Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Dismount your horse and toast the wine—
I ask you, where is it you’re going?
You say you aren’t proud of yourself.
I’m heading back to Zhongnan’s foot.
I’ll leave now—you again won’t listen
Though white clouds last for endless ages.

送别
下马饮君酒，
问君何所之？
君言不得意，
归卧南山陲。
但去莫复闻，
白云无尽时。

Wang uses a few honorific forms here, so he’s saying farewell to someone of higher rank, but there’s also some asperity here. Many texts have 问 “ask” instead of 闻 “hear” in line 5, and it’s very tempting to emend so my base text: “I’m not gonna ask you again.”

---L.

    Mulan is holding the shuttle and sighing.
    “I ask again, because of whom?
    I want to hear from whence these woes.”
    The feelings stirred are forced to her face.
    “Father is on the army rolls,
    Yet every day his strength declines—
    How can he walk for thousands of li?
    He has a son too young to go.
    The Hu sands sink both horse and soldier,
    The northern winds crack men’s skins—
    Father is old and getting feeble,
    He uses his strength to prop himself.
    Mulan will take his place and leave—
    Feed horse and ready arms, then go.”
    She exchanges her fine silk gown,
    She washes off her white face-powder:
    She spurs her horse to the army tents,
    With fervent sighs, takes sword in hand.
    At dawn they camp ’neath snowy mountains,
    At dusk they stop by Qinghai Lake.
    They capture at night a Yan brigade
    And also seize the Yutian Qiang—
    The general triumphs and returns,
    Foot-soldiers head to their hometowns.
    When Father and Mother see Mulan,
    They’ve utmost joy, which turns to sorrow—
Mulan now must endure the faces of her parents,
So she unwraps her sleeves and tunes her strings to sing:
    “Before an ardent soldier’s might,
    I’ve now a tender girl’s appearance.
Our family raise their cups, congratulate my parents,
Now understanding men and women’s worth’s the same.”
    Before her gate, her former comrades,
    Ten years together through thick and thin—
    At first they joined a band of brothers
    And swore through war to never change,
    But now when they behold Mulan—
Although her voice is right, the look of her face is different.
    Amazed, they do not dare step forward,
    Their gasps are followed by happy sighs.
    If our generation had officials
    With integrity like Mulan’s—
    Loyal and filial, both unchanging—
How, for a thousand ages, could our fame be lost?

( 木兰歌 )

This is the earliest surviving literary retelling of the Mulan story, by mid-Tang scholar-official Wei Yuanfu (701-771). It adds a few details missing from the original ballad, such as why her father can’t serve, that have become canon. (If you’re interested in how the Mulan story has evolved over the centuries, this website is All About That, including several texts in translation, including this one.)

Hu refers generically to the peoples of the northern steppes and deserts and where they live, Qinghai Lake was in the northwest frontier of modern Qinghai Province, and Yutian was a country even further west in what’s modern Xinjiang ruled by the Tibetan-related Qiang peoples. Yan usually means the region of the northeastern Warring State of that name, roughly Hebei + Liaoning, so unless Mulan’s army is scrambling across the entire northern frontier (and it’s possible that’s intended), it’s probably a generic “in the north” reference, possibly evoking Mt. Yanran (see 3TP #201). The sleeves are cloth wrappings worn to protect the forearm when you don’t have armor (you might have noticed these in the recent Mulan Disney movie). More accurately, she prepares her “strings and reeds,” a general idiom for musical instruments that doesn’t work on the literal level, given she’s singing; I dropped the reeds and supplied “and sings” to clarify.

Can’t say I’m fond of the patriotic moralizing conclusion, especially compared to the gender interrogation of the original ballad. Indeed, overall I prefer the original, folk-process gaps in the narrative and all.

---L.

About Mt. Tai—what’s there to say?
’Tween Qi and Lu, unlimited green
Where Nature gathers mysterious grace.
Its north and south split dusk and dawn,
Great breast engendering layered clouds.
Eyes burst, beholding its gathered birds.
Can one ascend its vanishing peak?
One glance and crowded mountains shrink.

