Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Zhuge’s great fame has come down through all space and all of time,
A model of a minister, revered as pure and noble.
Han split in three—a state established: plans and devious schemes—
Ten-thousand ages—empyreal: a single feather plume.
He’s scarcely any different compared with Yi and Lü—
Commander with the same chance of defeat as Xiao and Cao.
The Han throne’s fortunes had declined, were difficult to restore:
His will was staunch—his life burnt out toiling at martial tasks.

咏怀古迹 之五
诸葛大名垂宇宙，
宗臣遗像肃清高。
三分割据纡筹策，
万古云霄一羽毛。
伯仲之间见伊吕，
指挥若定失萧曹。
运移汉祚终难复，
志决身歼军务劳。

And finally (and surely you saw this coming) Du Fu takes up Zhuge Liang himself—and drops the pretense of thinking about any actual historical site. The bit about the feather is comparing him to a fabulous bird (such as a phoenix) flying high in the heavens. Idiom: scarcely any different is literally “(like) the gap between an oldest brother and a second brother.” And by way of annotating the Inevitable Historical Comparisons: • Yi Yin was a minister who helped the first Shang Dynasty king overthrow the Xia; • Lü Shang was a minister who helped the first kings of the Zhou Dynasty overthrow the Shang; • Xiao He and Cao Can were chancellors of the first Han emperor, both of whom, yes, helped him overthrow the Qin Dynasty and win the resulting civil war.

And that gets us through the Du Fu mountain range. Whew …

---L.

A host of mountains, ten-thousand chasms, all attend Mt. Jingmen.
As she grew up, that bright consort still held that hamlet dear.
Alone she left from Zitai Palace to join the northern desert—
Alone she stays in that grassy tomb facing the yellow twilight.
A painting can’t express the essence of her spring-breeze face,
That ornament married off in vain, a spirit beneath the moon.
A thousand years have passed, and still our pipas sound Hu notes:
Clearly her resentment is completely justified.

咏怀古迹 之三
群山万壑赴荆门，
生长明妃尚有村。
一去紫台连朔漠，
独留青冢向黄昏。
画图省识春风面，
环佩空归月下魂。
千载琵琶作胡语，
分明怨恨曲中论。



Wang Zhaojun, one of the Four Great Beauties, was born near Mt. Jingmen (see #101) and spent time as a minor imperial concubine of Han Emperor Yuan before being diplomatically married off to the Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire. Zitai (“amethyst terrace”) Palace was a Han imperial residence. After her husband died, she petitioned Han Emperor Cheng to return but instead was ordered to marry his brother and successor. She eventually died in the northern steppes, and a grassy mound near modern Hohhot, Inner Mongolia is still recognized as her memorial tumulus (see also #164 and #277). She is especially associated with playing the pipa (at the time, any of several lute-like instruments), and is usually depicted holding one, and songs about her have often been set to pipa accompaniment. Idiom: ornament is more fully “bracelets (and) girdle ornaments,” a metonymy for a beautiful woman.

Yeah okay, “Poetic Thoughts” it is.

---L.

Parted from home in the north and east, we meet in wind-blown dust—
We float and moor in the south and west, a gap ’tween heaven and earth—
By a tower high at these Three Gorges, we tarry days and months—
We’ve clothing from five different creeks, yet share this ‘cloudy mountain.’
The chief of this Jie-Hu affair—we couldn’t rely on him.
This traveler’s words, this time of mourning—yet I can’t continue.
That Yu Xin’s peaceful life became an excess of such sorrows,
And yet the rhapsodies of his evening years affected Jiangling.

咏怀古迹 之一
支离东北风尘际，
漂泊西南天地间。
三峡楼台淹日月，
五溪衣服共云山。
羯胡事主终无赖，
词客哀时且未还。
庾信平生最萧瑟，
暮年诗赋动江关。

First of a five-poem set, of which the 3rd and 5th were included in the first edition of 3TP and the rest added later. Poems were recited in a sort of chanted cadence. Possibly more accurate to the spirit of the title would be “Poetic Thoughts.” Possibly more accurate to the spirit of the contents would be “Historical Figures,” but that’s not what he called it. Written in 766 in Baidi.

