a bridge is uncertain: Within a few centuries, commentators were already confused about whether 二十四桥 meant a collective of 24 bridges or one bridge named Twenty-Four (supposedly after an incident in which 24 beautiful women played bamboo flutes there). We know from another poem that Beauty was Du Mu’s nickname for Han Chuo, so this is a bit of inside joking between friends—one that works much better with the incident, so I’m going with that (and added “called” to clarify this).
A 箫 (xiao) can be any of several types of end-blown bamboo flute, both fingered and collected like panpipes, but the exact type is irrelevant here. The lack in the last line of that quality the ancients called ‘poetry’ means I need to find another way to convey the literal sense that Han is permitting/requiring/teaching someone else to play. But that’s for another time, as I need to step away for now.
---L.
Autumn’s ending here, but Yangzi grasses aren’t withered.
A bright moon night above that bridge called Twenty-Four—
So where is Beauty: having a bamboo flute be played?
寄扬州韩绰判官
青山隐隐水迢迢，
秋尽江南草未凋。
二十四桥明月夜，
玉人何处教吹箫。
Yangzhou is in the Yangzi delta, just downstream of Nanjing—Du Mu served there for a while before moving on to another position, so he was familiar with the bridge. “Here” is an interpretive addition to clarify relative positions. Whether it really is a bridge is uncertain: Within a few centuries, commentators were already confused about whether 二十四桥 meant a collective of 24 bridges or one bridge named Twenty-Four (supposedly after an incident in which 24 beautiful women played bamboo flutes there). We know from another poem that Beauty was Du Mu’s nickname for Han Chuo, so this is a bit of inside joking between friends—one that works much better with the incident, so I’m going with that (and added “called” to clarify this).
A 箫 (xiao) can be any of several types of end-blown bamboo flute, both fingered and collected like panpipes, but the exact type is irrelevant here. The lack in the last line of that quality the ancients called ‘poetry’ means I need to find another way to convey the literal sense that Han is permitting/requiring/teaching someone else to play. But that’s for another time, as I need to step away for now.
---L.