望岳
岱宗夫如何？
齐鲁青未了。
造化锺神秀，
阴阳割昏晓。
荡胸生层云，
决眦入归鸟。
会当凌绝顶，
一览众山小。

Written in 736 when Du Fu was 24—which is old enough to not really count as juvenalia, but he didn’t develop his distinctive poetic voice till his 40s. (A sight that “bursts the eyeballs” —srsly? Also, ew.) Qi and Lu were the two Warring States who bordered Mt. Tai in Shandong, one of the five sacred mountains of Daoism.

(When Li Bai was 24, he was writing masterpieces like #43.”)

—L.

Recall this one within her quarters
Who doesn’t know the “smoke and dust,”
Married to a Changgan man
Who from a sandbank watches the winds.
When Fifth Month comes, the south winds rise—
Consider, sir, descent to Baling.
When Eighth Month comes, the west winds start—
Remember, sir, your growing son.
My sorrows come and go, and why?
You’re rarely seen, departing often.
How many days to reach Xiangtan?
This one yet dreams of wind and waves.
Last night, the wild winds gusted through,
Snapping a tree on the river bank—
Dark waters flooded boundlessly—
The travelers there, what happened to them?
Good carriage pulled by Floating Clouds,
A wedding east of Orchid Isle,
Paired mandarin ducks above green reeds,
Within the kingfisher brocade screens—
I pity that me, once barely fifteen,
Complexion once peach-flower red.
The work of being a merchant’s wife:
Worried of water, worried of wind.

长干行
忆妾深闺里，
烟尘不曾识。
嫁与长干人，
沙头候风色。
五月南风兴，
思君下巴陵。
八月西风起，
想君发扬子。
去来悲如何，
见少离别多。
湘潭几日到，
妾梦越风波。
昨夜狂风度，
吹折江头树。
淼淼暗无边，
行人在何处。
好乘浮云骢，
佳期兰渚东。
鸳鸯绿蒲上，
翡翠锦屏中。
自怜十五馀，
颜色桃花红。
那作商人妇，
愁水复愁风。

This poem appears four times in CTP, attributed to three different authors—I first found the Li Bai version, given as the second of a two poem set, the first being the famous “Changgan Ballad” aka 3TP #43 aka Pound’s “The River Merchant’s Wife.” Given that auspicious pairing, I translated this as well—and, well … I am disappoint. This one’s a genre-typical complaint, at length, by the homebound wife of a river merchant. I know even Homer nods, but I have no hesitations asserting that a) it’s probably by either Zhang Chao (张潮) or Li Qi (李益) and b) I don’t care which.

Well, to annotate this regardless: Changgan was a city, now a district of downtown Nanjing, particularly associated with Yangzi river merchants and carriers. The “smoke and dust” is that of the world, or worldly affairs. The point of the months is that the Three Gorges were passable only part of the year, depending on seasonal water levels and (when heading upstream) seasonal winds. Baling is part of modern Yueyang, Hunan, downstream of the Gorges, and Xiangtan is a little upstream of that. Floating Cloud was the name of Han Emperor Wen’s horse, so a type for a really fine steed.

---L.

Descending the Zhongnan Mountains to Stay with the Hermit Husi for the Night and Feast on Wine, Li Bai

Descent at dusk down blue-green mountains—
Mountains the moon is marrying into—
Yet I look back whence came my trail:
So indistinct, dark greens are hidden.
Together we reach the fields and houses.
A houseboy opens your rough door—
In green bamboo, a hidden path,
Fresh creepers shake as clothes pass through.
With glad words fit for a place of rest
And wonderful wine, we chat and toast.
We sing for a while the “Pine Wind” song—
When done, the Starry River’s faint,
I’m drunk, and you repeatedly laugh,
Both satisfied to spurn the world.

下终南山过斛斯山人宿置酒
暮从碧山下，
山月随人归；
却顾所来径，
苍苍横翠微。
相携及田家，
童稚开荆扉；
绿竹入幽径，
青萝拂行衣。
欢言得所憩，
美酒聊共挥；
长歌吟松风，
曲尽河星稀。
我醉君复乐，
陶然共忘机。



Ghost poems are great and all, but some days, you just want to spend some time with Master Li. Zhongnan is the range to the south of Chang’an. Husi is a rare two-character surname (well, all the two-character surnames are uncommon, but this is rare even within that set). Lost in translation: they reach the fields and houses “hand in hand.” “Pine Wind” is probably the song for qin that’s usually called “Wind Through the Pines” (see also #238). The Starry River is the Milky Way, getting faint with approaching dawn.

