Tang Poetry

[yoMAMA]

Here's a link to a picture story of a classic Tang dynasty peom, by the great Bai Juyi:

http://211.147.4.138/upload/00/71/35/56/713556_1064365599546.jpg



'the song of the never ending sorrow'

(in simplified chinese)


http://bbs.qianlong.com/forum1/frontshow/dispbbs/00/00/80/51/805198.html


It's the tragic story about the great Tang dynasty emperor Xuan Zong, who falls in love with one of his concumbines, Yang Gui Fei, and neglects the national affairs, which ultimatelyl brings his and her downfall-he was overthrown by rebels, and she was hanged ( but rumor says that she escaped to Japan).









OK, I admit, I'm a history geek :beerchug:

[SunWuKong]

there are also 300 Tang dynasty poems at www.zhongwen.com. click on the link "300 Tang Poems". it's in traditional Chinese.

[kasia]

i've read the poetry by the goldminers in s.f. heart-wrenching stuff.

[>:^|]

Here's a link to a picture story of a classic Tang dynasty poem, by the great Bai Juyi:


Thanks! Anybody want to provide translation? ;-)

There are also a lot of poems here: http://www.chinese-poems.com/

and here (Li Bai): http://www.chinapage.com/libai/libai1.html

I love reading Chinese poetry but it takes me soooo looong. :wacko:

[SunWuKong]

Thanks! Anybody want to provide translation? ;-)

There are also a lot of poems here: http://www.chinese-poems.com/

and here (Li Bai): http://www.chinapage.com/libai/libai1.html

I love reading Chinese poetry but it takes me soooo looong. :wacko:


the ones at zhongwen.com has translations.

[>:^|]

the ones at zhongwen.com has translations.

Naw, I meant of the one yoMama posted. :)

Hey, does anybody know if Ezra Pound spoke/read fluent Chinese? He's listed as the translator for a number of Li Bai poems. (!)

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Hey, does anybody know if Ezra Pound spoke/read fluent Chinese? He's listed as the translator for a number of Li Bai poems. (!)
well, just from looking at his translations, I'm guessing he worked with a Japanese speaker. Like in his translation of chang gan xing (http://www.chinapage.com/libai/libai1.html#TAP) he spells a placename "chang feng sha" in the Japanese reading, as "cho fu sa."

[yoMAMA]

:happy:
I can translate some of it, but alot of them i either don't have time, or i can't even understand, cauz it's written in ancient chinese form.

[>:^|]

:happy:
I can translate some of it, but alot of them i either don't have time, or i can't even understand, cauz it's written in ancient chinese form.

Can ya get to work on it? <VBG>
Or what about one of youse who can read this with ease? Don't you want to show off? Because I'd be impressed. Seriously. :dance:

[deez nuts]

i love chinese poetry.

[f12eelance]

heard Pound translated by ear
didnt even know the language, but by hearin that shit, he got a feel for it n went ahead. at least thats what my high school teach. said. damned chicago public edumacatoin

[SunWuKong]

BTW, nice poem!

I remember studying it when i was in elemeantary school in China ( in chinese literature class).

they teach Tang poetry in elementary school in China? wow. in HK they don't do that in elementary school. at least not when i was growing up.

[nola]

They memorized it too according to my dad. He can still recite Tang poems he learned in elementary school.

[yoMAMA]

yeah, in my elementary school in beijing, we have to memorize the poems (mostly from tang and some song dynasty), and then cite it in class when the teacher walks to your table and ask you to say it.

and i remember we have to remember the entire poem of Mulan....man, i tell you, it's a pain :biggrin:

[kuilong]

yeah, in my elementary school in beijing, we have to memorize the poems (mostly from tang and some song dynasty), and then cite it in class when the teacher walks to your table and ask you to say it.

and i remember we have to remember the entire poem of Mulan....man, i tell you, it's a pain :biggrin:

I had to memorize that! Ugh.

