No patience, or, this corpse is getting old.

Tonight I strolled down the street to see Adam Warrock, one of my favorite rappers. I went early enough to hear all of the three opening acts, 1.5 of which I enjoyed. What I didn't enjoy was the blathering of audience members that, in one way or another, could have been me ten to twelve years ago. I'm getting old, and bored of pretty much anything that isn't heavy metal-, literature-, or 16th century-related*. My pull list at the comic shop is halved every six months; I want to play D&D, but potential players are few and far between; being told that title X (be it a comic or game) is an awesome reiteration of something already well-established is not enough for me to spent time and money on it.

I guess I'm sick of so-called nerd culture, which in some ways resembles someone patting themselves on the back while furiously jerking off. My own interests could, and not inaccurately, be described as equally solipsistic and meaningless, and I'm cool with that. I just- I don't know. The constant appeal to the media one ingests, and the reaction thereto, seems hollow. "I like X, therefore Y", wherein X is a particular media product, and Y signifies practically nothing.

Whatever. I'm super-tired and not really fit to be picking apart media habits. Corpse out.

微臣
史大偉

*Which isn't accurate at all.

李寄斬蛇 / Li Ji Beheads the Serpent

 After seemingly endless chapters of 孟子/Mencius admonishing various rulers, I was pleased to discover that the most recent lesson in my classical Chinese textbook was an actual story. Here's the tale of Li Ji and my translation thereof. It's full of shitty traditional Chinese attitudes toward women, but if it's any consolation, there's a giant demon-snake, too.

I've made a few notes below to explain or comment upon some of the more blatantly obscure references, most (if not all) of which I didn't understand. Explanations are courtesy of Paul Rouzer, whose textbook I've been using and cannot recommend enough.

Enjoy!

微臣
史大偉



****

李寄斬蛇

東越閔中有庸嶺，高數十里。其西北隰中有大蛇，長七八丈，大十餘圍。土俗常懼，東冶都尉及屬城長吏，多有死者。祭以牛羊，故不得福。或與人夢，或下諭巫祝，欲得啗童女年十二三者。都尉令長，並共患之；然氣厲不息。共請求人家生婢子，兼有罪家女養之。至八月朝祭，送蛇穴口；蛇出，吞嚙之。累年如此，已用九女。爾時預復募索，未得其女。將樂縣李誕，家有六女，無男，其小女名寄，應募欲行，父母不聽。寄曰：「父母無相，惟生六女，無有一男，雖有如無。女無緹縈濟父母之功，既不能供養，徙費衣食，生無所益，不如早死。賣寄之身，可得少錢，以供父母，豈不善耶？」父母慈憐，終不聽去。寄自潛行，不可禁止。寄乃告請好劍及咋蛇犬。至八月朝，便詣廟中坐。懷劍，將犬。先將數石米餈，用蜜麨灌之，以置穴口。蛇便出，頭大如囷，目如二尺鏡。聞餈香氣，先啗食之。寄便放犬，犬就嚙咋，寄從後斫得數創。瘡痛急，蛇因踴出，至庭而死。寄入視穴，得九女髑髏，舉出，咤言曰：「汝曹怯弱，為蛇所食，甚可哀愍！」於是寄女緩步而歸。越王聞之，聘寄女為后，拜其父為將樂令，母及姊皆有賞賜。自是東冶無復妖邪之物。其歌謠至今存焉。

In the Min region of eastern Yue* are the Yong mountains, which are three miles high. In a crevice to the northwest which lives a giant serpent some seventy to eight feet in length and a hundred feet in circumference. Locals had always feared it, and it had killed the military commander of Dongye, as well as several high-ranking officials. Cattle and sheep were sacrificed to the serpent in the hope of receiving good fortune, but never to any avail. Sometimes the serpent would give men dreams; sometimes it would come down and inform wizards and priests that it wanted to eat virgin girls of twelve or thirteen. Magistrates and military officers all suffered from the serpent's poisonous aura.** The authorities sought out maidservants born into households*** and the daughters of criminals, and on the first day of the eighth month escorted them to the mouth of the serpent's cave. The giant snake emerged, chewed the girls up, and swallowed them.

Years passed in this manner, until nine virgins had been sacrificed. At this point in time the authorities searched for more virgins, but none were found until they came to Jiangle county. There, in the household of Li Dan, were six girls, but no boys. The youngest girl, named Ji, said that she would go and be sacrificed, but her father would not hear of it.

