Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

If a secular child attending school is taught A Thousand Poems of the Masters, he very likely will succeed at reading it aloud, so its spread has not stopped. But the editor picked up poems in passing, including clumsy works without distinction—and moreover only in the two forms of regulated verse and regulated quatrains in five and seven characters, while Tang and Song people also wrote in various forms left out by his perverse organization. Focusing on the most popular of Tang poems, I have selected the most important in each of ten types, altogether 300-plus poems, copied whole into one collection to use as a textbook in homes and private schools, so enabling a child in his studies that as an old man he will not be able to forget them—compared to A Thousand Poems of the Masters, is this not far superior? The proverb says, “Learn 300 Tang poems by heart, then even if you cannot write poems, you can still recite them.” Please use my collection to test this.

蘅塘退士原序
世俗儿童就学，即授《千家诗》，取其易于成诵，故流传不废。但其诗随手掇拾，工拙莫辨，且止五七律绝二体，而唐宋人又杂出其间，殊乖体制。因专就唐诗中脍灸人口之作，择其尤要者，每体得数十首，共三百馀首，录成一篇，为家塾课本，俾童而习之，白首亦莫能废，较《千家诗》不远胜耶？ 谚云：“熟读唐诗三百首，不会作诗也会吟”。请以是编验之。

To my surprise, the preface to this collection of classical verse is in vernacular Chinese, which made it sooo much easier to read than the preface to #93 (which I still haven't finished picking through). Most modern editions, btw, organize things into either seven or eight forms, with disagreements between seven, eight, and ten being over how to deal with folk-song-style poems.

---L.

Blue mountains piled above the northern wall,
White waters coiling east around the city:
There is but one way to depart this land,
Ten-thousand li of journey, alone, disheveled—
I think of travelers in the floating clouds
And long for my old friends in the setting sun.
Waving your hand, you yourself now go,
Your team of horses whinnying away.

送友人
青山横北郭，
白水绕东城。
此地一为别，
孤蓬万里征。
浮云游子意，
落日故人情。
挥手自兹去，
萧萧班马鸣。

If not for the title, I’d likely understand this as the speaker departing (the pronoun in l.7 is “(one)self”).

---L.

So here's an interesting example of how insufficient context can trip you up in a pro-drop language. The poem I posted yesterday has three words that indicate who the sentences are about: the first line, the action is done together; the second line, the action is done apart; and the last line, the action is done by "oneself," which often but not always means the speaker's self. All other pronouns, I had to supply. Given the alternation of we-together/we-apart of the first lines and the antithetical couplets that follow, I continued that pattern of I/you.

However, after posting, I learned that the writer had a similar position (Rectifier of Omissions) to Reminder, but with a slightly higher rank. Given that, my sixth line expressing envy of Du Fu simply cannot be right. Working backwards, then, it has to be that all those lines between all have to apply to "we" and the last line is probably also wrong.

So, a revision:

We climb vermilion stairs together
Then amethyst walls divide our duties.
Dawn court, we follow Heaven Protectors—
Nights we go home smelling of incense.
White hairs: sorrow that flowers scatter;
Clear skies: envy of birds in flight.
The court is wise, acts without fault—
I know that remonstrance is rare.

寄左省杜拾遗
联步趋丹陛，
分曹限紫微。
晓随天仗入，
暮惹御香归。
白发悲花落，
青云羡鸟飞。
圣朝无阙事，
自觉谏书稀。

---L.

At dawn I entered this old temple
As first light shone on the tall forest—
A path wound to a secluded place:
A monk’s hall deep in trees and flowers.
The mountain scene delights the birds,
The pool’s reflection empties my heart—
All kinds of noise are completely hushed
Except the bell that tolls the hour.

题破山寺后禅院
清晨入古寺，
初日照高林。
曲径通幽处，
禅房花木深。
山光悦鸟性，
潭影空人心。
万籁此俱寂，
惟馀钟磬音。

The temple is in Suzhou, Jiangsu.

---L.

By travel routes beyond blue mountains
My boat moved forward through green waters,
Tide level with the two wide banks
And wind behind my hanging sail.
Sun’s born from sea into darkest night—
The Yangzi spring starts during New Years.
Where will letters from home arrive?
Geese have returned outside Luoyang.

