In the “Jade Terrace” Style #8, Quan Deyu
My empty room, the candle snuffed—
Behind gauze curtains, time to sleep.
Cried out, I long to slash my guts.
Wisdom—that man doesn’t know it.
玉台体 之八
空闺灭烛后,
罗幌独眠时。
泪尽肠欲断,
心知人不知。
This one’s a little different from the previous “lonely lady” poems. Lost in translation: she’s “alone” inside the bed-curtains. Tricky bit: the last line has a bunch of possible alternate readings, including “my heart knows but that man doesn’t” or “my heart knows what that man doesn’t” or “my heart, people don’t know it.” Suggestions welcome.
---L.
Behind gauze curtains, time to sleep.
Cried out, I long to slash my guts.
Wisdom—that man doesn’t know it.
玉台体 之八
空闺灭烛后,
罗幌独眠时。
泪尽肠欲断,
心知人不知。
This one’s a little different from the previous “lonely lady” poems. Lost in translation: she’s “alone” inside the bed-curtains. Tricky bit: the last line has a bunch of possible alternate readings, including “my heart knows but that man doesn’t” or “my heart knows what that man doesn’t” or “my heart, people don’t know it.” Suggestions welcome.
---L.
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Her empty room, the candle snuffed—
Behind gauze curtains, time to sleep.
Cried out, she longs to slash her guts.
Her heart—men do not know it.
Hmmm. You have a point.
(And how do you think I'm reading this stuff, but one or two characters at a time? Some of the headnotes, I can almost do a whole phrase without looking something up, but the poems, ha!)
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I'm slowly reading James J. Y. Liu on Chinese poetry now--slowly because I am aware that I am almost as stupid with poetry as I am with math. (And Chinese poetry has elements of both, at least in my cheese-holes excuse for aa brain.)
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Haven't gotten to that yet, but I've heard it hasn't aged all that badly.