"Father and mother," Ji said, "you are without fortune. You have had six daughters and not a single boy; it is as if you haven't had children at all. I am not a daughter like Tiying, whose achievements rescued her parents. Since I cannot support you, and only waste clothing and food, there is no benefit to be had from my life- it would be better to die young. If by selling myself I make a few coppers to support my parents, how would that not be virtuous?"

But her parents, who loved Ji, still would not allow her to go. Ji could not be stopped, and secretly left on her own. She asked the authorities for a fine sword and a snake-biting dog. On the first day of the eighth month she visited the temple, where she sat with her sword against her chest and her dog by her side. She took several pecks of rice balls mixed with honey and roasted barley flour and placed them at the mouth of the serpent's cave. Catching the scent of the rice balls, the serpent- its head as large as a grain bin**** and its eyes like mirrors a foot across- promptly came out and ate them. Ji unleashed her dog, and it tore into the serpent as Ji dealt it several sword-blows. Severely wounded and in pain, the serpent leapt away and fled back into its cave*****, where it died.

Ji entered the cave and found the skulls of the nine virgins, which she picked up and took outside. "Because you were scared, weak things, you were eaten by the serpent. I pity you!" she scolded. Then Ji walked home at a leisurely pace.

When the king of Yue heard this, he wed Ji and made her his principal consort, appointed her father an official of Jiangle county, and handsomely rewarded her mother and sisters. Since then there have been no monsters in Dongye, and to this day the ballad of Li Ji is still sung.

 ***

(A note on the title: my original source just refers to it as 李寄, but online I found 李寄斬蛇, which explains what Li Ji did- even if the extended title is still misleading, since there's no beheading going on.)

*Present-day Fujian, which is still poetically known as Min.

**Rouzer says that the serpent has been killing people indirectly by exuding some kind of noxious fog, but as I was typing up my translation the line I use above came to me, and I liked it.

***I take this to mean "girls born into household slavery."

****Given how big this snake is, this grain bin sounds more like a damned silo- which is more in line with the modern use of 囷, but I went with Rouzer's interpretation.

*****The character used, 庭, means "main hall" or "courtyard", neither of which makes sense to me w/r/t caves, but I took it to mean that the serpent, which was outside when it was gorging on rice balls and getting its ass beat, returned from whence it came.

RIP Craig Ruggles

My friend Craig Ruggles died Sunday.

Nothing can prepare you for the death of a friend. You might, like me, think yourself a Leto II pre-sandworm/pre-precocious asshole, but it takes very few genetic errors to prove you wrong, and there's no accounting for others' genetics, which is what felled Craig.

I met Craig during the 2011 UH study abroad trip.

I thought I could write something about his sudden passing, but I can't right now. I'm sorry; I'm useless as ever, but I'll try again later.

Camilo Pessanha's "Tatuagens complicadas do meu peito:"

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been learning a little Portuguese, mainly so I can read things related to Macau. While doing just that- though I confess I can't remember if I first read it in English or Portuguese, though I think it was the latter- I learned about Camilo Pessanha, who spent most of his life in Macau. A poet, lawyer, teacher, and opium addict, Pessanha influenced Fernando Pessoa, had a great beard, and translated some things from Chinese into Portuguese. He died in 1926.

I haven't found any of Pessanha's poetry available in English anywhere, which is a shame, but it works out well for me as it forces me to read it in Portuguese. I've tried my hand at translating one of the sonnets from Clepsidra, the only volume of his poetry published in Pessanha's lifetime. I doubt I'm doing him justice, but so it goes. The English translation follows the Portuguese original (the spelling of which differs from the scanned version of the original book-- Portuguese orthography has changed over the years). Enjoy.

***

Tatuagens complicadas do meu peito:
-- Troféus, emblemas, dois leões alados...
Mais, entre corações engrinaldados,
Um enorme, soberbo, amor-perfeito...

E o meu brasão... Tem de oiro, num quartel
Vermelho, um lis; tem no outro uma donzela,
Em campo azul, de prata o corpo, aquela
Que é no meu braço como que um broquel.

Timbre: rompante, a megalomania...
Divisa: um ai, — que insiste noite e dia
Lembrando ruínas, sepulturas rasas...

Entre castelos serpes batalhantes,
E águias de negro, desfraldando as asas,
Que realça de oiro um colar de besantes!


***

Complicated tattoos on my chest:
—Trophies, emblems, two winged lions...
And, between garlanded hearts,
A huge, magnificent wild pansy.

