Today is 清明節 the Qingming Festival, also known as the Pure Brightness Festival or, more to my taste, Tomb-Sweeping Day. Celebrated in China and overseas Chinese communities, it's a day to remember one's ancestors, clean their graves, and make offerings to them. To mark the occasion, here's my translation of one of the poems from the Song Dynasty poet 歐陽脩 Ouyang Xiu's "West Lake is Good" (西湖好) series. There's no precise title for this poem, by the way, so as usual the first line provides the name by which it's usually known. Ouyang, by the way, is one of a very few two-character 姓 xing, or family names.
Enjoy, folks, and burn some incense for your departed loved ones.
微臣
史大偉
***
清明上已西湖好
歐陽脩
清明上已西湖好
滿目繁華
爭道誰家
綠柳朱輪走鈿車
游人日暮相將去
醒醉喧嘩
路轉堤斜
直到城頭總是花
"On the Pure Brightness Festival"
Ouyang Xiu
During the Pure Brightness Festival, West Lake is good
Bountiful flowers fill one's eyes
Who would bother to speak?
Green willows and red wheels of ornamented carriages, fleeting
At sunset visitors see each other off
Sober or drunk, they make a racket
The road veers off, the dike is uneven
All the way to the city, flowers everywhere
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