Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

39.
These are three commentaries:
There is Gongyang’s comments,
There’s the Zuo Clan’s comments,
There is Guliang’s comments.

三传者
有公羊
有左氏
有彀梁

40.
Once the Classics are clear,
Then you study the Masters—
Pick out their major points,
Record their key ideas.

经既明
方读子
撮其要
记其事

41.
These are the five main Masters:
Xunzi and Yang Xiong,
Wang Tong styled Wenzhongzi,
Plus Laozi and Zhuangzi.

五子者
有荀杨
文中子
及老庄

42.
Classics and Masters learned,
Study the histories:
Probe genealogies
And know their ends and starts.

经子通
读诸史
考世系
知终始

• 39: Still talking about Spring and Autumn Annals, which is quite terse, and several commentaries were written in the next couple centuries; these three were the most important and are often (especially Zuo) included with the base text. • 40: “Masters” in this context means philosophers of the so-called Hundred Schools of Thought that developed during the Warring States Period. • 41: Only the five most important (after Confucius, as he’s already been covered) are picked out because there are so many. The first three Masters are Confucian, the last two Daoist. I use “styled” to indicate a courtesy name or, as here, a nickname. • 42: The genealogies are specifically of rulers, and the ends and beginnings those of dynasties—the transfer of the Mandate of Heaven being an important and tricky concept. This starts a 20-stanza speedrun of dynasties from ancient times through Song.

(Halfway through!)

---L.

31.
The Filial Classic learned
And Four Books memorized,
You may at last begin
To study the Six Classics.

孝经通
四书熟
如六经
始可读

32.
Songs, Changes, Documents,
Two Rites, and Spring and Autumn:
These comprise Six Classics
You must explain and ponder.

诗书易
礼春秋
号六经
当讲求

33.
There is the Lianshan system,
There is the Guizang system,
Zhou Changes system, too:
These three complete the Changes.

有连山
有归藏
有周易
三易详

34.
There’s Laws and Consultations,
There’s Orders and Announcements,
There’s Oaths and Royal Commands:
Profound, the Documents.

有典谟
有训诰
有誓命
书之奥

• 31: It’s weird how Classic of Filial Piety gets tossed in like an afterthought—if it’s so important, why not make it the Five Books? The Six Classics of Confucianism (usually counted as Five today—see st.35) are described in the next stanzas. • 33: In addition to what’s now the standard Classic of Changes (I Ching) attributed to the Duke of Zhou (see st.35), there were two supposedly earlier versions called the Lianshan and Guizang systems. They’re generally similar, with the main differences being the order of the trigrams and hexagrams. • 34: Classic of Documents, also called Classic of History, is a compilation of these various types of historical documents from the late Shang and Zhou Dynasties.

—L.

24.
’Tween father and child, affection;
’Tween husband and wife, submission;
The older brother, friendly;
The younger brother, polite;
The old preceding young;
Friends who come together;
A ruler who’s respectful;
Officials who are loyal:
These are the ten right conducts
Shared by every person.

父子恩
夫妇从
兄则友
弟则恭
长幼序
友与朋
君则敬
臣则忠
此十义
人所同

25.
Teachers of the untaught
Must lecture thoroughly,
Give detailed explanations,
And study every clause.

凡训蒙
须讲究
详训诂
名句读

26.
When you are a student,
Start at the beginning—
With your first lessons finished,
Proceed to the Four Books.

为学者
必有初
小学终
至四书

• 24: I count either eight or eleven correct ways of behaving here. The traditional list of ten from Classic of Rites (see st.35-36) is a father’s benevolence, a child’s filial piety, a husband’s affection, a wife’s obedience, an elder brother’s friendship, a younger brother’s respect, a colleague’s trustworthiness, a friend’s righteousness, a ruler’s respect (for his officials), and an official’s loyalty. • 26: The first lessons being how to count and read (st.11). The Four Books were foundational Confucian texts, described in the next stanzas.

---L.

