Jasper Lake, Li Shangyin (Tang Shi 302)
Sunday, 15 March 2020 08:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerAt Jasper Lake, Queen Mother opens her fine window.
His “Yellow Bamboo” song—it moves the mournful earth;
His eight fine steeds traverse thousands of miles a day—
So what’s the reason King Mu doesn’t come again?
瑶池
瑶池阿母绮窗开，
黄竹歌声动地哀。
八骏日行三万里，
穆王何事不重来。
Mythology infodump: Jasper Lake in the Kunlun mountains was the dwelling place of the goddess Queen Mother of the West. Mu was a real king of the Zhou dynasty; according to later legends, in the mid-900s BCE he traveled around the world with his 8 supernaturally fast steeds (here, literally traveling 30,000 li a day), along the way visiting and having a fling with the Queen Mother. On his way home, he supposedly saw Yellow Bamboo village starving in a famine and sang an elegy for it. He promised to return in three years but died before doing so.
—L.
His “Yellow Bamboo” song—it moves the mournful earth;
His eight fine steeds traverse thousands of miles a day—
So what’s the reason King Mu doesn’t come again?
瑶池
瑶池阿母绮窗开，
黄竹歌声动地哀。
八骏日行三万里，
穆王何事不重来。
Mythology infodump: Jasper Lake in the Kunlun mountains was the dwelling place of the goddess Queen Mother of the West. Mu was a real king of the Zhou dynasty; according to later legends, in the mid-900s BCE he traveled around the world with his 8 supernaturally fast steeds (here, literally traveling 30,000 li a day), along the way visiting and having a fling with the Queen Mother. On his way home, he supposedly saw Yellow Bamboo village starving in a famine and sang an elegy for it. He promised to return in three years but died before doing so.
—L.
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Date: 15 March 2020 18:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 March 2020 00:07 (UTC)