Re: "Death is often a good career move in poetry" (the first sentence of William Logan's review of Frank O'Hara's Selected)
as if FOH committed suicide
when all he did was watch the tide
drunk as in a Song Dynasty tune
trying to embrace the moon
-- DL
The following Tune of “affection and sorrow” was written by the Song dynasty poet Yan Jidao:
阮郎归
晏几道
旧香残粉似当初，人情恨不如。一春犹有数行书，秋来书更疏。
衾凤冷，枕鸳孤，愁肠待酒舒。梦魂纵有也成虚，哪堪和梦无。
Tune: Ruan Lang Gui, affection and sorrow
By Yan Jidao
My fragrance the same
as we first met
Not so your love
fading since the day you left
You write
few lines in spring
fewer words in fall.
Phoenix blanket cold
Pair pillows gone
And I alone with my sorrow and whiskey
keep hoping to find you in a vision
or a dream
though I dream less
these sleepless nights.
-- translated by Qihui Gong and David Lehman
Yan Jidao's dates are c. 1038-1110 (very approximate).
Professor Hsu Ping of San Jose University helped with these translations.
"Ruan Lang Gui" literally means "return of the lover" (or in Eileen's inspired rendering "back of the lover"). But she she wriotes, "the content of the tune doesn't necessarily correspond to the exact meaning of the title," and we have opted for "Affection and Sorrow" rather than "The Return of the Lover" in translating "Ruan Lang Gui" into English.
-- DL
长相思 李煜
一重山，两重山， 山远天高烟水寒，相思枫叶丹。
鞠花开，鞠花残， 塞雁高飞人未还，一帘风月闲。
Tune: everlasting longing
by Li Yu
translated from the Chinese by Qihui Gong with David Lehman
Distant mountains lie, row after row,
Between the high sky and the far away hills.
The cold river water flows.
The chill mist is still.
My longing for you has turned the maple leaves red.
The chrysanthemums of autumn soon wither.
The high flying geese return.
Yet you do not return from the border.
Clear moonlight and gentle breeze
do their best to console me;
in vain: my loneliness goes on and on.
*
Qihui Gong, a senior at Tsinghua University, who has chosen Eileen as her Western name, served as my interpreter on a recent Friday morning in Beijing. She writes:
"I love Chinese traditional poems, especially the 'Tune' in Song dynasty. And I've tried to put several into English last winter holiday." Li Yu, whose "everlasting longing" is among her favorites, was an emperor during the Song dynasty.
DL