And my coat of arms... of gold, on a
red quarter, a lily; on the other a maiden,
on a blue field, her body of silver, there
on my arm like a buckler.

My crest: megalomania rampant...
My motto: a sigh — that insists night and day upon
Recalling ruins, shallow graves...

Among castles, battling wyverns,
And black eagles spreading their wings,
 a golden necklace of bezants!

Overdue.

Keeping a diary, as well as having a dedicated notebook for poetry and scraps of fiction, appears to have rendered this blog almost unnecessary. If, of course, one leaves out the need- or perhaps the desire- to share something of one's thoughts and the goings-on of one's life with others, in which case ye olde blog isn't obsolete after all.

It's been a pretty good summer thus far. I still haven't fully quit smoking, but I've cut back drastically. I'm drinking less, too, and getting regular exercise. All that adult shit is secondary to the fact that I'm writing regularly, if not prolifically. The 16th century novel, which has been broken into its two component stories for the time being, totals over 300 pages right now, though I'm unsure if either tale has reached its midpoint yet.

I'm still pluggin' away at Chinese, classical and modern, though mainly the former. I have a number of translations I keep meaning to post here, but I'm pretty lazy about polishing them to a presentable shine. I'll get to it soon, I promise. I've also been studying Italian, which is going well. Reading Corto Maltese stories gets progressively easier, and I'm reading Dino Buzzati's novel Il deserto dei Tartari too, albeit slowly and intermittently. On top of that, I've been faking my way through some historical stuff written in Portuguese, which maybe I'll make a more sincere effort to learn in the future, seeing as how most good information about Macau is in Portuguese, and I envision Macau being a major setting in another novel when the time comes.

Tracey and I are going to Newfoundland in a few days, which is pretty rad. I'll get to meet my friend Shari, who I've known online for years, in the flesh. Perhaps I'll post here while I'm there, but don't hold your breath, because I probably won't even bring my laptop.

Other tidbits: I got a Moka pot, which makes killer coffee if you don't fuck up and put it on the stove without water in it, as I managed to do within the first fortnight. Been listening to lots of Om, Acid Mothers Temple, Adam Warrock, and Perturbator, as well as the usual steady diet of metal. Speaking of metal, I finally saw Bolt Thrower live, at Chaos in Tejas, with my brother and Matt Smith. Catching up on Wong Kar-Wai movies. Hanging out with Trump and Wizzelhoof. Drinking cold barley tea. Reading a lot.

There you have it, folks, the quiet life of yours truly. Pay a visit sometime; it's always an imaginary 16th century here these days.

To-do list, and why its contents remain undone

Y'all might know how much I love certain things: Twin Peaks, D&D, heavy metal, Herman Melville, cats, Buffy, Philip K. Dick, Community, Ezra Pound, the late '90s, classical Chinese, wood panelling, comics, cigarettes, Zen Buddhism, the X-Files, und so weiter. So, you say (if "you" exist in an alternate universe where anything I say is somehow worth more than the late-night energy it took to write it), why don't you write something about it?

Good question. Long story short: I have nothing new or interesting to add to any of the thousands, or more likely millions, of words spoken and written about those topics. I can ramble on about how much they all mean to me, but that's pretty much it.

I'm cool with that. As time passes, the less I feel compelled to foist my opinions on the world, despite the sense that the world is often in need of some taste. I'll just be here, doing whatever it is I do, and should I be needed, y'all know where to find me.

袁宏道－偶作赠方子／Yuan Hongdao- "Written by chance and presented to Master Fang"

As I blathered about a couple posts ago, classical Chinese has been an ongoing interest of mine for the past year or so. In that time I've translated a few things as part of the learning process (which will never, ever end). Yesterday I spent my afternoon with a couple textbooks, a Chinese dictionary, and Zongqi Cai's How to Read Chinese Poetry, wherein I found the following poem by Yuan Hongdao. It took a little while for me to realize that this is the same Yuan Hongdao featured so prominently in Pilgrim of the Clouds, a book of Ming Dynasty poetry and prose translated by Jonathan Chaves that I picked up some time ago and have enjoyed ever since. (It turns out that each of the poets and writers included is one of the Yuan brothers, which, given their reputation, isn't as strange as it sounds.)

I don't believe this poem is included in that volume, so, for my own benefit and that of anyone who happens to be a fan of Chinese poetry, I give you the original, my humble translation thereof, and some notes that might help clarify the references. Please don't forget that I'm just an appreciative amateur, not an expert; that said, any improper transcription of characters and/or inaccurate translation falls squarely on my shoulders.