I knew I’d run into this someday: Classical Chinese has many words for various shades of green, and Master Li worked five of the most common into this poem. Keeping them distinct while remaining graceful was, shall we say, a challenge. (He also, in two lines, uses three different words for song/sing, one of which I silently evaporated because otherwise awkward English.)

---L.

In Chongsheng Temple in Hanzhou, on Cold Food Day, there suddenly appeared a person in crimson robes and another in purple robes, shoving and striking a horse-groom before them with great vigor. Each inscribed a quatrain on the wall and departed, losing their existence.

[Red Robe:]
The festival where smoke is banned—together we travel here:
We raise up cups of twice-brewed wine between the fragrant banks.
The distant chief of the events of these ten years preceding,—
Sing out on the anxiety for his chaotic scenes.

[Purple Robe:]
Whip your horse and seek for now the start of the upper street:
The scattered blooms and scented grasses still are as before.
Families broken, nation ruined—it’s a one-time dream.
I’m melancholy once again, meeting Cold Food Day.

题壁
作者：崇圣寺鬼
〈汉州崇圣寺，寒食日，忽有朱衣一人，紫衣一人，驱殿仆马极盛，各题一绝句于壁而去，失其所在。〉
禁烟佳节同游此，
正值酴醿夹岸香。
缅首十年前往事，
强吟风景乱愁肠。 [朱衣]
策马暂寻原上路，
落花芳草尚依然。
家亡国破一场梦，
惆怅又逢寒食天。 [紫衣]

Hanzhou is part of modern Guanghan, Deyang, northern Sichuan, but I’ve not found a modern reference to its Chongsheng (“venerating the sacred”) Temple. I’ve supplied ascriptions for the two quatrains per a commentary. Cold Food Day aka Qingming is a solar calendar holiday (15 days after the spring equinox, so ~5 April) for honoring one’s dead ancestors—today, it’s often called Tomb-Sweeping Day—during which all cooking fires were extinguished and meals eaten unheated. The shadow of Du Fu stretches long (see for ex 3TP #188 and #190), especially given I’ve not a scrap of evidence of when this supposedly happened, but it’s tempting to identify the “chief” as An Lushan. Even with that idea, however, the “banks,” “upper street,” and “dream” are completely obscure to me. Identifying a historical context would defs help. Idiom: anxiety is “anxious guts.”

Fannish administrivia: I’ve nominated “Poem Thrown at Martial Duke Pei,” “Poem of Hidden Resentment,” and “Three Poems by a Ghost on a Stone Wall in Huqiu” as fandoms for Yuletide. (I’ve added them to the evidence post, given the paucity of English materials on them, but haven’t pimped them yet in the fandom promo post.)

In 778, Li Daochang was Provincial Censor in Suzhou. One day, on Mt. Huqiu outside the city walls, a certain ghost inscribed two poems on a stone wall, hidden in the upper-part. As usual for such an incident, Daochang sent a memorial to the court, asking for an imperial edict ordering a memorial ceremony. In summary, Daochang wrote: “For ten thousand ages the continuous hills didn’t alter to form another exit (from the grave?). Monarch, what kind of person might in his leisure brush such a poem? Three months of Peach-Blossom Spring, deep grasses and hanging willows. The yellow orioles, hundreds of warblings—the voices of apes sever the guts. The sound of sorrowing resentment, ah!—tears soak my headscarf. The hopes for those among the living, ah!—they engage the wise monarch.” Several days after the memorial ceremony, another poem appeared on the stones. Afterwards, on the grounds of the hill temple, (they found) there were indeed two graves, extremely lofty, with thickets dense and lush. They asked all the old men, but surprisingly they didn’t know what family (the ghost was from) or (whether) it still existed.

Two Poems

1.
In the tall pines, so many sad winds:
Soughing, soughing, clear and mournful.
South mountain shows the secret grave—
The secret grave, an empty cairn.
In vain the white sun’s bright, so bright—
It cannot shine in my long night:
Although I know the living are happy,
My spirit, how can it return?
I think of where my family is,
Their grief that tears their hearts and livers.
Their grief—what more is there to say?
Oh woe! and then again, Oh woe!

