Moonlit Night, Du Fu (300 Tang Shi #105)
Tuesday, 1 February 2022 07:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammer(Another repost after a couple years of tinkering.)
Tonight the moon’s above Fuzhou—
She gazes in her quarters alone.
From far, I pity our small children
Who don’t know why she longs for Chang’an.
Sweet mist—her cloud-chignon is wet;
Clear light—her jade-like shoulder’s cold.
When shall we lean on a thin blind
With moonlight drying both our tears?
月夜
今夜鄜州月，
闺中只独看。
遥怜小儿女，
未解忆长安。
香雾云鬟湿，
清辉玉臂寒。
何时倚虚幌，
双照泪痕干。
(Now that we’re entering deep Du Fu territory, I need to give a potted summary of the An Lushan Rebellion, as his experiences of it shaped so many of his poems. In Emperor Xuanzong’s later years, his erratic governance devolved to his ministers, eunuchs, and generals, who all hella in-fought each other for power. Eventually a Turkic-born general, An Lushan, revolted outright in late 755 and captured the Chang’an capital the next year. Xuanzong fled to Sichuan (see esp. #71) then abdicated to his son, Suzong, who undertook the many-years project of taking back the empire (Chang’an was recaptured in 757) as well as bringing to heel other warlords who took advantage of the chaos to stop submitting to central authority. This latter task was never fully completed, and over the next 150 years the Tang Dynasty slowly devolved into complete disarray—so there’s reasons the Rebellion shadows So Much of Tang poetry.)
Written in 756 while imprisoned inside Chang’an by rebel forces, while his wife and children stayed in relative safety in a town to the north. Pronouns were omitted, so the original can be understood as about either “she” or “you.” Mistranslations: the mist is literally “fragrant” and the blind “translucent.”
---L.
Tonight the moon’s above Fuzhou—
She gazes in her quarters alone.
From far, I pity our small children
Who don’t know why she longs for Chang’an.
Sweet mist—her cloud-chignon is wet;
Clear light—her jade-like shoulder’s cold.
When shall we lean on a thin blind
With moonlight drying both our tears?
月夜
今夜鄜州月，
闺中只独看。
遥怜小儿女，
未解忆长安。
香雾云鬟湿，
清辉玉臂寒。
何时倚虚幌，
双照泪痕干。
(Now that we’re entering deep Du Fu territory, I need to give a potted summary of the An Lushan Rebellion, as his experiences of it shaped so many of his poems. In Emperor Xuanzong’s later years, his erratic governance devolved to his ministers, eunuchs, and generals, who all hella in-fought each other for power. Eventually a Turkic-born general, An Lushan, revolted outright in late 755 and captured the Chang’an capital the next year. Xuanzong fled to Sichuan (see esp. #71) then abdicated to his son, Suzong, who undertook the many-years project of taking back the empire (Chang’an was recaptured in 757) as well as bringing to heel other warlords who took advantage of the chaos to stop submitting to central authority. This latter task was never fully completed, and over the next 150 years the Tang Dynasty slowly devolved into complete disarray—so there’s reasons the Rebellion shadows So Much of Tang poetry.)
Written in 756 while imprisoned inside Chang’an by rebel forces, while his wife and children stayed in relative safety in a town to the north. Pronouns were omitted, so the original can be understood as about either “she” or “you.” Mistranslations: the mist is literally “fragrant” and the blind “translucent.”
---L.
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Date: 1 February 2022 18:08 (UTC)no subject
Date: 1 February 2022 20:30 (UTC)