[SunWuKong]

wow, we had to memorise stuff from our Chinese text books in elementary school (in HK), but not Tang poetry. at least not in my school. maybe other schools were different.

[SunWuKong]

this thread was split from this (http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=13933).

[deez nuts]

i don't recall if i did or not in taiwan too long ago.

[seanp]

so what are talking about?

[SunWuKong]

so what are talking about?

well, i was hoping to start a discussion on elementary school or even high school in Asia, but the thread stayed its course and continued being a thread about whether or not in elementary school we were made to memorise Chinese poems from the Tang dynasty.

[seanp]

High schoolers in Vietnam study poems of Ho Xuan Huong, a feminist writer. Most of her works are written in chu nom, and sometimes extremely sexual yet subtlely by using metaphors and such.

http://www.limsi.fr/Recherche/CIG/ehoxuan.htm

Before occupying a good place in the official history of Vietnamese literature published in 1980 by the Institute of Literature of Vietnam, Hồ Xuân Hương was in the past a source of inexhaustible controversy between those who saw in her a wonderful woman who dared without shame to tackle the rights to her sex and carnal love in the time of feudal darkness, and those who found that her poetry, putting too much accent on the glorification of sexual instinct, was a disappointment for the Vietnamese literature and an attack and an stain to the model Vietnamese woman. It should be admitted that Ho Xuan Huong is a woman ahead of her time, a woman who knows how to use her intelligence to denounce hypocrisy and absurdity at a time when society was ruled by unchanging Confucian ethics, a woman who dares revolt against prohibitions and taboos for the liberalization of the woman, physical as well as moral. She loved to confront and beat Messieurs the learned men with their own weapons. She succeeded in evading formal censorship by an uncommon cleverness, proceeding with allusions and metaphores.

[>:^|]

Wasn't there a thread about Tang poetry earlier?

Mountains cover the white sun,
And oceans drain the golden river;
But you widen your view three hundred miles
By going up one flight of stairs.

[SunWuKong]

Mountains cover the white sun,
And oceans drain the golden river;
But you widen your view three hundred miles
By going up one flight of stairs.

hahhah not exactly. :tongue:

[>:^|]

hahhah not exactly. :tongue:

I cheated, in case you couldn't guess. Because "miles" would probably not be used in a Tang poem. :tongue:

Here's another:

The setting sun clings to hill's knees,
And Yellow River flows to seas.
If wish for longer view o'er miles,
Then get on floor above, oh, please!

Please do post a translation. :smile:

[SunWuKong]

I cheated, in case you couldn't guess. Because "miles" would probably not be used in a Tang poem. :tongue:

Here's another:

The setting sun clings to hill's knees,
And Yellow River flows to seas.
If wish for longer view o'er miles,
Then get on floor above, oh, please!

Please do post a translation. :smile:

hahhah i think yours is close enough. :smile:

[yoMAMA]

ok, here's my crack at the poem:

the white sun sets accordingly with the mountain,
the yellow river flows into the ocean.
if you want to see through a thousand miles,
you must climb through the stairs to another level.

[am i gonna get the YW literature award? :wink: ]

[SunWuKong]

ok, here's my crack at the poem:

the white sun sets accordingly with the mountain,
the yellow river flows into the ocean.
if you want to see through a thousand miles,
you must climb through the stairs to another level.

[am i gonna get the YW literature award? :wink: ]

yeah but >:^| actually did it in a limerick. :smile:

[nola]

OMG these poems remind me so much of the Classical Chinese Poetry class I took in college and all the old Chinese pronunciations!

[>:^|]

(the title of this thread should really be changed)
Here's one of my favorites:

張九齡
望月懷遠

海上生明月, 天涯共此時。
情人怨遙夜, 竟夕起相思。
滅燭憐光滿, 披衣覺露滋。
不堪盈手贈, 還寢夢佳期。

Zhang Jiuling
LOOKING AT THE MOON
AND THINKING OF ONE FAR AWAY

The moon, grown full now over the sea,
Brightening the whole of heaven,
Brings to separated hearts
The long thoughtfulness of night....
It is no darker though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer though I put on my coat.
So I leave my message with the moon
And turn to my bed, hoping for dreams.