2.
Immortal Daoists can’t learn this:
Bodies empty their roaming spirits.
The white sunlight is not my dawn,
The green pine is my gate beneath.
Return, still secret and shown stay parted—
I think of children and grandchildren.
How to dispel this sad regret?
The myriad creatures go to their roots.
Pass on these words to those on earth:
Do not reject the “fragrant goblet”;
As Zhuangzi asked the skeleton,
The three joys will become false words.

Poem Found on the Stones after the Ceremony

Though secret and seen have different roads,
The past once censured and shamed my writing.
To know my hidden house of darkness:
North of the mountain, two lone graves.

Records of Spirit Communications says: “In 766, a Buddhist monk saw at night two people in white clothing go upstairs, but they unexpectedly didn’t come down. He searched but found them nowhere. The next day, there were three poems, the first poem being ‘Though secret and seen have different roads’ and so on, the second ‘Where the secret child reveals the secret solitary gentleman: In the tall pines, so many sad winds’ and so on, and the third ‘The secret solitary gentleman’s reply: Immortal Daoists can’t learn this’ and so on.” The Song Ling Collection has the two poems “Though secret and seen have different roads” and “In the tall pines, so many sad winds” as “Poems of the Secret Solitary Gentleman,” and the Chronicles is also different.

作者：虎丘石壁鬼
〈大历十三年，李道昌为苏州观察使。一日，郡城外虎丘山有鬼题诗二首，隐于石壁之上。道昌异其事，奏闻于朝，准敕令致祭。道昌为文，其略云：“万古丘陵，化无再出。君若何人，能闲诗笔。桃源三月，深草垂杨。黄莺百啭，猿声断肠。声悲怨兮泪沾巾，愿当生兮事明君。”祭后数日，再有一诗见于石。后于寺山之地，果有二坟，极高大，荆榛丛茂。询诸耆艾，竟不知何姓氏，至今犹存。〉

诗二首

其一
高松多悲风，
萧萧清且哀。
南山接幽垄，
幽垄空崔嵬。
白日徒昭昭，
不照长夜台。
虽知生者乐，
魂魄安能回。
况复念所亲，
恸哭心肝摧。
恸哭更何言，
哀哉复哀哉。

其二
神仙不可学，
形化空游魂。
白日非我朝，
青松为我门。
虽复隔幽显，
犹知念子孙。
何以遣悲惋，
万物归其根。
寄语世上人，
莫厌临芳尊。
庄生问枯骨，
三乐成虚言。

祭后见石上诗
幽明虽异路，
平昔忝攻文。
欲知潜昧处，
山北两孤坟。

〈《通幽录》云：大历初，寺僧夜见二白衣人上楼，竟不下，寻之，无所见。明日，有诗三首。第一首，幽明虽异路云云。其二，处幽子示幽独君，高松多悲风云云。其三，幽独君答，神仙不可学云云。松陵集以幽明虽异路，高松多悲风二首，为幽独君诗，神仙不可学为荅诗，与《纪事》互异〉

People, there’s like an entire novel here, or at least a novella—one that I hope answers the question of who is in the second grave. (Yuletide? Get on this STAT.) Huqiu (“tiger hill”), a little northwest of old-town Suzhou, Jiangsu, has housed Buddhist temples since the 4th century. The headnote implies the stone wall (which is the type used in buildings, not around cities—those are different words) is part of the temple complex—the endnote’s alternate account is more clear about it, but dunno how canonical that is. For Peach-Blossom Spring, see 3TP #78.

I’m struck by how, even though the poems display at least some learning, their style is relatively plain, even spare (compare the censor’s memorial to the emperor). Their one obscure part: the “fragrant goblet” is a libation of wine for the dead—that line’s basically saying don’t fear the Reaper. Added in translation: that the gate goes “beneath,” based on that phrase being used in other ghost poems. Regarding the three collections mentioned in the endnote, I got nothing. The Records of Spirit Communications is mentioned a couple times in this chapter, suggesting it is, as the title implies, a collection of ghost stories. I love the endnote’s tone of editorial exasperation, though.

