"What does it all mean?  What is the meaning of life?  What is our purpose here?  These are, in my view, the great pseudo-questions of religion and philosophy.  We need not ask them"--Sam Harris

Another Song Chain

SAD WIVES AND COURTESANS:  A Chain of Ci by Bai Pu

1.

Take out the golden hairpins.

The jade capital guest has gone.

In carefree autumn

evenings pass in pleasant idleness.

Needle and thread are put away.

The perilous tower leans alone

beyond the twelve-pearl screen.

The wind is stiff and cold.

Rain ends and sky clears.

Filling my eyes, mountains appear as if newly painted.

     --tune:  Paint the Red Lips

The meaning of "jade" here is something like "exceedingly fine," as it often is in Chinese poetry.  In the fourth ci below, "jade" is jade.  

2.

Heart-break places:
remnant sunset at the edge of heaven,
clouds at the edge of the sea.
A goose sleeps by a withered lotus.
Crows perch in distant trees.
Fallen leaves thicken on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.

Lamentation enters the lute.

     --tune:  Mud River Dragon


3.
Recalling him, crazy impulsive, beyond now the edge of heaven.
How would he know what's muttered about him here,
with his singing whip and the drunken shakes, sitting a clever new horse?
Please don't drink the Green Tower's wine
or the Xie family's tea.
Don't you remember our words when we held hands at Linqi?
     --tune:  Window-Penetrating Moon


4.
A long time leaning on the banister.
Returning to the embroidered boudoir.
Descending the dangerous tower.  Coming loose, a gold lotus shoe.
Deep courtyard, silent red gate.
Standing on the mossy terrace.  The chill penetrating thin stockings.
Counting days till his return, painting with a short jade hairpin.
Wiping away tears, wetting the scented silk kerchief.
     --tune:  Parasitic Grass


5.
Since the wild goose letters stopped,
so many divinations by tortoise shell.
Eyebrows, however freshly drawn, locked in goodbye sadness,
jade features paling.
From one festival to the next,
no arrival home.
     --tune:  The Yuanhe Song

"Wild goose letters" are letters eagerly awaited.  Sometimes there is a particular person who is the wild goose carrying the letters.  The ancient Chinese practiced divination by reading the cracks in a tortoise shell exposed to fire.


6.
So few happy meetings.
So much sorrow.
Feelings confused as tangled hemp.
Wandering down to the east fence.
Sighing, sorry for myself.
So clear, so cold, a yellow flower facing the moon.
     --tune:  Charm While Mounting the Horse

An English Version of a Song Chain

AUTUMN:  A Song Chain by Ma Zhiyuan

1.

A hundred years in a butterfly's dream.

Look back and lament the past.

Spring comes today.

Flowers fade tomorrow.

The night's deep. The lamp's out.  Down three cups of wine.

     --tune:  Running a Boat at Night

I'm very tempted to go with "Pound three cups of wine."  I generally try to avoid slang that would wrongly place a line chronologically or geographically and use instead more or less neutral literary diction.  But the literal translation is, "Hurriedly punish cups."  I'll decide after I put back a few beers.

2.

Recall the palaces of Qin and Han.

All come down to grass, fields of cows and sheep.

No wonder

fishermen and woodsmen are wordless.

Tombs stand in wilderness.

Monuments lie broken.

Who can tell dragons from snakes?

     --tune:  Evergreen Tree Song




3.
Thrown into fox paths and hare caves,
how many heroes?
Strong legs, the tripod, but broken at the waist.
Wei-Jin?
     --tune:  Celebrating the Yuan He


I'm not sure that I really understand this part.  I include it only to make the whole chain of ci complete.  The tripod was an common form for ancient Chinese pots, often with three stubby, hollow, pointed legs that are of a piece with the body of the pot.  Looking at some picture, I could see perhaps that the pot above the small legs could be construed as lower body missing the part above the waist.  

4.

So Heaven makes you rich--

don't be profligate.

Good days and fine nights aren't forever.

Rich families' sons,

your hearts more and like iron,

wind and moon missing from your painted halls.

     --tune:  Plum-Falling Wind




5.
Before me again, the red sun slanting west,
fast as a downhill carriage.
Not resisting the mirror that holds more snow white hair.
Going to bed, departing my shoes.
Don't laugh at the owl's ungainly nest.
Muddled, I'd been playing dumb.
     --tune:  Wind Entering the Pines 

6.

Profit and name are gone.

Right and wrong have come to nothing.

No one kicks up red dust at my front gate.

A green tree roofs the corner of the room.

Blue mountains fill the cracks at the top of the wall.

And there is a bamboo fence and a grass hut.

     --tune:  Plucking Can't Harm It




7.
Crickets chirp through a long, peaceful sleep.
Roosters crow--the ten thousand things go on and on.
Will there be a year when this will end?
Look:  ants massing, arraying themselves for battle,
bees frantically brewing honey,
flies desperately fighting for blood.

In Lord Bei's Green Field Hall,
in Magistrate Dao's White Lotus Lodge,
I love the things of the coming autumn:
with dew, picking the yellow flowers,
with frost, parceling out the purple crabs.
Warm the wine over burning red leaves.
Think of the shallow cup of our lives--
how many autumn festivals can we enjoy?
If anyone asks after me, remember my boy,
should Beihai himself come to visit,
tell him that Dungli is already drunk.
     --tune:  Feast at the Departing Pavilion


Beihai was a person of the late Han dynasty known for his hospitality, particularly for the food and drink he provided.  Dungli was the courtesy name of the author Ma Zhiyuan.  A courtesy name was taken or given at the age of twenty as a sign of adulthood.


My source for constructing my English versions of these connected ci has again been Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger.