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Thoughts on a Sichuan Mountain Road on New Year’s Eve, Cui Tu (300 Tang Shi #165)
It looks remote, this Sichuan road—
Dangerous travel, ten-thousand li,
Disordered mountains, snow patches at night.
My candle’s lonely—a foreign spring—
My flesh and blood are growing distant
As I instead turn towards my servants.
That which endures the ‘winds and anchors’
Tomorrow sees a year that’s new.
巴山道中除夜有怀
迢递三巴路，
羁危万里身。
乱山残雪夜，
孤独异乡春。
渐与骨肉远，
转于僮仆亲。
那堪正飘泊，
明日岁华新。
Then, as now, the lunisolar New Year was whenever possible observed with one’s family at their hometown. Idioms: Sichuan is literally “Ba” in the title and “three Ba [districts]” in the poem (this was previously met in #43), Ba being an ancient province covering eastern Sichuan, and while flesh and blood is literally “bone (and) flesh.” Idiom translated literally: ‘(whirl)winds and anchors’ represent the life of a traveler.
---L.
Dangerous travel, ten-thousand li,
Disordered mountains, snow patches at night.
My candle’s lonely—a foreign spring—
My flesh and blood are growing distant
As I instead turn towards my servants.
That which endures the ‘winds and anchors’
Tomorrow sees a year that’s new.
巴山道中除夜有怀
迢递三巴路，
羁危万里身。
乱山残雪夜，
孤独异乡春。
渐与骨肉远，
转于僮仆亲。
那堪正飘泊，
明日岁华新。
Then, as now, the lunisolar New Year was whenever possible observed with one’s family at their hometown. Idioms: Sichuan is literally “Ba” in the title and “three Ba [districts]” in the poem (this was previously met in #43), Ba being an ancient province covering eastern Sichuan, and while flesh and blood is literally “bone (and) flesh.” Idiom translated literally: ‘(whirl)winds and anchors’ represent the life of a traveler.
---L.
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