First of all, I have to apologize for misspelling the pinyin of the poet's name in my last post. I didn't misspell it in the tags, or anywhere but the first sentence, but that's bad enough. 抱歉！ I updated it with the correct spelling on April 20.
This is another poem by Xu Zhenqing, who wrote the last one we read, as well as the next one. In terms of explanatory notes, I don't have much to offer, and neither does Pessanha, who supplies all of two. It's a pretty straightforward poem, though Pessanha and I read it differently. For starters, he uses 相 as an adverb "indicating transitivity and unidirectionality of following verb, usu. replacing direct object" (per the entry for 相 in Kroll's A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese). This makes perfect sense, but I've left my initial translation, which uses 相 in the reciprocal sense, as an example of how flexible readings of poems like this can be. In one of his two notes Pessanha explains, via a Tang dynasty poem, how 沾衣 can be taken to mean "soaking one's clothes in tears." Once again, he shows that he knows this material quite well, furthering undermining the argument that Pessanha was actually ignorant of Chinese.
In the second line he refers to rain and trees that aren't explicitly mentioned. This is fine, since Chinese poetry leaves a lot to the visual imagination, but it seems unnecessary to me. The second couplet is noteworthy since a) Pessanha employs the linked-clause pattern typical to classical Chinese, and b) he makes a reference to the King of Chu's palace being in ruins. The first of these is perfectly orthodox, and reminds me yet again that I need to stop overlooking this basic pattern of usage (though I like my reading anyway); the second can be seen as extraneous or, if we take into account Pessanha's title, a detail that lends to the poem being a fantasia.
This is a point where he and I differ strongly—well, as strongly as one can differ with a dead man about a mostly moribund literary language. I'm not familiar with 思 being used as "fantasy" or "dream" or anything similar, though it's certainly not impossible. By doing so, Pessanha shifts the poem's subject matter into an imaginary mode, whereas my reading of 思 as "contemplating" makes the poem more observational or meditative. I could argue for either reading since I think they're both valid, but I tend to like stripped-down interpretations. Besides, Pessanha's version suits the poetic sensibilities demonstrated in his own work, which makes this and the other elegias chinesas worth studying.
That's it for now, y'all, so I'll bid you 再見, adeus, and catch you again soon. Enjoy the poetry!
史大偉
***
春思
徐禎卿
渺渺春江空落暉
行人相顧欲沾衣
楚王宮外千條柳
不遣飛花送客歸
***
Fantasia da Primavera
Hsu-Chên-Ch'ing
Cai o sol, no imenso horizonte, em flor, do Kiang.
Pára o viandante a olhar. A chuva, que do arvoredo ainda goteja,
vai-lhe repassando a túnica...
Oh! se dos mil chorões, à volta das ruínas do palácio real de Ch'u,
As flores soltas me fizessem cortejo, à despedida, no regresso à pátria!
***
Contemplating Spring
Xu Zhenqing
The river in springtime, distant and dim as the light fails
Travelers glance at one another, their clothes nearly soaked through
A thousand willows stand outside the King of Chu's palace
But spare no blossoms to see off this homeward-bound traveler
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