珠稱夜光
zhū chēng yè guāng
"A pearl called Ye Guang."
Unlike the name of the sword in the last entry, 夜光 makes sense on its own: it means something that shines at night.
Paar says that the story of this pearl comes from a book called 搜神記, or the Record of Searching for Spirits (my translation; my phone's dictionary calls it, in a much more modern fashion, In Search of the Supernatural), published during the 兩晋 Jin dynasty (the first one(s), from the third to fifth centuries CE): "[t]he Marquis of Sui rescued a wounded snake, who in gratitude brought him a pearl that shone brightly at night."
I don't have a problem with snakes. Like a lot of things in life, as long as they're left alone and not hassled, they're usually content to reciprocate. I especially like this snippet of a tale for demonstrating that not all snakes of yore get a bum rap, like the one in the Bible, and that everyone, even presumably busy Chinese noblemen, can do right by their fellow sentient beings. Of course, the full story may end badly, but I'm gonna leave it as it is for the time being.
Until next time, folks!
微臣
史大偉
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 13
Today the Thousand Character Classic gives us an oblique history lesson, and reminds us that all kinds of things can be used as names in Chinese.
劍號巨闕
jiàn hào jù què
"A sword named Juque."
Paar's edition of the 千字文 says that Juque was one of several famous- or, perhaps more accurately, legendary- swords made by 歐冶子 Ou Yezi during the Spring and Autumn period, of which more can be learned here. The characters that make up the sword's name are interesting in that one way of reading them together produces "massive flaw," which is not something I'd look for in a weapon. Another reading could be "gigantic watchtower," which to my ears may sound odd, but, unlike the other reading, at least tries to sell the would-be wielder of the sword on some sort of martial virtues.
It appears that the Juque sword makes an appearance in a famous Qing dynasty 武俠 wuxia novel titled either 忠烈俠義傳 (The Tale of Loyal and Upright Heroes) or 三俠五義 (Three Gallants and Five Righteous Ones). Based on the Wikipedia description of it, it sounds like a neat read, but one that's far beyond my skill and patience. Better to stick to the Thousand Character Classic and the occasional poem for now, I think.
Until next time, take it easy, dear readers.
微臣
史大偉
劍號巨闕
jiàn hào jù què
"A sword named Juque."
Paar's edition of the 千字文 says that Juque was one of several famous- or, perhaps more accurately, legendary- swords made by 歐冶子 Ou Yezi during the Spring and Autumn period, of which more can be learned here. The characters that make up the sword's name are interesting in that one way of reading them together produces "massive flaw," which is not something I'd look for in a weapon. Another reading could be "gigantic watchtower," which to my ears may sound odd, but, unlike the other reading, at least tries to sell the would-be wielder of the sword on some sort of martial virtues.
It appears that the Juque sword makes an appearance in a famous Qing dynasty 武俠 wuxia novel titled either 忠烈俠義傳 (The Tale of Loyal and Upright Heroes) or 三俠五義 (Three Gallants and Five Righteous Ones). Based on the Wikipedia description of it, it sounds like a neat read, but one that's far beyond my skill and patience. Better to stick to the Thousand Character Classic and the occasional poem for now, I think.
Until next time, take it easy, dear readers.
微臣
史大偉
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 12
Today's is a brief lesson in geology and geography, fields in which your humble Corpse is no expert (though I'm pretty good at finding places on a world map).
玉出崑岡
yù chū kūn gāng
"Jade comes from the Kunlun Mountains."
The two varieties of gemstone collectively known as jade, nephrite and jadeite, come from a number of sources, not just the Kunlun Mountains. Jadeite, for example, can be collected on the beaches of Big Sur in California, which I may or may not have done. (It's unclear because I never had the greenish rocks I collected there properly identified.) China's historical and ongoing love of jade is well-known and, in my opinion, righteous, because jade is amazing. There are a number of characters for jade of different kinds: 玉， 翠， 翡， 玖, and plenty more, but that's beyond the scope of this post.
崑 is a reference to the Kunlun Mountains that run through central Asia; their western end is in Tajikistan (Chinese: 塔吉克) and their eastern/Chinese terminus is in 青海 Qinghai province. There's also a lot of mythology surrounding 崑崙山 Kunlun Mountain, which is not necessarily related spatially to the Kunlun Mountains themselves. I leave it up to you, dear reader, to delve into this mythology on your own.
岡 means "hill" or "ridge", and thus is a metonym of sorts for 山, the usual Chinese character for "mountain."
So now you've all been given the general locations of precious stones and metals in China. If a couple thousand years' exploitation hasn't utterly exhausted these sources, which it almost certainly has, you might be in luck if you go to China seeking a fortune in gold and jade. If, you know, the locals, 仙人 immortals, or the Chinese government don't mind.
