Golden Valley Garden, Du Mu (Tang Shi #297)

[lnhammer]

Luxurious things fall apart, chasing the fragrant dust;
The waters flow unfeeling, grasses green on their own.
In dusk’s east wind, the cries of a resentful bird;
The falling petals: just like she who jumped from that tower.

金谷园
繁华事散逐香尘，
流水无情草自春。
日暮东风怨啼鸟，
落花犹似坠楼人。

The garden was the extravagant Luoyang estate of Jin Dynasty minister Shi Chong. His concubine Lüzhu was accused of unfaithfulness as part of a political plot by one of his rivals, and to prove her innocence she suicided by jumping.

(Last Du Mu at last. Onwards!)

Comments

[sovay]

The falling petals: just like she who jumped from that tower.

That's a good twist.

[lnhammer]

More of a twist to us than the original audience, who would have already associated her as soon as the place was named.

[sovay]

More of a twist to us than the original audience, who would have already associated her as soon as the place was named.

I didn't even mean twist in the sense of a shock, just in the turn of the language: all the beautiful, indifferent images of the natural world and then the human body falling, which altered none of these things.

[lnhammer]

Ah, yes, that. Yes, that was handled very well.