Cold Thoughts, Li Shangyin (Tang Shi #159)

[lnhammer]

When you departed, waves were at my threshold—
Cicadas now rest, dew’s full upon the branches.
I’ll ever carry memories of that season;
I lean upon the door as time flows on.
Under the North Dipper, spring is far from you;
Here in South Hill, your messenger is late.
On Heaven’s shore, I keep divining my dreams.
Surely I’m wrong: you haven’t made new friends.

凉思
客去波平槛，
蝉休露满枝。
永怀当此节，
倚立自移时。
北斗兼春远，
南陵寓使迟。
天涯占梦数，
疑误有新知。



So I took another break from quatrains to make another stab at regulated verse, but forgot the notorious difficulty of Li Shangyin: this is really compacted language (modern Mandarin verse translations run to 12 characters per line, expanded from the original’s 5), and it took hand-holding from commentaries to even grasp the basic meaning. South Hill (translated to parallel the Dipper) is Nanling, now a county in Anhui, a little south of the lower Yangzi, where Li was stationed for a while.

---L.

Comments

[sartorias]

Yeah, that one is more like a very vivid code or puzzle!

[lnhammer]

That is an excellent description of Li Shangyin in general. Many of his more famous poems are a series of vivid images that are hard to piece together into a full or even coherent picture. Especially his series of poems called "Untitled," which are apparently love poems, but to whom and what, exactly, is going on between him and his lover are both hazy.

Eventually I'll have to tackle those. (The quatrains I'm avoiding are also his, and also not easy reads.)

[lnhammer]

FWIW, here's a modern Mandarin translation I found a few places:

当初你离去时春潮漫平栏杆；
如今秋蝉不鸣露水挂满树枝。
我永远怀念当时那美好时节；
今日重倚槛前不觉时光流逝。
你北方的住处象春天般遥远；
我在南陵嫌送信人来得太迟。
远隔天涯我屡次占卜着美梦；
疑心你有新交而把老友忘记。

[thawrecka]

It's lovely, anyway.

[lnhammer]

It is. I want to tweak the first half to smooth out the line of direction, but I think the ending landed.