Li Shangyin: My Translations to English

THE CICADA


In the first place,
however refined you are
and able to live on wind and dew,
they will never satisfy your hunger.
So why keep up your bitter cry?
By the fifth hour
your voice is weak and hoarse
in the green, indifferent tree.
I'm just a minor functionary,
a drifting twig.
And the old fields at home
lie wasted and full of weeds.
So thank you for reminding me 
that my family has a long history
of pure character.




THOUGHTS IN THE COLD


My guests have all gone,
the river rises to my doorstep,
cicadas cease whirring,
branches fill with dew:
a time when you fill my heart,
the time that passes while I stand
still beneath the Big Dipper,
as distant as spring.
Here beyond the edge
of your Nanjing sky
no messenger comes.
I am left with only
my dreams to divine
if you've found a new friend.




SIX "UNTITLED" LOVE POEMS


Your coming was an empty promise.
     Your going was without a trace.
At the fifth bell,
     moonlight slanted across the tower
as I wakened from despairing dreams,
     my cries not calling you back.
These pale words, this hasty letter,
     written before the ink could thicken.
One candle lights half the quilt
     with the kingfisher in a golden cage.
A faint scent of musk
     lingers on the embroidered lotus curtain.
Young Master Liu
     raged at the distance to the faerie hill.
But you are ten thousand mountains,
     ten thousand ranges farther.

Sighs of the east wind bringing fine rain.
Faint thunder from beyond the lotus pond.
Incense seeps through the jaw of the golden toad lock.
Water comes up on the silk of the jade tiger winch.
Jia's daughter peeped through the screen at Han the young clerk.
Princess Mi left her pillow for the poet prince of Wei.
Spring heart, don't contend with flowers for opening.
One inch of burning passion makes one inch of ash.

A few comments on interpretation:  Some say the "faint thunder" should be taken as the sound of carriage wheels--a lover leaving or not stopping.  Possible, but I don't see any evidence in the text for it.  The lock is an ornamental one that latches by closing the toad's mouth.  The jade tiger is a decoration on a pulley or winch over a well.  For clarity, I was going to go with "rope" rather than "silk," but I read that "silk" in conjunction with the "incense" of the preceding line is suggestive of sex or romance.  And then the 5th and 6th lines each refer to a story of illicit love. The image in the last line is probably of an incense stick that does not diminish in length as the incense burns away.  

Phoenix tails, folds of fragrant silk.

Green canopy, a late night tryst.

Her fan hides the moon, but not her shame.

A carriage thunders off, closed to words.

Silence and emptiness, gold embers, dark ashes.

Nothing left but the red pomegranate wine.

A piebald horse still tied to a hanging willow.

And from where in the southwest may a sweet breeze blow?

Meeting is hard and parting is harder.
The east wind slackens and flowers wither.
The spring silk worm spins silk till it dies.
The wax candle sheds tears till it'd ash.
Morning mirror, fretting over disordered hair.
Midnight chanting, not feeling the cold.
Penglai, the faerie mountain, is somewhere near.
Bluebird, would you spy it out for me?

Alt:  The spring silk worm spins till it dies.
       The wax candle weeps till it's ash.
   
        Penglai, her faerie mountain, can't be far.

      

Miss No Worries' rooms, hung with heavy curtains.
Lying in her bed through the long, quiet night.
Sleeping with the Goddess, that's just a dream.
Courting the little maiden, that's not me either.
Wind and waves flatten the water chestnut stems.
Moon and dew sweeten scentless cassia leaves.
Love, be it little but lovesickness,
I'm mad for its fevered clarity.




Under last night's stars, among last night's winds,
west painted chamber, East Cassia Hall.
Bodies have no brightly flashing phoenix wings to fly together.
Hearts have a magic tie like the single line down a rhino horn.
At the table, playing pass the hook, drinking warm spring wine.
Split into teams, guessing which hand, all red in candlelight.
And then came the summons to duty of rolling drums.
My horse and I, chaff blowing toward the Orchid Terrace.