---

偶作赠方子
袁宏道

一瓶一笠一條蓑
善操吳音與楚歌
鴛鴦頭白為情多
腰間珮玦千年物
醉後顛書十丈波
近日裁詩心轉細
每將長句學東坡

a jug, a hat, and a
     grass rain cape
I've got a good grasp on the sounds of Wu
     and songs of Chu

the wild crane's spirit is pure
     because his bones are old
the mandarin duck's head white
     for its love is plentiful

the jade pendants and rings around my waist
     will last a thousand years
when I'm drunk my brush strokes become
     hundred-foot waves

these days my mind turns to details
     when writing poetry
but as for long lines
     I learn from Dongpo

---

As I understand, and personally interpret, such things:

-The jug, hat, and rain cape are symbols of the itinerant/hermit's life- i.e., simplicity and escape from society's bonds. (This kind of association is super-common in Chinese poetry, even if the poet isn't living that kind of life, which he usually isn't.)

-The songs of Wu and Chu are folk songs of a kind. Since the poet knows them well, it implies further separation from "polite" society.

-Cranes symbolize something I don't remember, and mandarin ducks are a symbol of conjugal love.

-I read the "jade pendants and rings" bit (by the way, those "rings" are not rings per se, but a kind of torc) as the poet being a man of learning and taste who has given up that life in favor of doing as he pleases, but retains the emblems of his past.

-Dongpo is Su Shi 苏轼, AKA Su Dongpo 苏東坡, a towering figure of Song Dynasty poetry and letters. Once I read some of his work I can form an opinion, but if Yuan Hongdao digs him, odds are I will too.

---


I intend to keep finding poems or prose I like, translating it, and posting it here. I love this stuff, and I hope to pass it along in the hopes that others will feel the same deep connection.

敬祝
史大偉

Ten years!

Man, it's been ten years since my first post here. I don't have much to say about that, other than I'm glad I'm still around to see such a minor milestone. This blog has never been much more than a depository for whatever occurs to me when I sit down and log in to my account-  maybe there was a time that I thought about what I'd write, but not anymore. Sometimes I write something, save it, and come back to it later before deciding to post it or not, but that's about all.

If you've kept up with The Corpse Speaks for a while, thanks for reading. I'll try to make the next decade's worth of posts a little more interesting, but if you've stuck it out this far, well, you might as well admit that your standards are pretty low. There's no shame in that. We all have bad taste in something.

Thanks again, folks! Take it easy and listen to Black Sabbath.

Your pal,
D.A.S.

Some thoughts on 文言文/Classical Chinese

Since I wrapped up my Chinese Studies degree last May, I've been pretty terrible about keeping up with, well, Chinese studies. Modern Chinese, at least. I've been pouring a considerable amount my effort into learning classical/literary Chinese, in which what almost everything before 1911 was written. Like any language, 古文 gǔ wén, also known as 文言文 wén​yán​wén, changed over time, with pre-Han dynasty literature being more grammatically rigorous than, say, that of the Ming dynasty; if anyone ever says the language was static- a claim which is more or less understandable, since it was increasingly divorced from spoken Chinese over the centuries- they're misinformed, ignorant, or have an agenda. Not that it's very likely any of my readers will run into someone with an agenda with regard to classical Chinese, but hey, who knows?

Mind you, I'm no expert, and I never will be. As fulfilling as it is to grind my way through a passage of Sima Qian's 史記 and learn 繁體字 (traditional characters) in the process, classical Chinese is not an easy language. It's more than just a language; it's a mode of thought attuned to a world that hasn't cohabitated with ours in over a century, and I'm so far removed from its source that all I can do is hope to approximate it when I make juvenile translations of the characters I copy out. It's hard work, made even harder by the nigh-unshakeable feeling that I'm achieving nothing by focusing on a dead language.

You know what, though? Classical Chinese might be dead- and yeah, it could be stale even during its heyday; read about eight-legged essays sometime- but the myriad things expressed in the 2,000-plus years it was used aren't dead. Chinese poetry, philosophy, and fiction survive for a reason, even if modern folks like you and I can't immediately appreciate or in many cases even be aware of the parallelisms, historical context, cultural references, tone patterns, et cetera, that make it such a rich language. Via classical Chinese, a culture honed its expression of the range of human emotion and experience to just about as fine a point as any writer could hope for, and that expression can be seen, albeit imperfectly, even in translation.

