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Ci are Chinese poems written as lyrics to pre-existing tunes. The same tune may have accumulated multiple ci by various authors. As with most Chinese poetry, the lines are end-stopped, but the lines are irregular in length, that is, irregular in the number of syllables to fit the tunes to which they are written. Except for their names and the particular patterns of their line lengths along with some other specified prosodic elements, these tunes have all been lost. Sort of romantic to think about--words for lost songs.
To construct my versions of these poems, I have used Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger. This book has been very valuable for my purposes. It gives the ci in their original characters, in alphabetic transliteration, in a word-for-word translation, then as a "first draft," and finally as a literary version in English.
These final literary versions are, to my mind, constructed on very odd principles. I follow Douglas Hofstadter in believing that in doing translation, one must choose which aspects of the original to attempt to hold steady and which to let slip. Yang and Metzger made the choice to hold to the original syllable length of each line, and, when necessary, to let pretty much everything else slip.
Semantic content is omitted here and added there, sometimes resulting in a poem quite different in meaning from the what the Chinese poet wrote. Not only are lines not end-stopped, they are often broken with no regard for English syntax. What they call their first draft is almost always truer to the original, and, not infrequently, a better poem in English than their polished final version.
By the way, the Yuan Dynasty was the Mongol Dynasty. The first Yuan emperor was Kublai Khan. Kublai was the emperor when Marco Polo arrived in China.
A WIFE'S LATE SPRING SONG
Red, blowing in the wind,
the fallen tung flowers.
Light fog, a willow deep in the courtyard.
Idle by the small window,
stopping my embroidery.
Layers of screens and curtains
breached by dreams of mutual longing.
--Li Chiyuan
--tune: Welcome to the Immortal Guest
[UNTITLED]
Qu's Encountering Sorrow,
who but the sun and moon
can fathom its deepest meaning?
Sadness lingers,
but the man is gone,
present only in the happiness
of fish, shrimp, and crabs
in the Xiang River.
That man's sins,
what are they
in the shadow of the green mountain?
Drink madness and sing pain,
find happiness without limit.
--Chang Yanghao
--tune: Happiness to the Wide World
Yang and Metzger note that Qu Yuan, author of a famous poem, "Encountering Sorrow," was slandered at the court of a late-Zhou king and banished despite his loyal service. Despairing, he drowned himself.
LOTUS SONG I
The lotus picker and his lotus song
pass the willows in an orchid boat,
heedless of breaking my dream
of lovers as mandarin ducks.
And how was the night?
Who climbed the river tower and lay down?
However heartbroken, don't sing
old songs of the southern dynasties.
The Records of the Grand Historian
already holds so many tears.
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
LOTUS SONG II
Lotus-gathering boats, gone from the lake.
Gentle wind, green silk gown.
One pipa tune, many lines of tears.
As I hope for your return,
mimosas bloom and fade without news--
and this evening's so cold.
Red ducks, white cranes,
don't they always fly in pairs?
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
A NEW LIFE
Since leaping from the fire pit of merit and fame,
coming to this faerie land of flowers and moonlight,
keeping these fields of good land,
watching for a while rain plowing, smoke tilling,
my heart is no longer turbulent
and every night I sleep till dawn.
Seeing Xiechuan village, chickens and dogs at peace,
green smoke rising from mulberries and hemp that ring the house.
Holding my cane, there's nowhere I can't walk.
With my eyes full of cloudy hills, my painting's never finished.
The sounds of new spring--listening with care.
Returning to the thorn gate and feeling quiet.
--Chang Yanghao
--tunes: The Twelfth Month, The Song of the People of Yao
Yang and Metzger say that Xiechuan, a small village, was once visited by Tao Qian, perhaps the greatest of the pre-Tang poets, and that Xiechuan is usually associated with peace and quiet. Actually, the whole poem follows pretty closely the outline of a well-known poem by Tao Qian:
Returning to My Country Home, No. 1
From the first, I was unsuited to society,
but I had a natural love of hills and valleys.
Still, I fell into the snare of the world.
One little slip and thirteen years were gone.
Birds in cages love their old forests.
Fish in ponds still miss their home waters.
Tilling the south field at the edge of the wild,
still just a rustic, I've returned to my farm.
Around my house are ten or so acres,
dotted with the thatch of eight or nine huts.
Elm and willow overhang the back eaves.
Peach and plum lead away from the front hall.
A distant village is faint in the haze.
Thin smoke curls from the abandoned hamlet.
A dog barks from deep in the lane.
A cock crows in the mulberry tree.
This shuttered house, still free of the dust of the world,
its empty rooms full of time and quiet.
After so long, long in a cage,
I can at last get back to nature.
--my tr.
[UNTITLED]
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 thick on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
Lamentation enters the lute.
--Bo Pu (a ci from the song chain "Tears from the Boudoir")
--tune: Mud River Dragon
[UNTITLED]
My house by Parrot Island,
home to an illiterate fisherman
in a shallow boat among the waves.
Sleeping through the smoky rain on the south river.
Waking with eyes full of green mountains.
Returning, I shake my green grass raincoat.
So I was wrong to rage at heaven,
which has made a place for me.
--Bai Ben
--tune: Parrot Song
SADNESS IN SPRING
Morning dreams are clouds.
A little rouge remains.
A little bit of tender heart hates him
for ten years without a letter to say sorry,
by the bank of the green river,
in the spring of blue grasses,
in the village of red apricots.
