司空圖二十四詩品《高古》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 5 - "Lofty and Ancient"

Since poem #4 of the Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry was posted a while back, here's #5. It's relatively straightforward, though I'm glad I had the Giles translation available to explain a couple points. The first is the reference to 東斗 the "Eastern Dipper," which Giles says is Ursa Major, but that doesn't seem right; the Chinese call that 北斗 the Northern Dipper. The only references I've found to an Eastern Dipper involve Daoist deities associated with various stars. Since I don't know what Sikong Tu was specifically referring to, I've left the phrase as is.

The other thing that Giles' translation helped with was the reference to 黃唐 Huang and Yao. The former is the mythical Yellow Emperor, which I figured out on my own. The second character is "Tang," which at first I thought was a reference to the Tang dynasty, so Giles' reading confused me. As it turns out, another mythical emperor, 堯 Yao, is also known as 唐堯 Tang Yao, so that explains that.

太華 Taihua is 華山 Huashan, one of China's most sacred mountains, located in Shaanxi province.

See y'all next time.

微臣
史大偉

-----

高古

司空圖

畸人乘真

手把芙蓉

泛彼浩劫

窅然空蹤

月出東斗

好風相從

太華夜碧

人聞清鐘

虛佇神素

脫然畦封

黃唐在獨

落落玄宗

-----

"Lofty and Ancient"

Sikong Tu

The uncommon man pursues the Real,

lotus in hand

floating across these endless kalpas

following the trail deeper into the skies

Moon rises over the Eastern Dipper,

following the strong wind

From Mount Taihua, blue in the night,

people hear the clear bell

Emptiness awaits the pure soul

that goes beyond earthly boundaries

Huang and Yao stand alone,

ever distant, yet profound examples