Later, dudes!
微臣
史大偉
玉出崑岡
yù chū kūn gāng
"Jade comes from the Kunlun Mountains."
The two varieties of gemstone collectively known as jade, nephrite and jadeite, come from a number of sources, not just the Kunlun Mountains. Jadeite, for example, can be collected on the beaches of Big Sur in California, which I may or may not have done. (It's unclear because I never had the greenish rocks I collected there properly identified.) China's historical and ongoing love of jade is well-known and, in my opinion, righteous, because jade is amazing. There are a number of characters for jade of different kinds: 玉， 翠， 翡， 玖, and plenty more, but that's beyond the scope of this post.
崑 is a reference to the Kunlun Mountains that run through central Asia; their western end is in Tajikistan (Chinese: 塔吉克) and their eastern/Chinese terminus is in 青海 Qinghai province. There's also a lot of mythology surrounding 崑崙山 Kunlun Mountain, which is not necessarily related spatially to the Kunlun Mountains themselves. I leave it up to you, dear reader, to delve into this mythology on your own.
岡 means "hill" or "ridge", and thus is a metonym of sorts for 山, the usual Chinese character for "mountain."
So now you've all been given the general locations of precious stones and metals in China. If a couple thousand years' exploitation hasn't utterly exhausted these sources, which it almost certainly has, you might be in luck if you go to China seeking a fortune in gold and jade. If, you know, the locals, 仙人 immortals, or the Chinese government don't mind.
Later, dudes!
微臣
史大偉
Friday, March 10, 2017
千字文 / The Thousand Character classic, part 11
Today's characters bring good news for fortune-seekers.
金生麗水
jīn shēng lì shuĭ
"The river Li bears gold."
麗 means "beautiful" or, as Kroll puts it, "beauty that is outwardly or sensually striking." In this case, paired with 水, the character for water, it refers to the Li River in 雲南 Yunnan province.
I'm much obliged to Francis Paar for pointing this out, because like seemingly every other thing I come across reading classical Chinese, it's not something I'd have guessed on my own (though this use of 水 is fairly common). Another good example is 玉箸, which appeared in my last post. It translates literally to "jade chopsticks" - it's not the usual character for chopsticks, either! - but it's used as a stand-in for tears, as well as being the name of a form of small seal script. As a literary language, Classical Chinese has no monopoly on layered meanings, but damn if it doesn't get a prize for being especially obtuse. It's enough to make a dude want to weep jade chopsticks sometimes.
And there you have it. Paar says you can pan for gold in the Li River, so go west*, young wo/man!
微臣
史大偉
*Or east. Your choice. From the USA, it usually makes more sense to go west these days.
金生麗水
jīn shēng lì shuĭ
"The river Li bears gold."
麗 means "beautiful" or, as Kroll puts it, "beauty that is outwardly or sensually striking." In this case, paired with 水, the character for water, it refers to the Li River in 雲南 Yunnan province.
I'm much obliged to Francis Paar for pointing this out, because like seemingly every other thing I come across reading classical Chinese, it's not something I'd have guessed on my own (though this use of 水 is fairly common). Another good example is 玉箸, which appeared in my last post. It translates literally to "jade chopsticks" - it's not the usual character for chopsticks, either! - but it's used as a stand-in for tears, as well as being the name of a form of small seal script. As a literary language, Classical Chinese has no monopoly on layered meanings, but damn if it doesn't get a prize for being especially obtuse. It's enough to make a dude want to weep jade chopsticks sometimes.
And there you have it. Paar says you can pan for gold in the Li River, so go west*, young wo/man!
微臣
史大偉
*Or east. Your choice. From the USA, it usually makes more sense to go west these days.
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
國際婦女節： 薛濤的"春望詞四首" / International Women's Day: Xue Tao's "Four Ways of Looking at Spring"
If I'd thought it through, I would've been better prepared to commemorate International Women's Day, which is to say I would have started work on these poems by Xue Tao a lot earlier. I hope my hasty translation does her a modicum of justice.
薛濤 Xue Tao was a Tang dynasty poet, courtesan, and, later in life, Daoist nun. Wikipedia uses the term "adept," which is probably more accurate since "nun" implies her taking on a monastic life, which doesn't seem to have been the case. A collection of her poetry, the 錦江集 or Brocade River Collection, was published in her lifetime, but apparently only part of it has survived. Her work has been translated by an inevitably more skilled hand than mine: Jeanne Larsen's Brocade River Poems: Selected Works of the Tang Dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao can be purchased here.
Xue Tao's Daoist phase strikes me as particularly interesting, and informs my translation, insofar as I opted to refrain from personalizing the poems. I think this makes for an aesthetically useful juxtaposition of the wistful romance of the poems' subject matter and the featureless nature of the Dao.