17.
We speak of water, fire,
Metal, wood, and earth—
These are the five changes
Rooted in repetition.

曰水火
木金土
此五行
本乎数

18.
We speak of righteous, kind,
Proper, wise, and true:
These are the five eternals
Preventing all disorder.

曰仁义
礼智信
此五常
不容紊

19.
Sorghum, rice, and beans,
Wheat, millet, and white millet:
These are the six grains,
All things that people eat.

稻粱菽
麦黍稷
此六谷
人所食

20.
Horses, cattle, sheep,
Chickens, dogs, and pigs:
These are the six livestocks,
All things that people feed.

马牛羊
鸡犬豕
此六畜
人所饲

• 17: The traditional term “five elements” is a bad translation for 五行; “phases” is slightly better, and I sometimes use that, but “changes” comes closer to the concept of 行, which has the root sense of motion. • 18: Better (i.e. less compacted) translations of the five eternals qualities would be the noun forms “benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and integrity.”

---L.

9.
When Xiang was nine years old,
He could warm their bed:
Filial duty to parents—
This we all should grasp.

香九龄
能温席
孝于亲
所当执

10.
When Rong had but four years,
He passed on bigger pears:
Fraternal duty to elder—
It’s good to learn this first.

融四岁
能让梨
弟于长
宜先知

11.
First filial, fraternal—
Next we watch and listen:
Understand the numbers
And recognize the words.

首孝弟
次见闻
知某数
识某文

12.
The ones and then the tens,
The tens and then the hundreds,
The hundreds and the thousands,
The thousands and ten-thousands.

一而十
十而百
百而千
千而万

• 9-10: Wang Xiang and Kong Rong are exemplars of filial piety and fraternal duty. • 12: Chinese traditionally groups the digits of large numbers in fours, not threes, so ten-thousand is a natural culmination. (Anyone with experience with beginning readers will recognize the kind of passage this stanza kicks off, which continues for several stanzas. The cadences of a list can be interesting to little kids, but it’s hard to make it sing.)

—L.

Three-Character Classic
三字经

1.
People at their birth
By nature start out good:
In nature they are close—
Through habits they diverge.

人之初
性本善
性相近
習相遠

2.
If people aren’t taught,
Their natures will degrade.
The way that’s to be taught
Is “Value staying focused.”

苟不教
性乃迁
教之道
贵以专

3.
The mother of old Mencius
Chose better neighborhoods;
When her son didn’t study
She cut her shuttle from loom.

昔孟母
择邻处
子不学
断机杼

4.
That Duo Yanshan of old,
His method was correct:
He tutored his five sons,
Who all spread wide his name.

窦燕山
有义方
教五子
名俱扬

The Three-Character Classic is a late Song Dynasty pedagogical poem, used for centuries as an early reader with bonus Confucian indoctrination. It’s usually presented as one long text, but the three-character lines (it’s in verse to help with memorization) are organized into mostly four-line groups, which can readily become stanzas for ease of digesting (which I’m numbering for ease of reference). Note that in places the Chinese, steeped in 1500 years of Confucian tradition and shorthand, is way more compact than English—which means my translation sometimes strains my chosen form of three-beat lines. (Especially hard to render: 仁 “benevolence” and 义 “righteousness”.) My notes will mostly involve unpacking the shorthand and historical references. FWIW, I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this up, as there’s 86 stanzas, but ATM I’ve drafts through st.50.

Translation notes:

• 3: Mencius’s mother moved her family a few times to ensure better influences. One day when Mencius returned from school, his mother looked up from her loom and asked how far he had gotten. He answered indifferently that he was doing well enough, so she cut the thread of her shuttle. Alarmed because they lived off her weaving, he asked why she did that, and she lectured him, explaining that cutting her thread was like neglecting his studies. The admonition supposedly worked. • 4: Duo Yanshan was a minister of the Five Dynasties period of noted frugality whose sons, who he educated at home, all passed imperial exams and became officials, three of them high ministers.

---L.

Unable to repair the azure sky,
Entered for years the mortal world in vain.
These words are the account of my two lives—
Pray who’ll record and publish my odd history?