[SunWuKong]

(the title of this thread should really be changed)
Here's one of my favorites:

張九齡
望月懷遠

海上生明月, 天涯共此時。
情人怨遙夜, 竟夕起相思。
滅燭憐光滿, 披衣覺露滋。
不堪盈手贈, 還寢夢佳期。


that's a great poem.
but it's difficult to do a literal translation.

The long thoughtfulness of night....

shouldn't it be more like... lovers miss each other when the night comes?

It is no darker though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer though I put on my coat.

i kind of read it as... when the candles go out, the little bit of light seems bright, and when you put on clothes, any part of the body that's still exposed is really noticeable...

not sure. that's a hard line for me to translate.

(the title of this thread should really be changed)

ok, i've changed the title of the thread. :smile:
i could swear that there is already another thread on Tang poetry, but i can't find it.

[BeTheReds]

Some of these poems aer really good.. I can't even know how they are pronounced, but I can get the general gist from knowing some characters that I learned studying an entirely different language.

[Seamus]

The one and only one I know is one by Li Bai. I only know the first strophe:

Chuangqian mingye Guang, (night glow at foot of bed)
Yishi di shang shuang; (like frost on the ground)
Ju tou wang mingyue, (raise head toward moon)
Di tou si gu xiang. (lower head; think about hometown)

Despite the Tarzan-like syntax, I find it really evocative.

[SunWuKong]

The one and only one I know is one by Li Bai. I only know the first strophe:

Chuangqian mingye Guang, (night glow at foot of bed)
Yishi di shang shuang; (like frost on the ground)
Ju tou wang mingyue, (raise head toward moon)
Di tou si gu xiang. (lower head; think about hometown)

Despite the Tarzan-like syntax, I find it really evocative.

here you go:

李白
夜思

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉

i really like the last two lines.

[>:^|]

i kind of read it as... when the candles go out, the little bit of light seems bright, and when you put on clothes, any part of the body that's still exposed is really noticeable...

I like your translation better. By the way, I didn't write those translations I attached. I just enjoy looking at the characters, figuring out the literal meanings, and comparing the translations.

http://www.chinese-poems.com/ has the literal translation, translation and pinyin.

Here's the old thread: http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=9660

[nola]

My bro (who has a MA in Chinese literature and language from UMich) said Ezra Pound's tranlations are too Westernized.

I think Li Bai used to go by Li Po.

[SunWuKong]

Here's the old thread: http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=9660

thanks! threads have been merged.

[SunWuKong]

I think Li Bai used to go by Li Po.

are you sure that's not a different person? i don't think 白 is ever romanised as "po".

[nola]

Li Bai is also known as Li Bo or Li Po. My dad called him Li Po. I think he wrote the famous moon poem.

[>:^|]

Li Bai is also known as Li Bo or Li Po. My dad called him Li Po.

I've also seen the name written as Li Tai Bai. Dunno why.

There are some romanizations of names that go on some kind of historical precedent but make no apparent sense in the context of modern Chinese.

[kuilong]

Apparently Pink Floyd quotes (http://cjvlang.com/Pfloyd/) Tang poetry in some of their songs.

[SunWuKong]

Li Bai is also known as Li Bo or Li Po. My dad called him Li Po. I think he wrote the famous moon poem.
I've also seen the name written as Li Tai Bai. Dunno why.

There are some romanizations of names that go on some kind of historical precedent but make no apparent sense in the context of modern Chinese.

maybe he's known as several different Chinese names.

[kuilong]

maybe he's known as several different Chinese names.

The characters 李白 can be read as "Li Bai" or "Li Bo" in pinyin. "Taibo" (太白) is his courtesy name (zi). These would be respectively "Li Pai", "Li Po" and "T'ai-po" in Wade-Giles.

It's just like how Zhao Yun is usually called Zilong.

