Spring Feelings, Huangfu Ran (300 Tang Shi #201)
Thursday, 1 September 2022 07:52![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerOrioles twitter, swallows speak, announcing the new year.
To Mayi and Longdui, the road is how many thousands long?
My family lives in the towered city, neighbor to Han Park—
My heart, it follows the bright moon, arriving in Hu skies.
Within my desk your brocade words reveal your long resentment.
Upstairs the “flowered sprays” are laughing—yet I sleep alone.
So let me ask you, heavenly mounted general Dou Xian:
When will the banner you command at Mt. Yanran return?
春思
莺啼燕语报新年，
马邑龙堆路几千？
家住层城邻汉苑，
心随明月到胡天。
机中锦字论长恨，
楼上花枝笑独眠。
为问天戎窦车骑，
何时返旆勒燕然？
The speaker is a woman whose husband is on a tour of duty on the northern frontier, using Han Dynasty details as a way of safely criticizing contemporary policies. Mayi (“horse district”), now Shuozhou in northern Shanxi, was in Han times an important post on the border with the Xiongnu Empire of the steppes. Longdui (“dragon pile”) is the name of several desert and saltpan formations, here used generically for the northern desert beyond the steppes. Dou Xian was a general of the Eastern Han empire who defeated the Xiongnu Empire in a series of battles across the steppes, including one at Mt. Yanran, in modern central Mongolia, after which he returned home.
---L.
To Mayi and Longdui, the road is how many thousands long?
My family lives in the towered city, neighbor to Han Park—
My heart, it follows the bright moon, arriving in Hu skies.
Within my desk your brocade words reveal your long resentment.
Upstairs the “flowered sprays” are laughing—yet I sleep alone.
So let me ask you, heavenly mounted general Dou Xian:
When will the banner you command at Mt. Yanran return?
春思
莺啼燕语报新年，
马邑龙堆路几千？
家住层城邻汉苑，
心随明月到胡天。
机中锦字论长恨，
楼上花枝笑独眠。
为问天戎窦车骑，
何时返旆勒燕然？
The speaker is a woman whose husband is on a tour of duty on the northern frontier, using Han Dynasty details as a way of safely criticizing contemporary policies. Mayi (“horse district”), now Shuozhou in northern Shanxi, was in Han times an important post on the border with the Xiongnu Empire of the steppes. Longdui (“dragon pile”) is the name of several desert and saltpan formations, here used generically for the northern desert beyond the steppes. Dou Xian was a general of the Eastern Han empire who defeated the Xiongnu Empire in a series of battles across the steppes, including one at Mt. Yanran, in modern central Mongolia, after which he returned home.
---L.
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Date: 1 September 2022 23:42 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 September 2022 15:16 (UTC)