![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Moon’s setting through three trunks of trees,
Sun’s shining in the ninefold sky.
The worthy’s nighttime banquet ends:
His brief distinction’s paid with years.
示宋善威
作者:无名女鬼
月落三株树,
日映九重天。
良夜欢宴罢,
暂别庚申年。
This ghost poem (from CTP ch866) doesn’t have a headnote, darn it, though one site had basic info on Song Shanwei: he was from Hengshui, southern Hebei, and at one point was the military superintendent of a nearby county. His military exploits made it into one of the chronicles (which I’m not looking up) and he died in 720.
This … might be necromancy in the strict definition of having the dead foretell the future? “Revealed” certainly suggests it—and Song’s brief bio calls this a 谶 (chèn), “prophecy/omen.” That last line is, like many oracles, not easy to grasp. The best I’ve come up with is a hint that bright candles burn briefly, and his time is coming. Consider this a tentative translation at best.
For your amusement, calligraphy of the last two lines. (This site is fun—try pasting a line from any of these ghost poems into the box at the top.)
---L.
Sun’s shining in the ninefold sky.
The worthy’s nighttime banquet ends:
His brief distinction’s paid with years.
示宋善威
作者:无名女鬼
月落三株树,
日映九重天。
良夜欢宴罢,
暂别庚申年。
This ghost poem (from CTP ch866) doesn’t have a headnote, darn it, though one site had basic info on Song Shanwei: he was from Hengshui, southern Hebei, and at one point was the military superintendent of a nearby county. His military exploits made it into one of the chronicles (which I’m not looking up) and he died in 720.
This … might be necromancy in the strict definition of having the dead foretell the future? “Revealed” certainly suggests it—and Song’s brief bio calls this a 谶 (chèn), “prophecy/omen.” That last line is, like many oracles, not easy to grasp. The best I’ve come up with is a hint that bright candles burn briefly, and his time is coming. Consider this a tentative translation at best.
For your amusement, calligraphy of the last two lines. (This site is fun—try pasting a line from any of these ghost poems into the box at the top.)
---L.
no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 17:19 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 17:52 (UTC)Longer answer: the humongo* anthology Complete Tang Poems has two chapters of poems ascribed to 鬼, spirits of the dead. I started poking at this a couple weeks ago, and discovered some of this stuff is amazing, both folklorically and fannishly. I mean, there's a poem that was "thrown at" a general by a suit of armor -- I mean, who can resist that? No one -- and another "written in blood" on a wall. I've translated a dozen-plus so far and starting to post the first drafts. Per my usual mode, I'll post a compilation of more polished revisions in my other journal when I get enough -- I'm planning on the first such installment being my first thirteen poems, because ghosts.
* 49,000-odd poems covering 360 years.
no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 17:59 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 18:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 18:15 (UTC)More ghost poems!
no subject
Date: 12 September 2022 19:47 (UTC)