The “five creeks” are tributaries of the upper Three Gorges. A “cloudy mountain” is a canonical residence for a Daoist hermit. The Jie were, like the Hu, a nomadic non-Han people of the northern steppes; An Lushan was actually of Turkic and Sogdian ancestry, but asking citizens of the Middle Kingdom for precision when it comes to all those barbarians outside the empire is obvs Way Too Much. An was raised from a young child within the Tang empire and followed his stepfather into the army, rising to even higher rank following several successful border campaigns, before rebelling as a power move. Yu Xin was a Liang Dynasty poet considered the last great writer of rhymed-prose rhapsodies (fu); he was held captive in Chang’an for the last 25 years of his life following the fall of Liang to the Northern Zhou—which was led by a Xianbei clan that, although sinicized for several generations, was formerly of the steppes and real Han Chinese never forgot this. Jiangling (in modern Jiangzhou, Hubei) was the capital of Liang Emperor Yuan (ruled 552-5), though it’d not been a capital for a few years by the time Yu Xin wrote “Lament of the South” in captivity.

—L.

Clear autumn—by the headquarters, the parasol tree is cold.
Alone in lodgings by the river, my wax candle slumps.
Throughout the night, a horn sounds sorrowful—I talk to myself.
Within the sky, the moon looks wonderful—but who sees it?
These times of wind-blown dust slip by—written news has stopped.
The border fort is desolate—advancing the army’s hard.
I have endured already ten full years a refugee—
Amid the roughly shifting perches, this one branch is safe.

宿府
清秋幕府井梧寒，
独宿江城蜡炬残。
永夜角声悲自语，
中天月色好谁看？
风尘荏苒音书绝，
关塞萧条行陆难。
已忍伶俜十年事，
强移栖息一枝安。

Written in 764, the tenth year since the start of the An Lushan Rebellion, while serving as a military advisor for his sponsor, the governor of Sichuan. Seven-character lines typically have a pause or break after the fifth character (so a 4-3 or 2-2-3 rhythm), but in l.3-4 it’s after the sixth (a 2-3-2 rhythm) as a sort of off-kilter syncopation—an example of Du Fu pushing the boundaries of poetic form. And then there’s the poeticism of that 中天, which would usually be 天中 —the difference between “amid the sky” and “the sky amid.”

---L.

The wind is quick, the heavens high—apes wailing mournfully.
The islet’s calm, the sands are white—birds circling around.
Eternal are the scattering trees, soughing soughing down.
Endlessly the long Yangzi rushing rushing comes.
Ten-thousand li, a downcast autumn—always I’m a guest.
A hundred years, I’ve many ills—alone I climb the terrace.
Arduous woes, bitter regrets—increasing frost in my hair.
I’m laid prostrate—there’s new delays … a cup of unstrained wine.

登高
风急天高猿啸哀，
渚清沙白鸟飞回。
无边落木萧萧下，
不尽长江滚滚来。
万里悲秋常作客，
百年多病独登台。
艰难苦恨繁霜鬓，
潦倒新停浊酒杯。

A poem written on the Double Ninth Festival, still often observed by ascending a nearby height. In the Three Gorges, apes* on the canyon walls were often heard by river travelers. The onomatopoeia for the leaves is pronounced xiao (roughly: /shyow/) in modern Mandarin, with a reconstructed Tang pronunciation of seu—“sough” is surprisingly close in both sound and sense. I like to imagine a long sigh punctuates the middle of that last line.

Regarding that comment about Du Fu’s poems being in mostly chronological order, this is one of those mostlys: this skips ahead to 767, before we drop back to 764 for the next one.

* Language neep: per this article on exactly which primate living in the Three Gorges in Tang times was called a 猿, which in modern Chinese means a gibbon or generically an ape, these were actually langurs. I’m still going to translate it as “ape” wherever possible, even though langurs are monkeys.

---L.