无才可去补苍天，
枉入红尘若许年。
此系身前身后事，
请谁记去作奇传？

The frame story to the novel we know as The Story of the Stone or A Dream of Red Mansions (also better but misleadingly known as The Dream of the Red Chamber)* claims that the text that follows was an inscription on a stone discarded by the goddess Nuwa when she repaired the broken sky. This verse was on the reverse of the stone.


* In Qing times, the quarters of the daughters of upperclass households were conventionally painted red on the outside, and idiomatically "red mansion" also meant a young lady herself -- such as the sort of young lady that protagonist Baoyu obsessed over.

---L.

The lilac flowers are half-scattered—
Wind’s in the pines, the night is clear.

句
作者：无名鬼
芫花半落，
松风晚清。

I mentioned these last few ghost poems get fragmentary, yeah? Case in point. FWIW, this ‘couplet’ doesn’t rhyme in the original. But more importantly:

Bruh. That’s the end. There are no more. I … yeah. Woofs. I think I need a break.

---L.

When the Wang family of Junyi buried their mother, son-in-law Pei Lang lay down drunk behind her coffin. The members of the family didn’t know this and covered her grave. When he sobered up, he saw the grain of the cypress-wood (of her coffin) and took it for (the wall of) the entrance hall. When a crowd of maidservants linked arms for a round-dance, one maid named Nonghua sang thus:

The cypress hall is newly finished—music hasn’t ended.
Turning to come, turning to go—Pei Lang is perplexed.

句
作者：秾华
〈浚仪王氏，葬其母，有婿裴郎，醉卧棺后，家人不知，遂掩其圹。酒醒，见文柏为堂，群婢连臂踏歌，一婢名秾华，歌云：〉
柏堂新成乐未央，
回来回去绕裴郎。

The former county of Junyi is part of Kaifeng, Henan. As for why the spirit medium (whose name means “lush flower”) gets attribution instead of the ghost, I can only speculate that possibly it’s the ambiguity over whether it’s the matriarch or presumably-now-dead son-in-law who’s speaking through her.

Blackest humor yet, for one of these episodes.

---L.

1.
Boat masts on the river all of a hundred feet—
Tower-tops within the mountains, twelve times over.
Upstairs the mountain monk looks down upon the river,
Points out the masts, and laughing, he then murders me.

2.
Immortals might not easily become immortal,
Yet in the mortal world, the mortals do not know.
Hand grasping his white beard, he follows both the deer—
We meet by chance, and yet he asks me what’s my name.

诗
作者：无名鬼

[其一]
江上樯竿一百尺，
山中楼台十二重。
山僧楼上望江上，
指点樯竿笑杀侬。

[其二]
仙人未必便仙去，
还在人间人不知。
手把白须从两鹿，
相逢却问姓名谁。

Here’s a pretty textual issue: the first poem is, outside of CTP, attributed to Song Dynasty poet Su Shi with the title “Inscribed on the Wall of Shuangzhu Hall,” supposedly written in 1074 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Fortunately, resolving this is outside my remit—I’m translating the CTP text and that’s that.

Not that this is an easy remit—did I mention these last few poems get cryptic?

“Feet” translates chi, which like pre-modern units of measure everywhere varied somewhat, but the modern definition is a third of a meter. The first poem’s last line is especially confusing: the original sense of 杀 was “murder/kill,” but as an adjective it could mean “savage” or even “gloomy” (so, “he laughs at gloomy me”). It’s easier in that sentence to read it as a transitive verb, but since when did poets (other than Bai Jiuyi) try to make things easy? Deer were folklorically thought to live very long lives, and so were a symbol of longevity, so Daoist interest in them is obvious. The bit about following two of them is a confusing bit of Daoist esoterica. I’m guessing at the omitted pronouns to understand (who’s chasing, who’s asking) in the last two lines, but I’m pretty sure it’s two deer being chased, not two chasers.

For your amusement, “Immortals Might Not Easily Become Immortal” is the title of this painting. Well, I’m amused, anyway.

---L.