Two More from Wang Wei's Wang River Sequence

HOUSE OF GRAINY APRICOT WOOD


Beams cut from apricot wood.
Roof woven with fragrant reeds.
Do clouds beneath the ridgepole
float off to rain upon men?





CORNEL GROVE


Their berries are both red and green
as if the trees were blooming still.
Should a guest linger on the hill,
set out a cup of cornel wine.


I found this poem confusing in both the literal and literary translations that I found, so I did a little research on what a cornel might be.  Some translations have "dogwood" in both the title and last line, some "cornel" in both, and some "dogwood" in one place and "cornel" in the other.  Sometimes "dogwood" and "cornel" seem to be referring to the same thing and sometimes a cornel seems to be some structure that is part of a dogwood tree.  I found that the genus name for all species of dogwood is "cornus," and so a dogwood tree can also be called a cornel.  The fruits of the dogwood are sometimes called cornelian cherries.  One problem was that initially I found references to only American, European, and West Asian dogwoods.  But eventually I found a discussion of an East Asian dogwood, "cornus kousa."  It flowers throughout the summer and produces a sweet red berry that can be made into wine.

With this information, then, I thought I could make sense of the poem.  Because the tree blooms over a long period, it would naturally have red and green--ripe and unripe--fruit and pretty flowers all at the same time.  Following on this notion, at first I wanted to translate the second line "and still the trees are flowering," but every source I've found agrees that there's something in the second line that should be translated "as if."  So perhaps it more likely means that the berries make the tree so colorful that it looks from a distance like it were still flowering.  Which is why I settled on "as if the trees were blooming still."  Looking at other versions, I have a feeling that the translators weren't really sure what "dogwood cup" or "cornel cup" in the original Chinese should mean.  My best guess is that it refers to a cup of cornelian cherry wine.  So for clarity in my own cultural context I added the word "wine" which is not there explicitly in the Chinese.

One More from The Wang River Sequence

MAGNOLIA ENCLOSURE


Autumn hills gather waning light.
Back and forth, birds chase through the air.
All things green are suddenly bright.
At sunset, mists are here, then there.
     --Wang Wei

Beginning to Translate Wang Wei's Wang River Sequence

The Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei and his friend Pei Di wrote a series of paired quatrains about twenty sites on Wang's estate near the Wang River. (This "wang" is a different word, written with a different character, than the poet's name.) I would like to make my version of all of these forty poems, commonly called "The Wang River Sequence." The majority of Wang's contributions are pretty readily available in some form I can work on. But those of Pei Di, the less-celebrated poet, are quite scarce. 




XINYI VILLAGE


Limbs, branches, hibiscus flowers.
Throughout the hills, their red calyces.
House by the stream, stillness, and no one.
All around, all blooming and falling.




RILL BY THE HOUSE OF THE LUANS


Hard wind blows through autumn rain.
Shallow rills flow over rocks.
Water beads splash against each other.
White egret starts, then settles back.

DEER FENCE

Empty Mountain.
Seeing no one.
Hearing someone's
echoing voice.
The late day sun
enters again
the deep forest,
shining once more
on the green moss.

 BAMBOO GROVE

Picking out tunes on my lute,
whistling a bit of something,
I sit here in so much light,
alone and facing the moon.

More Translations of Rumi

1135 UT


Like a charmed snake, I'm twisting and turning.
Like a lock of the beloved's hair, I'm twisting and turning.
What kind of writhing this is, I swear I don't know.
But I know I'm nothing without twisting and turning.




656 AK


Like the River Oxus is the lover's heart's blood.
And the lover himself is froth on that flood.
Your body is a wheel and love is its water.
Can a mill wheel turn without water?

Two Quatrains By Rumi

1784UT


How cruel to play a tanboor for the deaf,
to lodge Joseph with the blind,
to put sugar in the mouth of nausea
or a nymph in the bed of impotence.




1082AK


For a while I dwelt among men,
never catching scent of grace or tint of kindness.
So I made myself hidden again,
water in iron, fire in stone.