On the west mountains, white snow, three walled garrisons—
On the south bank, clear river, Bridge of Ten-thousand Li.
The whole world’s wind-blown dust, my younger brothers scattered—
On heaven’s edge I’m crying, by myself and distant.
Because my evening will provide me many ailments,
I’ve neither dirt nor droplet to repay the court.
I ride outside the city to eye a while the distance,
Unfit for human duties, all my days dejection.

野望
西山白雪三城戍，
南浦清江万里桥。
海内风尘诸弟隔，
天涯涕泪一身遥。
唯将迟暮供多病，
未有涓埃答圣朝。
跨马出郊时极目，
不堪人事日萧条。



Written a year after the previous in 762, while still living outside Chengdu. The peaks along the edge of the Tibetan Plateau west of the city have permanent snow-cover, and the three forts along that range were on the border with the Tibetan Empire. I translate the name of Wanli Bridge over the Jin River to bring out that the first couplet is also antithetical. Idiom: the whole world is literally “within the seas.” FWIW, he had four younger brothers, one of them also in Sichuan, the rest still scattered by the disruptions (“wind-blown dust”) of the An Lushan Rebellion.

I find it interesting that, in the final line, it’s not “I’m dejected” but “days (are) a dejected condition” —not ye standard poetic expression, that.

---L.

A repost with significant revisions after learning about the rocks, thanks to researching #182.


His exploits spread throughout the Three-Part Kingdom,
Famed for making this Eight-fold Formation.
The river flows, the rocks remain immobile—
His lasting regret: he couldn’t conquer Wu.

八阵图
功盖三分国，
名成八阵图。
江流石不转，
遗恨失吞吴。

“He” is Zhuge Liang, premier of Shu (one of the Three Kingdoms succeeding the Han Dynasty empire) who despite his legendary strategic genius, didn’t win the game of thrones because of his kings’ bad decisions. Wu was a rival kingdom, centered on the lower Yangzi.

Commentaries disagree on whether his Eightfold Formation is a battle-troop formation (the easiest reading of 阵图) or a complex rock formation. Either way, it’s called “eightfold” from supposedly being based on the bagua, the eight trigrams. The rock formation, also called Stone Sentinel Formation and Stone Sentinel Maze, was on the shore of the Yangzi near the upper end of Qutang Gorge, and was supposedly designed by Zhuge to confuse and trap pursuing Wu troops (the incident is in chapter 84 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written 750 years after Du Fu’s poem, but not Records of the Three Kingdoms, written 500 years before). (If you’ve ever met an “array” in a wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan, this is a historical root of the concept.) Until it was flooded by the Three Gorges Dam, the formation was submerged during the spring runoff but revealed when waters fell in the autumn. Given the imagery of line 3 is relevant and that Du Fu lived nearby in Baidicheng for a couple years, I’m inclined to take it as the rocks.

---L.

The inner gate and tall pavilions—mists are afterglowed.
The plums and peaches dark and shadowed—willow seeds are flying.
In what’s forbidden, faint clock bells—the residence grows late.
Within the bureaus, bird cries—functionaries are thinning out.
At dawn, swinging jade pendants converged upon the Golden Hall—
At dusk, receiving edicts, bow out the broken-patterned gate.
It’s hard: you long to serve your lord but helplessly grow old
And will, because of illness, one day loosen your court robes.

酬郭给事
洞门高阁霭馀辉，
桃李阴阴柳絮飞。
禁里疏钟官舍晚，
省中啼鸟吏人稀。
晨摇玉佩趋金殿，
夕奉天书拜琐闱。
强欲从君无那老，
将因卧病解朝衣。

Guo’s title is for someone who had access to the emperor and the power to edit edicts, and so was fairly high ranked. For lack of a specific translation, I render it generically. Idiom: the gate to the inner palace is literally a “penetrating” one. Again, Wang uses “yinyin,” but in context this seems to mean more shadowed than gloomy. All hail the wide-spectrum words. For the pendants hung from the belt, see #177. The door to the audience hall was decorated with a pattern made of fragmented lines. I am guessing at the implied pronouns in the last four lines: either “we” or “you” feels appropriate. I like how the evening images all tie together into the old age conclusion, though. Compare #119, also replying to a high-rank official.

