Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

We sweep the courtyard clean, and then the Gold Hall opens;
Holding our round fans, we pace back and forth.
My jade face isn’t even worth a jackdaw’s mug—
For that one can at least reach where the clear sun comes.

长信怨
奉帚平明金殿开，
且将团扇共徘徊。
玉颜不及寒鸦色，
犹带昭阳日影来。

This incorporates quotations from poems by Zhao Feiyan, a consort of Han Emperor Cheng, who though a great beauty of the imperial harem fell out of favor through court intrigue. The speaker is, like her, an imperial concubine and sunlight stands for the emperor’s favor. I render the first two lines as “we” because the pacing is done “together.”

---L.

The distant Yellow River. Above, a gap in white clouds.
A single line of lonely wall in towering mountains.
A Qiang flute—who’s complaining with that willow song?
The spring winds still aren’t blowing through the Jade Gate Pass.

出塞
黄河远上白云间，
一片孤城万仞山。
羌笛何须怨杨柳，
春风不度玉门关。

This is also known as "Liangzhou Song" (that being a garrison in central Gansu), and was originally the first of a two-poem sequence. The mountains are literally "10,000 ren" or about 80,000 feet high. The Qiang are a non-Han people now mainly living in northern Sichuan but formerly ranging into Gansu and Qinghai provinces; the flute associated with them is a transverse bamboo model. The song is a popular one about parting in springtime. Jade Gate Pass in western Gansu (see #277) was where the Silk Road passed around the far western end of the Great Wall.

---L.

The Qin had that bright moon, the Han had this frontier—
Ten-thousand li in length but soldiers don’t return.
If only the Dragon City’s Flying General were here:
He’d not permit Hu horses to come across the Yin Mountains.

出塞
秦时明月汉时关，
万里长征人未还。
但使龙城飞将在，
不教胡马渡阴山。

The Great Wall is conventionally described as 10,000 li (3000 miles) long, and the Yin Mountains are in what’s now Inner Mongolia. The Flying General was Li Guang (d.119 BCE), who won several important defensive victories against the feared Xiongnu steppe nomads.

---L.

The moon’s just visible, the autumn dew is sparse—
Light silk’s too thin but I have not put on more clothes.
Night deepens, I continue playing my silver zheng:
Heart fears that empty room—I cannot bear to return.

秋夜曲
桂魄初生秋露微，
轻罗已薄未更衣。
银筝夜久殷勤弄，
心怯空房不忍归。

A zheng is a zither with movable bridges (like a koto). Lost in translation: it’s literally the “cassia [on the moon] ’s soul” that’s just visible—basically a poeticism for the moon itself.

—L.

It’s almost Cold Food Day: the plants grow lush in the rain.
The wind blows through the wheat-sprouts, willows lean on the dyke.
Same as ever: returning home without success.
O cuckoo, stop your weeping here beside my ear.

杂诗
尽寒食雨草萋萋，
著麦苗风柳映堤。
等是有家归未得，
杜鹃休向耳边啼。

Cold Food Day (so called because all household fires are put out) is the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day.

—L.

In cold spring he bestowed her bathing in Huaqing Pool:
The waters of the hot-spring slid off smooth white skin,
The servants helped her rise up, languid without strength—
And it was then she first received imperial favor.
Cloud hair, a flower face, a golden hairpin swaying,
Within the warmth of lotus screens she passed spring nights—
Spring nights that were bitterly short: the sun rose high,
And then her lord did not attend his morning court.
She sought to please him, served at banquets, never idle:
In spring, she chased spring pleasures—night, she took all nights.

春寒赐浴华清池，
温泉水滑洗凝脂。
侍儿扶起娇无力，
始是新承恩泽时。
云鬓花颜金步摇，
芙蓉帐暖度春宵。
春宵苦短日高起，
从此君王不早朝。
承欢侍宴无闲暇，
春从春游夜专夜。

Another installment. Hauqing (“elegant clarity”) palace on Mt. Li, 15 miles east of Chang'an, was built as an imperial resort on the hot-springs there (the pool Yang Guifei supposedly used still exists). Idioms: the smooth white skin is literally “congealed fat,” which is a compliment, and the hairpin is the type with danglies on the end that's called a “walk-sway.”

---L.

The river rain is heavy on level river grasses.
Six Dynasties are like a dream—bird calls in sky.
The most unfeeling is this willow in Taicheng.
Unchanging mist still covers the three miles of dyke.

金陵图
江雨霏霏江草齐，
六朝如梦鸟空啼。
无情最是台城柳，
依旧烟笼十里堤。

The Six Dynasties were, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period between the Han and Sui empires, the southern ones all having their capital at what’s now Nanjing. Taicheng (which is an alternate title in some editions) was the imperial palace for most of the six. The 3 miles (5 km) is literally 10 li.

—L.

Xuanzong returns by horse, his Yang-fei dead—
Their rain clouds won’t be forgotten in days ahead.
Thus the enlightened son of heaven ends it:
Who would repeat the Jingyang Palace well?

马嵬坡
玄宗回马杨妃死，
云雨难忘日月新。
终是圣明天子事，
景阳宫井又何人。

It’s Yang Guifei again: Mawei (“horse-lofty”) is where she was beheaded by Xuanzong’s bodyguards as they fled Chang’an ahead of its capture by her adoptive son, the rebel general An Lushan. The last emperor of the Chen Dynasty, as the victorious Sui armies closed in, hid in a palace well with his two favorite concubines.

The second line was hard to render effectively: “clouds (and) rain” is idiomatically marital (or at least sexual) bliss, and the days ahead is literally “new suns (and) moons.”

—L.

The candle’s shadows deepen on the mica screen—
The River of Stars slowly lowers, the Dawn Star sinks.
Chang’e surely regrets stealing the potion of life:
Green skies, blue seas, night after night in her heart.

嫦娥
云母屏风烛影深，
长河渐落晓星沈。
嫦娥应悔偷灵药，
碧海青天夜夜心。

Chang’e stole the potion of immortality (given to her husband) and fled to the moon, where she remained exiled as the moon goddess.

—L.

A moonlit scene within Chang’an:
All houses, sounding with beating clothes.
Autumn winds blow endlessly—
Always longings for Jade Gate Pass.
When will they defeat the barbarian Hu
And, husband, you finish your tour of duty?

子夜四时歌秋歌
长安一片月，
万户擣衣声；
秋风吹不尽，
总是玉关情。
何日平胡虏？
良人罢远征。

Summer clothes were washed in the first cold days of autumn before putting them away for winter—the sound of the beating is a poetic symbol of autumn. We previously met the frontier posting of Jade Gate Pass (where the Silk Road passed through the Great Wall in western Gansu) in #277. The Hu were a people northwest of the central empire, and the name was also used for any non-Han peoples to the north or west.

(Textual note: This was the only one of the four included in the original 310-poem edition of 300 Tang Poems -- the others were added later by other editors.)

---L.