Long-ass Title Is Srsly Long-ass [actual title inside], Bai Juyi (300 Tang Shi #208)

[lnhammer]

The Lands South of the River are in Chaos, Those Beyond the Passes are Blocked Off and Starving, and My Siblings are Scattered, Each in a Different Place; Looking at the Moon, I am Moved, and Write Down Something of What’s in My Heart, then Send It to My Oldest Brother in Fuliang, Seventh Brother in Yuqian, Fifteenth Brother in Wujiang, and My Younger Brothers and Sisters in Fuchi and Xiagui, Bai Juyi

The times are hard, years desolate, and family farms lie empty.
My older and younger brothers travel, each to west and east.
The fields and gardens—gone to seed after the shields and spears.
My flesh and blood—homeless and wretched on the roads and highways.
I mourn with my shadow, parted like geese across a thousand li.
We left our roots, dispersed like aster seeds at autumn’s end.
Together, seeing the same bright moon, we must let our tears fall—
Our homesick hearts in our five places are all of them the same.

自河南经乱，关内阻饥，兄弟离散，各在一处。因望月有感，聊书所怀，寄上浮梁大兄，潜七兄，乌江十五兄，兼示符离及下邽弟妹。
时难年荒世业空，弟兄羁旅各西东。
田园寥落干戈后，骨肉流离道路中。
吊影分为千里雁，辞根散作九秋蓬。
共看明月应垂泪，一夜乡心五处同。

Yes, that title really is only 6 characters shorter than the poem itself. I’m grateful my base text supplied punctuation (not all do). The lands south of the river are the Henan-Shandong-Jiangsu-Anhui region and those beyond the passes are the upper-Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia-Inner Mongolia border region. Aside from one number, the details of his family and their locations are largely irrelevant to appreciating the poem, but for completeness (iow I had to look all this up so I’m darn well gonna share the joy), some of those “older brothers” were what we’d call uncles and cousins, Fuliang is in modern Jiangxi, Yuqian in Zhejiang, Wujiang in Anhui, Fuchi (where his father was an official) also in Anhui, and Xiagui (where their clan was based) in western Shaanxi.

Now that the title’s out of the way, on to the poem itself, which turns out to be pretty easy to understand. The asters, if it isn’t clear, have poofy seeds dispersed by the wind. The “five places” are the five locations mentioned in the title—which annoys me, because it ought to be six, including the author’s.

---L.

Comments

[mekare]

Oh wow that is really two poems in one.

We left our roots, dispersed like aster seeds at autumn’s end.

Love this line.

[lnhammer]

That is indeed the best line.

[swan_tower]

Daaaaaang, that title. My first thought on seeing it was "what if parody of country music, but Chinese and historical?" (Specifically the type of country music that's basically a "my wife left me, and my car broke down, and I lost my job, and my dog died" catalogue of woes.)

[lnhammer]

And the whiskey is gone -- can't forget that.

[swan_tower]

Of course, my mistake! :-D

[sartorias]

It builds and builds to the climactic crash of the asters--I will pretend the generic following two lines don't exist.

[lnhammer]

This seems to happen a lot with Bai Juyi -- clear and vivid details building a dramatic structure that resolves with bathetic patness.

It gives me low-level wonder that Song of Lasting Regret didn't teeter over in bathos and low-level anxiety about finally getting to Song of the Pipa.