Idiom issue: 幽 (yōu) is a tricky, polysemous word, covering meanings such as “hidden/secret,” “secluded/serene,” “imprisoned,” “occult/spirit-related,” “the underworld,” and “dead.” —making it a Rilly Important Word when talking about ghosts, especially in the phrases 幽显 “secret and revealed/shown” and 幽明 “secret and visible/seen,” both referring to “the dead and the living.” (Not to mention those hidden graves.) To show its consistent use, I’ve chosen here to always render it as secret except in Records of Spirit Communications, rather than shading it in context—but there’s no one right answer here.

—L.

Jiao was a provincial examinee from north of the river. While traveling between Chen and Cai, he passed a burial mound upon which were two bamboo poles, bright green and lovely, and he recited two lines of a poem but was not able to complete it. Suddenly he heard from within the burial mound this continuation. Jiao was frightened and asked who it was, but it didn’t speak again.

Jiao of Zheng:
Upon the tomb, two bamboo poles—
Wind blows them graceful, ever graceful.

Barrow Person:
Beneath lay one for a hundred years—
Through my long sleep, I was unaware.

续郑郊吟
作者：冢中人
〈郊，河北人。下第游陈蔡间，过一冢，上有竹二竿，青翠可爱，因吟诗二句，久不能续。忽闻冢中续此，郊惊问之，不复言矣。〉
冢上两竿竹，
风吹常袅袅。（郑郊）
下有百年人，
长眠不知晓。（冢中人）

Another ghost poem from CTP ch866. Zheng was a Warring State of central Henan, used generically for the region around what’s now Zhengzhou, while Chen and Cai were two neighboring Warring States/regions, in southern Henan. A provincial examinee is one who passed the middle-level imperial exams (as opposed to the higher-level imperial exams of an advanced scholar, or the lower county-level exams). Barrow might not be the best word for a Chinese burial mound, but I like the resonances here, even if I can’t call the ghost a wight. According to one dictionary, this is the first known use of 长眠, literally “long sleep,” in the idiomatic meaning of “eternal rest.”

TL;DR: “Turn that music down—and get off my lawn tomb!”

---L.

In 741, the army of Martial Duke Pei had stopped for the night. In front of his tent, the martial duke saw an armored figure, who threw him a single sheet of paper and left. The martial duke took it and saw it was merely a four-couplet poem. Greatly displeased, he immediately dropped the paper (into the fire) to become ashes, knowing full well that it was by a ghost. When he sent out his troops, (the battle) went unfavorably and the martial duke was shot under the breast, and after a little more than a month he succumbed to his injury.

We whipped and whipped lean horses through the jumbled mountain ranges.
The gathered mists reflected sunlight—daytime looked like evening.
We drove the long bridge, through the narrow pass to heavenly Han—
The perilous mountain plankway passed through lofty cloud-touching peaks.
We still recall Huaiyin—your futile “fitting stratagem.”
Again we sigh, us loyal troops, not worthy of being heard.
We rose and fell, expended on front lines, countless lives,
So don’t you boast! —the heroes here are your courageous soldiers.

掷裴武公诗
作者：介胄鬼
〈开元末，裴武公军夜宿。武公帐前，见一介胄者，掷一纸书而去。武公取视，乃四韵诗。大不悦，纸随手落为烬，信知鬼物所制也。出师大不利，武公射中臆下，病月馀薨。〉
屡策羸骖历乱峋，
丛岚映日昼如曛。
长桥驾险浮天汉，
危栈通岐触岫云。
却念淮阴空得计，
又嗟忠武不堪闻。
废兴尽系前生数，
休衒英雄勇冠军。

A ghost poem from CTP ch865, though this ghost writes with a more literary style than I’d expect from a typical conscript. There are no pronouns in the poem, so it’s just as easy to read “I” instead of “we.” The general’s title probably has a traditional/official translation, but I haven’t found it. Translation convention: I always silently convert all regnal era years to Common Era.

Tang ghost poems are the best, y’all. They get thrown at people as a “you suck!” gesture.

(Would this make a good Yuletide fandom? Yes—yes, it would.)

---L.

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.