lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
[personal profile] lnhammer
M’lord departed in flower season.
It’s flower season—you don’t arrive.
Before the eaves, paired swallows fly.
This fallen one is pining and weeping.

玉台体 之七
君去期花时,
花时君不至。
檐前双燕飞,
落妾相思泪。

The speaker uses a humble first-person pronoun used by women (妾 qiè, which as a noun means concubine) that I usually translate as “this one.” There’s slightly more ‘there’ there than in the previous, but only slightly.

---L.

Date: 11 September 2022 22:12 (UTC)
sartorias: (Default)
From: [personal profile] sartorias
Slight indeed. Line three has a nice image, but the rest I kinda slide off.

About

Warning: contents contain line-breaks.

As language practice, I like to translate poetry. My current project is Chinese, with practice focused on Tang Dynasty poetry. Previously this was classical Japanese, most recently working through the Kokinshu anthology (archived here). Suggestions, corrections, and questions always welcome.

There's also original pomes in the journal archives.

April 2025

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