I remember the first volume of Chinese poetry I ever bought- a used Penguin edition of Wang Wei's poetry- and how hard the language hit me. Since then, it's only gotten more impressive, and I'm not talking only about poetry, or what I've learned since I began studying Chinese. Being able to tackle an entire world (and imperial China constitutes a world as much as Europe until the 19th century did, if not more so) on its own linguistic terms- skewed by time/distance/culture as my understanding of those terms may be- is a privilege, and even if you never pick up a word of Chinese, you can enjoy that privilege in a different form, as I did with Wang Wei. You don't have to know Chinese to see how spot on Chinese culture is about a lot of things. I merely took a few extra steps so I could try to engage it directly. I'm not very good at it, but I suspect most people aren't- viz. the small number of really acclaimed translators from classical Chinese to English.


I study classical Chinese because it is interesting; because it contains a long tradition of thought still woefully under-represented in English (no offense to all the excellent translators over the decades); because I want to send a signal, no matter how weak, to the modern world- in both its Chinese and Western forms- that their ancestors shouldn't be ignored; because I love language(s); because I sometimes like a challenge; because I am sometimes a Taoist, sometimes a Buddhist, and always deeply indebted to both schools of thought; because I appreciate the idea, if not the practice, of the 科舉 imperial examination system; because I love Li Bai and Wang Wei and Du Fu and Han Shan and all the other great poets; because I want to read the Latin of East Asia; because I can't give in to- nor do I believe- the forces that say Mandarin alone is "real" Chinese; because you can't understand shit about now if you don't know about then.

I don't need to justify or rationalize my choice of pastimes. That's not what this is about. I like classical Chinese, and while that's enough for me, there are a thousand other, better, reasons to study it. Maybe you'll find one of your own some day, but like I said, there's no shortage of amazing stuff available to you in English. We all start somewhere.

微臣
史大偉
蛇年二月十一日

"Diversion, Temporary"

"Diversion, Temporary"

A snag in the lazy stream of the afternoon:
thorn of Portuguese Hormuz in the Ottoman side,
root-lifted slabs of any sidewalk in Houston,
dropped keys, or scripture misread-

Easily overcome and circumvented,
rendered interlude rather than coda.

Work continues apace, just as the sun shines,
archons reign, and joints pop gleefully
when brain is joined by body in movement.

As o' late...

It's all black cats, blind phone phreaks, and sandworms these days.

Which is to say that we're fostering a couple inky felines from Friends for Life, I'm reading Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell, and rereading Dune. The former book is one I've been waiting to see in print for a long while; the latter, a longtime favorite that's even more awesome this time around, which I think is the third.

Our foster cats, Trump and Littlefoot, are quite the pair. Trump likes to stay out of sight, and when he's out, he slinks like hell. Littlefoot's quite affectionate when he feels like it, which is about two or three times a day so far. They've only spent one night, so I bet they'll settle in soon. Tracey's keeping a blog about Flump and Wizzelhoof, as I call 'em (or Crump and Wiggleroot, or whatever- gotta throw out names and see what sticks, since their original monikers don't strike my fancy).

"Adieu, Knucklehead"

"Adieu, Knucklehead"


A life as rich as
and the color of
early autumn ale
underbellied with white foam
ended three nights ago,
suddenly, senselessly.

Everything she gave the world
seems gone.
Not just gone:
taken away,
leaving an empty house
and a flock of unhassled birds.

But everything she gave the world
remains. Yes, she was taken away:
no more
clawed awakenings
occupied pillows
whiskers in the window.

These human hearts can blind us
to the fact that she,
we,
all of this,
never really go, never really came;
yet those same hearts ever speak true.


in memoriam Orange Kitty, 2005-2013
(written 1.10.2013-1.11.2013)

"The sage waits without waiting."

Hey there, 2013!

I'm having trouble with my Chinese keyboard, so you're stuck with English, dear readers. I just wanted to say hello, and let you all know that since I'm only a couple months away from the 10th anniversary of this blog, I'm going to try and write more here. It's not a new year's resolution, but merely an affirmation of one of the many things I need, and want, to do.

Love all of y'all, and look forward to more of my exciting ramblings in the next three hundred sixty-odd days! (If you get tired of my silence, drop me a line, and I'll get on it. Promise.)

In the meantime, read some Ezra Pound, Li Po, and Sima Qian!