Moving Encounters 1, Zhang Jiuling (300 Tang Shi #1)
Friday, 3 June 2022 14:13![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerA lone swan comes across the sea
To a moat it dares not look at.
Nearby, it spies a kingfisher pair,
Their nest upon a Three-Pearl Tree:
“You there, atop that precious tree—
Don’t you fear a gold sling-bullet?
The wretched lambaste beautiful robes,
The high and mighty endure their trolls.
I travel now the lofty sky—
What place does an archer long for?”
感遇 之一
孤鸿海上来，
池潢不敢顾；
侧见双翠鸟，
巢在三珠树。
矫矫珍木巅，
得无金丸惧？
美服患人指，
高明逼神恶。
今我游冥冥，
弋者何所慕？
A jump back to the very beginning of the collection! —though this is … complicated. The original edition of 3TP began with two poems of a 12-poem set, specifically the 1st and 7th. Later editors added the 4th and 2nd poems of the set, inserting them as what’s now #1 and #3, respectively, turning the original first two poems into #2 and #4, respectively. Why the additions were inserted out of order and out of sequence, I don’t pretend to understand—just trying to keep all that straight makes my head hurt enough thank you very much. In fact, let’s just take the ’splainings one poem at a time:
This was written as the 4th poem of a 12-poem set, added by later editors.
The title is a statement of genre: these are allegories, small stories with a ‘moving’ moralized message—I’m not entirely confident I’ve given it the best possible translation. Of note when interpreting them: they were written after being demoted from high office to a provincial posting thanks to court politics—thus, the palace implied by the moat is not coincidental, nor is the bejeweled Three-Pearl Tree from Chinese mythology. Idiom: trolls are “evil spirits” who, in this case, criticize their betters—nice to find a colloquial English equivalent. The bullets are from the slings of hunters, and the archer is also a hunter. (The author, btw, also wrote #91 and was addressed in #119 and #124.)
---L.
To a moat it dares not look at.
Nearby, it spies a kingfisher pair,
Their nest upon a Three-Pearl Tree:
“You there, atop that precious tree—
Don’t you fear a gold sling-bullet?
The wretched lambaste beautiful robes,
The high and mighty endure their trolls.
I travel now the lofty sky—
What place does an archer long for?”
感遇 之一
孤鸿海上来，
池潢不敢顾；
侧见双翠鸟，
巢在三珠树。
矫矫珍木巅，
得无金丸惧？
美服患人指，
高明逼神恶。
今我游冥冥，
弋者何所慕？
A jump back to the very beginning of the collection! —though this is … complicated. The original edition of 3TP began with two poems of a 12-poem set, specifically the 1st and 7th. Later editors added the 4th and 2nd poems of the set, inserting them as what’s now #1 and #3, respectively, turning the original first two poems into #2 and #4, respectively. Why the additions were inserted out of order and out of sequence, I don’t pretend to understand—just trying to keep all that straight makes my head hurt enough thank you very much. In fact, let’s just take the ’splainings one poem at a time:
This was written as the 4th poem of a 12-poem set, added by later editors.
The title is a statement of genre: these are allegories, small stories with a ‘moving’ moralized message—I’m not entirely confident I’ve given it the best possible translation. Of note when interpreting them: they were written after being demoted from high office to a provincial posting thanks to court politics—thus, the palace implied by the moat is not coincidental, nor is the bejeweled Three-Pearl Tree from Chinese mythology. Idiom: trolls are “evil spirits” who, in this case, criticize their betters—nice to find a colloquial English equivalent. The bullets are from the slings of hunters, and the archer is also a hunter. (The author, btw, also wrote #91 and was addressed in #119 and #124.)
---L.
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Date: 3 June 2022 23:18 (UTC)