Du Mu: Given on Parting, I of Two   1        O slim and slender, so fair, so fine --- thou, barely ten and three; 2        Like a nutmeg in bud in early March, at the tip of a sprig of the tree. 3        On the miles of streets of Yangzhou City, in vernal breezes mild, 4        Of all, with their bead-screens rolled open, none be equal to thee.   Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)     譯者: 黃宏發 27 August 2021 ..read more

This was first posted on 23 June 2022, but was inadvertently deleted today (31 July 2022).  Here, I am re-posting it. Wang Changling (698-757): A Song of Spring in the Palace   1                Last night, to Dew Pond came vernal breezes, sending peach-blooms a-blow. 2                Tonight, at the front of Undying Palace, a full moon, from on high, shines so. 3            &n ..read more

Today, I am posting my rendition of 杜牧 Du Mu's "Shall Proceed to Wuxing, I Ascend the Leyou Heights: A Quatrain".  Differing interpretations of the poem abound.  My own interpretation which is apparent in my rendition itself and the accompanying notes is:  The poet regards himself as a man of ability, stuck in a junior position in officialdom, though enjoys his pastimes, longs to better serve the Empire.  Now that he is being posted to the southeast of the Empire, he ascends the Leyou Heights to pledge his loyalty to the Empire symbolized by the tomb of the great Emperor T ..read more

Today, I am posting my rendition of a "tune lyric" or "ci" 詞 by the Song dynasty poet Ye Qingchen 葉清臣.  The "tune lyric" is a genre of Chinese poetry in lines of varying lengths and can be known as long-and-short-lined poems.  To know a bit more about "tune lyric", please proceed to my first note below. Robert Nicol's Rendition My rendition is done in response to Mr. Robert Nicol of Melbourne, Australia who, in April, sent me by email 2 versions of his rendition of the same poem.  With his kind permission, I now reproduce below his version 2: "Congratulations to the Holy Dyna ..read more

Today, I am posting a quatrain written by Stephen Ng Kam-Cheung (吳錦祥) together with 2 translations of the quatrain done by William Sit Yu (薛瑀) and my humble self.  All 3 of us were residents of Ricci Hall in our undergraduate days at the University of Hong Kong.  We call ourselves "Riccians".  And in fact it is from messages in the WhatsApp chat-group "Riccians of the 1960s" of which all 3 of us are members, that I know of this poem and its translation.  With the author's and translator's kind permission, I am posting here on my blog; (1) Stephen Ng's quatrain, (2)William S ..read more

Today, I am posting a quatrain by the Mid Tang dynasty poet 顧況 Gu Kuang --- No. 2 of his "Five Palace Poems" 宮詞 五首 其二 which is his only quatrain selected for the anthology "300 Tang Poems".  It is obviously a plaint about life in the palace, a joyous party upstairs and the persona of the poem all alone, sleepless and engulfed by the shadows cast by the moon.  Yet, no word of complaint nor of sadness is found in the poem, truly, a masterpiece of restraint and subtlety.  I do hope you will enjoy it.    Gu Kuang (725-814): Palace Poem, II of Five   1    ..read more

Following my English rendition of 劉禹錫 Liu Yuxi's 春詞 和樂天 "Song of Spring: In Reply to Bai Juyi" posted here on 13 December 2021 (the last post), I am, today, posting my English rendition of 白居易 (style name 樂天) Bai Juyi's original poem 春詞 "Song of Spring".   You will have noticed that: (1) I have failed to use the same English words to end the rhymed lines, in my translation of the line-end Chinese characters 樓, 愁 and 頭 in both poems.  For Liu's poem, I have used "descending", "tending" and "ascending", and for Bai's poem, "lodging", "showing" and "perching"; and (b) insofar as th ..read more

Today, I am posting my rendition of 劉禹錫 Liu Yuxi's 7-character quatrain 春詞 "Song of Spring".  This was written in reply to 白居易 Bai Juyi's original quatrain of the same title and the same end-rhyme (in fact, the same end-line characters).  For ready reference, I reproduce below the original poem by Bai Juyi (772-846) (which I have not translated) and Liu Yuxi's harmonizing reply: 白居易: 春詞                 劉禹錫: 春詞 和樂天 低花樹映小妝樓     1     新妝宜面下朱樓     春入眉心兩點愁     2      ..read more

Here is my latest English rendition of Tang dynasty quatrains on the theme of life in the imperial palace.  The original is clearly a palace plaint 宮怨 but subtly made through the words of a third person who simply describes the situations the 2 ladies concerned are in --- (i) line 2: in a small, splendid side-hall, (ii) line 1: no one comes to their flowering courtyard-garden whose gates are  closed, (iii) lines 3 and 4: wishing to talk about palace affairs but dare not in the presence of the parrot.  I have, in my English rendition, added the words "their plaints" to make plain ..read more

  Here is a border song that subtly conveys anti war sentiments.  Victorious or defeated, the men on both sides, for home and homeland, pining!  I hope you like the poem and my rendition of it.  Here we go:- Li Yi (748-829): At Night, Ascending the Walls of Victory City and Hearing a Pipe in Tune   1                Beyond the Peak of Happy Returns, the desert, white as snow. 2                Outside the walls of Victory ..read more