As an aside: I aim to render seven-character lines as six-beat lines, but let them stretch to seven as needed—which can happen when the syntax is especially compressed or the poem is densely imagistic. Wang Wei’s long-line poems, I’m finding, are almost always that last, with long runs of nouns and adjectives. (Many of his five-character regulated verses also needed five beats instead of the four I aim for.) He was better known in his time as a painter than poet, and it’s commonly claimed that his poems are paintings and his paintings were poems. (None of his paintings have survived except as later copies.)

---L.

Gazing Between Spring Showers at the Pavilion Way from Penglai to Xingqing [Palaces], Respectfully Matching by Imperial Command the Emperor’s Poem, Wang Wei

The River Wei, coiled naturally around Qin Stronghold, bends.
Mt. Huanglu, wound since ancient times ’round the Han Palace, slopes.
His Highness’ carriage, which left the willows of the thousand doors,
Returned Pavilion Way to see the Upper Garden flowers.
Within the clouds, the capital city’s pair of phoenix towers—
Inside the rain, the springtime trees’ ten-thousand households—
By chariot through sunny skies go celebrate the season.
It’s not that the palace enjoys sightseeing, but the flowery things.

奉和圣制从蓬莱向兴庆阁道中留春雨中春望之作应制
渭水自萦秦塞曲，
黄山旧绕汉宫斜。
銮舆迥出千门柳，
阁道回看上苑花。
云里帝城双凤阙，
雨中春树万人家。
为乘阳气行时令，
不是宸游玩物华。

The emperor’s poem hasn’t survived, though another poem “matching” it has, by one Li Zheng, using the same rhyme words. The occasion was a sightseeing tour by Emperor Xuanzong, which puts this earlier than #178. Penglai, the legendary island of immortals in the eastern sea, is here a (highly flattering) alternate name for Daming Palace, and Xingqing (“celebrating prosperity”) was another imperial palace, connected to Daming by a boulevard. The main entrance to Daming was guarded by twin gate-towers decorated with phoenixes. Chang’an was on the south bank of the Wei, a tributary of the Yellow River, and the Qin Stronghold was the fortification on its east side. Idiom: the royal carriage is literally one pulled by horses decorated by bells used only by the emperor. The final “but” is interpretive.

Syntax of the first two lines matches the contortions of the original, a style I don’t associate with Wang Wei at all. I’m impressed, though, at how many synonyms for “imperial” he worked in.

—L.

Yan Terrace—a departure scares this traveler:
Clamoring fifes and drums—Han soldiers heading to camp.
Cold light gives birth to snow that covers ten-thousand li.
Dawn tints the waving banners raised on all three borders.
Battlefields and beacons—months of Hu attacks.
Sea-lanes and cloudy mountains both embrace Ji City.
There’s few enough officials who throw down their brushes,
But by their merit, I still want to request long tassels.

望蓟门
燕台一去客心惊，
箫鼓喧喧汉将营。
万里寒光生积雪，
三边曙色动危旌。
沙场烽火侵胡月，
海畔云山拥蓟城。
少小虽非投笔吏，
论功还欲请长缨。

Ji, located what’s now in the southwest quarter of Beijing, was the capital of the Warring States kingdom of Yan; in Tang times, renamed Fanyang (also sometimes Yuyang), it was an important frontier commandery. (Historical footnote: This was one of the commands of An Lushan, who started his 755 rebellion there. The author died ten years beforehand, so that event isn’t shading his responses.) The commandery was something of a salient, supporting operations on the empire’s borders to the east, north, and west. The “sea-lanes” are the Sea of Bohai, to the south of Hebei. The last two lines allude to incidents from Han Dynasty history: a secretary who, during an invasion, threw down his writing brush to take up the sword, and a general who, before a campaign, requested as an incentive that he be allowed to wear longer than regulation tassels on his uniform.

Just for fun, compare this to #164.

—L.