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?
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