The Tang Dynasy was a golden age of culture in China. Poetry was especially esteemed. Some of the very best from that era was gathered into a famous anthology, The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems. If you click on the title ofthis post, you'll be directed to an online version. Below is #22. Enjoy.
Five-character-ancient-verse
Qiu Wei
AFTER MISSING THE RECLUSE ON THE WESTERN MOUNTAIN
Qiu Wei
AFTER MISSING THE RECLUSE ON THE WESTERN MOUNTAIN
To your hermitage here on the top of the mountain
I have climbed, without stopping, these ten miles.
I have knocked at your door, and no one answered;
I have peeped into your room, at your seat beside the table.
Perhaps you are out riding in your canopied chair,
Or fishing, more likely, in some autumn pool.
Sorry though I am to be missing you,
You have become my meditation --
The beauty of your grasses, fresh with rain,
And close beside your window the music of your pines.
I take into my being all that I see and hear,
Soothing my senses, quieting my heart;
And though there be neither host nor guest,
Have I not reasoned a visit complete?
...After enough, I have gone down the mountain.
Why should I wait for you any longer?
l love the Tang poem.
ReplyDeletethe copper chimes
oblivious to my appreciation of them
sing prettily with the wind regardless
can you tell that the wind is blowing this evening and the copper chimes are singing prettily with it?
ReplyDeleteI've got an August 1951 edition of 'The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, Being Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang Dynasty, 618-906' , translated by Witter Bynner, from the texts of Kiang Kang-Hu.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites is Cooler Weather
Her jade-green alcove curtained thick with silk,
Her vermillion screen with its pattern of flowers,
Her eight-foot dragon-beard mat and her quilt brocaded in squares
Are ready now for nights that are neither warm nor cold.
--Han Wu
Witter Bynner has been critized for not being entirely accurate with his translations, while at the same time being applauded for capturing the feeling the original text would evoke to a native reader. It seems like a reasonable trade to me.
ReplyDelete