In my reading, lines one and two and five through eight carry the narrative of a gathering of friends drinking and playing party games the previous night and then of Li's being called away to his government duties in the Orchid Terrace where his office was located.  His lover was presumably in the group of friends he had to leave.  It is common in lushi, eight-line regulated verse, for one or both of the middle two couplets to say something philosophical or symbolic rather than give details of the specific scene or event that the poem is about.  That is the function here of the second couplet, lines three and four. According to L.C. Wang, there is supposedly an unbroken line from tip to base on a rhinoceros horn that symbolizes an unbreakable bond between distant lovers.




In the heading for this post I have "untitled" in quotes because the poems actually do have titles. Each is titled "No Title."

    

      

Li Shangyin's "Untitled" Love Poems

Your coming was an empty promise.
     Your going was without a trace.
At the fifth bell,
     moonlight slanted across the tower
as I wakened from despairing dreams,
     my cries not calling you back.
These pale words, this hasty letter,
     written before the ink could thicken.
One candle lights half the quilt
     with the kingfisher in a golden cage.
A faint scent of musk
     lingers on the embroidered lotus curtain.
Young Master Liu
     raged at the distance to the faerie hill.
But you are ten thousand mountains,
     ten thousand ranges farther.







Sighs of the east wind bringing fine rain.
Faint thunder from beyond the lotus pond.
Incense seeps through the jaw of the golden toad lock.
Water comes up on the silk of the jade tiger winch.
Jia's daughter peeped through the screen at Han the young clerk.
Princess Mi left her pillow for the poet prince of Wei.
Spring heart, don't contend with flowers for opening.
One inch of burning passion makes one inch of ash.

A few comments on interpretation:  Some say the "faint thunder" should be taken as the sound of carriage wheels--a lover leaving or not stopping.  Possible, but I don't see any evidence in the text for it.  The lock is an ornamental one that latches by closing the toad's mouth.  The jade tiger is a decoration on a pulley or winch over a well.  For clarity, I was going to go with "rope" rather than "silk," but I read that "silk" in conjunction with the "incense" of the preceding line is suggestive of sex or romance.  And then the 5th and 6th lines each refer to a story of illicit love. The image in the last line is probably of an incense stick that does not diminish in length as the incense burns away.  

Phoenix tails, folds of fragrant silk.

Green canopy, a late night tryst.

Her fan hides the moon, but not her shame.

A carriage thunders off, closed to words.

Silence and emptiness, gold embers, dark ashes.

Nothing left but the red pomegranate wine.

A piebald horse still tied to a hanging willow.

And from where in the southwest may a sweet breeze blow?

Meeting is hard and parting is harder.
The east wind slackens and flowers wither.
The spring silk worm spins silk till it dies.
The wax candle sheds tears till it'd ash.
Morning mirror, fretting over disordered hair.
Midnight chanting, not feeling the cold.
Penglai, the faerie mountain, is somewhere near.
Bluebird, would you spy it out for me?

Alt:  The spring silk worm spins till it dies.
       The wax candle weeps till it's ash.
     
        Penglai, her faerie mountain, can't be far.

      

Miss No Worries' rooms, hung with heavy curtains.
Lying in her bed through the long, quiet night.
Sleeping with the Goddess, that's just a dream.
Courting the little maiden, that's not me either.
Wind and waves flatten the water chestnut stems.
Moon and dew sweeten scentless cassia leaves.
Love, be it little but lovesickness,
I'm mad for its fevered clarity.




Under last night's stars, among last night's winds,
west painted chamber, East Cassia Hall.
Bodies have no brightly flashing phoenix wings to fly together.
Hearts have a magic tie like the single line down a rhino horn.
At the table, playing pass the hook, drinking warm spring wine.
Split into teams, guessing which hand, all red in candlelight.
And then came the summons to duty of rolling drums.
My horse and I, chaff blowing toward the Orchid Terrace.


In my reading, lines one and two and five through eight carry the narrative of a gathering of friends drinking and playing party games the previous night and then of Li's being called away to his government duties in the Orchid Terrace where his office was located.  His lover was presumably in the group of friends he had to leave.  It is common in lushi, eight-line regulated verse, for one or both of the middle two couplets to say something philosophical or symbolic rather than give details of the specific scene or event that the poem is about.  That is the function here of the second couplet, lines three and four. According to L.C. Wang, there is supposedly an unbroken line from tip to base on a rhinoceras horn that symbolizes an unbreakable bond between distant lovers.




In the heading for this post I have "untitled" in quotes because the poems actually do have titles.  Each is titled "No Title."