November 24, 2004 - 2:32 a.m.

Well, I regained my interest in Chinese poetry.
Ill be only posting here /
http://www.livejournal.com/community/chineseclassics/
for the next few weeks.

..............
I read this and lost all interest in Chinese Poetry.
This World is not Conclusion. Emily Dickinson

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond --
Invisible, as Music --
But positive, as Sound --
It beckons, and it baffles --
Philosophy -- don't know --
And through a Riddle, at the last --
Sagacity, must go --
To guess it, puzzles scholars --
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown --
Faith slips -- and laughs, and rallies --
Blushes, if any see --
Plucks at a twig of Evidence --
And asks a Vane, the way --
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit --
Strong Hallelujahs roll --
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul --


++++++++++++++++++
        饮酒                 陶潜

　　      结庐在人境，而无车马喧。 

　　      问君何能尔，心远地自偏。 

　　      采菊东篱下，悠然见南山。 

　　      山气日夕佳，飞鸟相与还。 

　　      此中有真意，欲辨已忘言。


                              Tao Qian
Drinking Wine
 Though I raised my hut in the realm of men
 It's untouched by the bustle of horse and cart.
 And you ask me how this can be so;
 With your mind faraway you yourself get detached:
 Picking chrysanthemums beside the east fence
 When I find myself gazing at southern slopes,
 A beautiful sunset through mountains where
 Flying birds join in flocks and then return home.

 In all these things there lies a great truth
 When I try to explain it the words escape me.

..........................
                      Gerard Manley Hopkins
  
  Inversnaid 
  
THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,  
His rollrock highroad roaring down,  
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam  
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.  
  
A windpuff-bonnet of f醱n-fr髏h         5 
Turns and twindles over the broth  
Of a pool so pitchblack, f閘l-fr體ning,  
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.  
  
Degged with dew, dappled with dew  
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,         10 
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,  
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.  
  
What would the world be, once bereft  
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,  
O let them be left, wildness and wet;         15 
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. 
 



  王维
  斤竹岭
   檀栾映空曲
   青翠漾涟漪
   暗入商山路
   樵人不可知
                                   Wang Wei
 Axe Bamboo Ridge
   Elm and soapberry reflect a secluded twist
   Amid lush green; eddying, stirring, flowing
   Secretly through toward Shang Mountain.
   Nobody knows - not even the woodsmen.





Maybe i was thirsty doing that, but the
first two lines read like something from an 
expensive soft drink bottle.  Read it in a 
sleazy ad. man voice.  go on.

Here's
http://www.chinese-poems.com/ww4.html
's version.  Its wrong.  According to logic, and 
this guy
http://www.jiyong.pim.cn/home/jiyong/article/93.html
The "secret - enter - shang - hill - way" refers 
to the stream, not some random path.  I think 
it "enters" the knotted bamboo and flows away 
downhill who-knows-where.  Wang Wei isnt 
standing on Shang Mountain - apparently that's a 
ledgendary mountain were some wise old guys came 
from.

"Wingceltis and goldenrain shine at the empty bend,
Fresh and green, rippling ever onward.
A secret road leads up to Shangshan hill,
Even the woodcutter does not know." 

Interestingly, the chinese poem contains three 
words in a row for "rippling".  
'Lush and green' is actually 'kingfisher green', 
but it's used so often to refer to color and 
fluttering rather than the bird itself i think 
something less exotic than 'kingfisher green' 
was needed. It indicates the color of bamboo, so 
maybe bamboo green would be better.maybe that's 
saying too much.

Is 'The woodsmen dont know' just reinforcing how 
hidden the stream is, or that the woodsmen
are below understanding the poet's intentions -
(the stream-Wangwei pushing unseen through the 
foliage aiming for this Mount Shang sagely 
mecca)?

The 'knowbody knows' is my addition.  It could 
be more like 'woodsmen cant understand'

  
  斤竹岭
  檀栾映空曲
  青翠漾涟漪
  暗入商山路
  樵人不可知


 
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