次北固山下
客路青山外，
行舟绿水前。
潮平两岸阔，
风正一帆悬。
海日生残夜，
江春入旧年。
乡书何处达？
归雁洛阳边。

Beigu is in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, overlooking the Yangzi in its delta. Geese were sometimes fancifully used to send letters (another thing taken up by Japanese poetics) but with them already north, they’re unavailable. The “where” is literal—we’re to understand it as “where in my travels.” And as an aside, it took more work than usual to confirm that 次 (now meaning “next” or “same as previous”) had a classical sense of “no longer move forward”; given context, a better rendering might be “Moored.”

---L.

Tenth Month, the wild geese start to fly south
And rumor has it they return to here,
Yet I go on instead of stopping now—
And when will I come once again back home?
The river’s calm, the tide begins to fall;
The forest dark, its vapors not yet broken.
One bright dawn, I shall gaze upon that town
And see plum blossoms on the mountain peak.

题大庾岭北驿
阳月南飞雁，
传闻至此回，
我行殊未已，
何日复归来？
江静潮初落，
林昏瘴不开。
明朝望乡处，
应见陇头梅。



(Hang on, I need to gaze at that picture some more.)

(Okay, there.)

The “inscribed” is understood as brushed onto a wall—there’s a lot of that sort of literary graffiti in this collection (I think of it as similar jotting in a guest-book). The range is between Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces, in the south, and tied with that the “vapors” are specifically malarial. As in Japanese, where just saying “cherry” implies specifically the blossoms, so in classical Chinese with “plum.” And, wow, that’s the first time I’ve met the modern first-person pronoun 我 in a classical text: turns out it was a first-person pronoun back then too, but I’ve no idea what register it marked.

—L.

At this gatehouse guarding three Qins,
Looking through mists towards the five ferries,
I wish you well upon your journey—
Just as, too, this official travels.
In China, we are closest friends—
At the ends of the world, we’ll still be neighbors:
Don’t just stand here at this crossroad
Handkerchief soaking like a child’s.

送杜少府之任蜀州
城阙辅三秦，
风烟望五津。
与君离别意，
同是宦游人。
海内存知己，
天涯若比邻。
无为在歧路，
儿女共沾巾。



Yes, this is a standard example of a standard genre, but I rather like it. At least, assuming I’m correctly reading the last lines as having a certain amount of asperity. The three Qins refers to how, after the Qin Dynasty was overthrown, the core territory of the former Qin Kingdom was divided into three domains, while the five ferries are crossings of the Min River near Shuzhou in modern Sichuan. Idioms: China is literally "within the seas," and ends of the world is literally "edges of the sky." Lost in translation: the first couplet is (like the obligate middle two) also antithetical, and the mist is broken up in the wind.

(Yeah, these are taking a lot longer to translate than quatrains—more than twice as long, actually. Hmm.)

---L.

Dozing in spring … not sure it’s dawn.
Everywhere I hear birds calling—
Last night, wind and rain howled.
Flowers fell, I know—how many?

春晓
春眠不觉晓，
处处闻啼鸟。
夜来风雨声，
花落知多少。

I've been poking at this one for a while, not really satisfied with my understanding or my poetry (partly driven by this post). The original version posted here was:

Sleeping in spring, I missed the dawn.
Everywhere I hear birds call—
Last night, it was the wind and rain.
Who knows how many flowers fell?

Which had more music but less art.

---L.

This caused the hearts of parents all throughout the land
To prize the birth of, not their sons, but only daughters.
They stayed in high Li Palace, entering azure clouds.
Winds bore immortal music heard both hither and yon—
Slow song and leisurely dance blent with instruments.
All day the ruler gazed, but could not get enough.

遂令天下父母心，
不重生男重生女。
骊宫高处入青云，
仙乐风飘处处闻。
缓歌慢舞凝丝竹，
尽日君王看不足。

Another installment of the high life. (Spoiler: this is about to change.) The Li palace is the same Hauqing of l.9ff. Idiom: the musical instruments are literally "silk (and) bamboo."

A branch of crimson splendor, fragrant, thick with dew—
Rain-clouds upon Mt Wu and broken hearts are in vain.
Who, I ask, in the Han palace could compare?
No, pity Feiyan, who had to use fresh makeup.

清平调之二
一枝红艳露凝香，
云雨巫山枉断肠。
借问汉宫谁得似，
可怜飞燕倚新妆。

Continuing the Yang Guifei flatterfest. The crimson branch is understood as the red flowers of a tree peony. “Rain (and) clouds” is, again, an idiom for having sex, and Mt Wu in western Hubei was reputed to be a home for beautiful fairies. Consort Zhao Feiyan (see #314) was a great beauty in the court of Han Emperor Cheng, and like the present empress consort monopolized her husband’s attention (for a time).

---L.