--Zhang Kejiu
--tune: Four Pieces of Jade
To construct my versions of these poems, I have used Fifty Songs from the Yuan by Richard F. S. Yang and Charles R. Metzger. This book has been very valuable for my purposes. It gives the ci in their original characters, in alphabetic transliteration, in a word-for-word translation, then as a "first draft," and finally as a literary version in English.
These final literary versions are, to my mind, constructed on very odd principles. I follow Douglas Hofstadter in believing that in doing translation, one must choose which aspects of the original to attempt to hold steady and which to let slip. Yang and Metzger made the choice to hold to the original syllable length of each line, and, when necessary, to let pretty much everything else slip.
Semantic content is omitted here and added there, sometimes resulting in a poem quite different in meaning from the what the Chinese poet wrote. Not only are lines not end-stopped, they are often broken with no regard for English syntax. What they call their first draft is almost always truer to the original, and, not infrequently, a better poem in English than their polished final version.
By the way, the Yuan Dynasty was the Mongol Dynasty. The first Yuan emperor was Kublai Khan. Kublai was the emperor when Marco Polo arrived in China.
A WIFE'S LATE SPRING SONG
Red, blowing in the wind,
the fallen tung flowers.
Light fog, a willow deep in the courtyard.
Idle by the small window,
stopping my embroidery.
Layers of screens and curtains
breached by dreams of mutual longing.
--Li Chiyuan
--tune: Welcome to the Immortal Guest
[UNTITLED]
Qu's Encountering Sorrow,
who but the sun and moon
can fathom its deepest meaning?
Sadness lingers,
but the man is gone,
present only in the happiness
of fish, shrimp, and crabs
in the Xiang River.
That man's sins,
what are they
in the shadow of the green mountain?
Drink madness and sing pain,
find happiness without limit.
--Chang Yanghao
--tune: Happiness to the Wide World
Yang and Metzger note that Qu Yuan, author of a famous poem, "Encountering Sorrow," was slandered at the court of a late-Zhou king and banished despite his loyal service. Despairing, he drowned himself.
LOTUS SONG I
The lotus picker and his lotus song
pass the willows in an orchid boat,
heedless of breaking my dream
of lovers as mandarin ducks.
And how was the night?
Who climbed the river tower and lay down?
However heartbroken, don't sing
old songs of the southern dynasties.
The Records of the Grand Historian
already holds so many tears.
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
LOTUS SONG II
Lotus-gathering boats, gone from the lake.
Gentle wind, green silk gown.
One pipa tune, many lines of tears.
As I hope for your return,
mimosas bloom and fade without news--
and this evening's so cold.
Red ducks, white cranes,
don't they always fly in pairs?
--Yang Guo
--tune: Little Red Peach
A NEW LIFE
Since leaping from the fire pit of merit and fame,
coming to this faerie land of flowers and moonlight,
keeping these fields of good land,
watching for a while rain plowing, smoke tilling,
my heart is no longer turbulent
and every night I sleep till dawn.
Seeing Xiechuan village, chickens and dogs at peace,
green smoke rising from mulberries and hemp that ring the house.
Holding my cane, there's nowhere I can't walk.
With my eyes full of cloudy hills, my painting's never finished.
The sounds of new spring--listening with care.
Returning to the thorn gate and feeling quiet.
--Chang Yanghao
--tunes: The Twelfth Month, The Song of the People of Yao
Yang and Metzger say that Xiechuan, a small village, was once visited by Tao Qian, perhaps the greatest of the pre-Tang poets, and that Xiechuan is usually associated with peace and quiet. Actually, the whole poem follows pretty closely the outline of a well-known poem by Tao Qian:
Returning to My Country Home, No. 1
From the first, I was unsuited to society,
but I had a natural love of hills and valleys.
Still, I fell into the snare of the world.
One little slip and thirteen years were gone.
Birds in cages love their old forests.
Fish in ponds still miss their home waters.
Tilling the south field at the edge of the wild,
still just a rustic, I've returned to my farm.
Around my house are ten or so acres,
dotted with the thatch of eight or nine huts.
Elm and willow overhang the back eaves.
Peach and plum lead away from the front hall.
A distant village is faint in the haze.
Thin smoke curls from the abandoned hamlet.
A dog barks from deep in the lane.
A cock crows in the mulberry tree.
This shuttered house, still free of the dust of the world,
its empty rooms full of time and quiet.
After so long, long in a cage,
I can at last get back to nature.
--my tr.
[UNTITLED]
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 thick on jagged rocks.
Bamboo sways across the silken window.
Evening comes on:
Sadness grows under the pestle grinding the mortar.
Lamentation enters the lute.
--Bo Pu (a ci from the song chain "Tears from the Boudoir")
--tune: Mud River Dragon
[UNTITLED]
My house by Parrot Island,
home to an illiterate fisherman
in a shallow boat among the waves.
Sleeping through the smoky rain on the south river.
Waking with eyes full of green mountains.
Returning, I shake my green grass raincoat.
So I was wrong to rage at heaven,
which has made a place for me.
--Bai Ben
--tune: Parrot Song
SADNESS IN SPRING
Morning dreams are clouds.
A little rouge remains.
A little bit of tender heart hates him
for ten years without a letter to say sorry,
by the bank of the green river,
in the spring of blue grasses,
in the village of red apricots.
--Zhang Kejiu
--tune: Four Pieces of Jade
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