lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
[personal profile] lnhammer
Through mountain windows, roaming jade women;
As the stream’s door, facing jasper peaks.
On the cliff top, two phoenixes soar;
In the pool’s heart, nine dragons lie.
Amidst the wine float bamboo leaves;
Above the cups place lotus flowers:
Thus I confirm this house’s mountain gift—
But wind’s still blowing through the pines.

游九龙潭
山窗游玉女,
涧户对琼峰。
岩顶翔双凤,
潭心倒九龙。
酒中浮竹叶,
杯上写芙蓉。
故验家山赏,
惟有风入松。

The occasion was a pleasure trip by the Empress and her daughter, Princess Taiping (who appear in the poem as the phoenixes—the jade women would be their entourage). Wordplay: when window and door (from the first two lines) are put together, they are an idiom for house (as in line seven). Imageplay: The leaves in the wine match the appearance of the dragons in the pool (this seems to be the associative connection linking the two middle couplets). The shift in focus from wide to narrow to interior is striking, especially with that effectively introspective last line.

(I need to polish this a bit more with an eye toward how much to bring out the strong semantic parallels of the first six lines, but this is good enough for now.)

---L.

Date: 25 September 2019 17:17 (UTC)
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
From: [personal profile] sovay
But wind’s still blowing through the pines.

That's very good.

About

Warning: contents contain line-breaks.

As language practice, I like to translate poetry. My current project is Chinese, with practice focused on Tang Dynasty poetry. Previously this was classical Japanese, most recently working through the Kokinshu anthology (archived here). Suggestions, corrections, and questions always welcome.

There's also original pomes in the journal archives.

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