Thursday, July 09, 2020

司空圖二十四詩品《清奇》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry, 16 - "Clear and Wondrous"


This poem marks 2/3 of the way through Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poetry. This one stands out a bit because it directly refers to another person: 可人, which I've rendered as "beloved" but could also be someone with a good personality or gifted in some way (qualities one might hope to see in one's beloved, naturally). However you choose to read it, the description of this person as "like jade" buttresses their value to the speaker, and/or gives readers a hint as to the person's appearance—the sort of jade usually referenced in Chinese poems isn't the greenish stuff we're used to in the west, but more often the pale whitish-yellow variety, so perhaps this person has a lovely complexion.

The character 屟 "wooden clogs" didn't readily appear in most of my dictionaries, but it's a variant of the more common 屧. I have no idea how common wooden shoes were in Tang China, or what form they took. I'm imagining something like Japanese geta, but I could be way off.

Hope all is well with you, dear reader. See you soon.

微臣
史大偉



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清奇
司空圖

娟娟群松
下有漪流
晴雪滿竹
隔溪漁舟
可人如玉
步屟尋幽
載瞻載止
空碧悠悠
神出古異
淡不可收
如月之曙
如氣之秋

-----

"Clear and Wondrous"
Sikong Tu

A lovely stand of pines
beneath it, rippling water
clear skies, snow-laden bamboos
on the stream, fishing boats go their own ways

My beloved like jade
measured steps in wooden clogs, as I follow in the darkness
looking up one moment, stopping the next
deep blue sky impossibly far

My spirit leaves, the old ways grown strange,
faded, beyond reach
like the moon at dawn,
like the essence of autumn

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