Of course, that's just me. I've included her original for anyone who reads Chinese, and I consulted Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping's version of these poems, if readers want another take on these 1200-year-old examples of poetry written by Chinese women. Enjoy!
微臣
史大偉
D.A.S.
薛濤
春望詞四首
花開不同賞，花落不同悲
欲問相思處，花開花落時
攬草結同心，將以遺知音
春愁正斷絕，春鳥複哀吟
風花日將老，佳期猶渺渺
不結同心人，空結同心草
那堪花滿枝，翻作兩相思
玉箸垂朝鏡，春風知不知
Xue Tao
"Four Ways of Looking at Spring"
1
Flowers blossom, but can't be enjoyed together
Flowers fall, but grief can't be shared
If you want to ask where love dwells
It's when flowers blossom and flowers fall
2
Gather grass and tie heart-shaped knots
Pass them on to the dearly departed
Spring sadness has just broken
Spring birds sing mournfully again
3
Blossoms on the wind, the day wanes
It's as if good times are ever more distant
If people can't bind their hearts together
It's pointless to knot grass hearts
4
How does one endure branches full of flowers?
Write a couple of love songs.
Tears fall onto the mirror
But does the spring wind know?
薛濤 Xue Tao was a Tang dynasty poet, courtesan, and, later in life, Daoist nun. Wikipedia uses the term "adept," which is probably more accurate since "nun" implies her taking on a monastic life, which doesn't seem to have been the case. A collection of her poetry, the 錦江集 or Brocade River Collection, was published in her lifetime, but apparently only part of it has survived. Her work has been translated by an inevitably more skilled hand than mine: Jeanne Larsen's Brocade River Poems: Selected Works of the Tang Dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao can be purchased here.
Xue Tao's Daoist phase strikes me as particularly interesting, and informs my translation, insofar as I opted to refrain from personalizing the poems. I think this makes for an aesthetically useful juxtaposition of the wistful romance of the poems' subject matter and the featureless nature of the Dao.
Of course, that's just me. I've included her original for anyone who reads Chinese, and I consulted Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping's version of these poems, if readers want another take on these 1200-year-old examples of poetry written by Chinese women. Enjoy!
微臣
史大偉
D.A.S.
薛濤
春望詞四首
花開不同賞，花落不同悲
欲問相思處，花開花落時
攬草結同心，將以遺知音
春愁正斷絕，春鳥複哀吟
風花日將老，佳期猶渺渺
不結同心人，空結同心草
那堪花滿枝，翻作兩相思
玉箸垂朝鏡，春風知不知
Xue Tao
"Four Ways of Looking at Spring"
1
Flowers blossom, but can't be enjoyed together
Flowers fall, but grief can't be shared
If you want to ask where love dwells
It's when flowers blossom and flowers fall
2
Gather grass and tie heart-shaped knots
Pass them on to the dearly departed
Spring sadness has just broken
Spring birds sing mournfully again
3
Blossoms on the wind, the day wanes
It's as if good times are ever more distant
If people can't bind their hearts together
It's pointless to knot grass hearts
4
How does one endure branches full of flowers?
Write a couple of love songs.
Tears fall onto the mirror
But does the spring wind know?
Monday, March 06, 2017
千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 10
露結爲霜
lù jié wéi shuāng
"Dew crystallizes and becomes frost."
I'm not nearly as clever as I thought I was, but I'm certainly as lazy as I know myself to be. If I'd bothered to read any of the brief introductory material to Paar's edition of the Thousand Character Classic, I'd have seen that it includes a brief summary of the primer, broken down into themes; the first of which is "Heaven, Earth, and Man." Oh well. At least I didn't think I'd discovered something heretofore unknown about a text that's been in use for roughly 1500 years.
Anyway, today's characters continue to deal with nature. 露 skilfully encapsulates the semantic and phonetic aspects embedded in many Chinese characters: the upper part is 雨, "rain" or "precipitation," while the lower is 路, "road," but it's the pronunciation, not the meaning, that this element lends to the entire character. I think I've mentioned before, and I'm sure I'll mention again, that knowing the semantic and phonetic content of both elements is no guarantee of parsing the whole character's meaning, even if in some cases one can do so in reverse.
結 in the second tone, as it's used here, usually means "knot" or "bind," but this can be extended in a broad sense, hence "crystallize." 爲, in addition to being a common and polyvalent character, is also written a couple different ways: 为 in its simplified form, and the traditional variant 為, which I particularly like. My Firefox pop-up Chinese dictionary, the life-savingPerapera, notes that other modern meanings for 霜 include "frosting" and "skin cream." As a result, we have a humorous alternative reading of this entry's 千字文: "Syrup binds and becomes frosting."
We've reached 40/1000 characters! 加油， 看官們!
微臣
史大偉
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