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.