[yoMAMA]

The characters 李白 can be read as "Li Bai" or "Li Bo" in pinyin. "Taibo" (太白) is his courtesy name (zi). These would be respectively "Li Pai", "Li Po" and "T'ai-po" in Wade-Giles.

It's just like how Zhao Yun is usually called Zilong.

Taibai is also a Taoist deity, and the Chinese name of venus [the planet].

The story is that Li Bai's dad had a dream before he was born that he met the god Taibai, so he named him Li Taibai [his Zi, that is].

[ChineseTourist]

The one and only one I know is one by Li Bai. I only know the first strophe:

Chuangqian mingye Guang, (night glow at foot of bed)
Yishi di shang shuang; (like frost on the ground)
Ju tou wang mingyue, (raise head toward moon)
Di tou si gu xiang. (lower head; think about hometown)

Despite the Tarzan-like syntax, I find it really evocative.
now now, as spoken Chinese we all know it seems fine

[SunWuKong]

The characters 李白 can be read as "Li Bai" or "Li Bo" in pinyin. "Taibo" (太白) is his courtesy name (zi). These would be respectively "Li Pai", "Li Po" and "T'ai-po" in Wade-Giles.

It's just like how Zhao Yun is usually called Zilong.

oh alright. i just looked it up and apparently 白 can be romanised as "bo" in pinyin. i didn't know that.

[>:^|]

美人

美女心不美
大胸不大切
静香和平作
切頭首落下

黄　有真


Okay, BTR isn't secretly a Tang Dynasty poet, is he? <VBG>


Beautiful women's hearts are not beautiful
Big swindle not largely suitable
Fragrance and evenness, suddenly
Slice off your head, your face, your decline.

This translation I did do myself. LOL

[SunWuKong]

Okay, BTR isn't secretly a Tang Dynasty poet, is he? <VBG>


Beautiful women's hearts are not beautiful
Big swindle not largely suitable
Fragrance and evenness, suddenly
Slice off your head, your face, your decline.

This translation I did do myself. LOL


hahah not quite. he was trying to be funny.
you also have to consider that compound-kanji terms are sometimes different in Japanese and may not necessarily exist in Chinese, and he was writing this in Japanese. so it sounds kind of funny when you read it in Chinese

Beautiful women's hearts are not beautiful
Big breasts are not big cuts
Quiet frangrance makes peace
Head first falls off when beheaded

hahahh
but it's something different in Japanese. you'll have to ask Eugene though. :tongue:

[>:^|]

黄有真! Come out and explain your poem!

[BeTheReds]

Wow, that is very different...

Beauty

Beatuiful women's hearts aren't beautiful.
Big breasts are not important.
A quiet peace is made
When your cut head falls off of your neck.

[yoMAMA]

Wow, that is very different...

Beauty

Beatuiful women's hearts aren't beautiful.
Big breasts are not important.
A quiet peace is made
When your cut head falls off of your neck.

modern classic!

:wink: :biggrin:

[>:^|]

白日依山盡，
黃河入海流。
欲窮千里目，
更上一層樓。

Hey, my Chinese teacher passed this poem out recently. Here's the translation provided:

The sun sets by the mountain
The Yellow River flows into the sea
In order to see thousands of miles away
You have to climb up another flight of stairs.

[SunWuKong]

白日依山盡，
黃河入海流。
欲窮千里目，
更上一層樓。

Hey, my Chinese teacher passed this poem out recently. Here's the translation provided:

The sun sets by the mountain
The Yellow River flows into the sea
In order to see thousands of miles away
You have to climb up another flight of stairs.

yeah. kind of out of context without the title though.
登鸛雀樓
that's dang gun jeuk lau in Cantonese, and deng guan que lou in Mandarin. it's the name of a famous restaurant/inn type place.

[>:^|]

Oh, I thought it meant "Stork Tower" and assumed it was a geographical place.

I found this literal translation on the internet

climb stork sparrow tower
white sun by mountain set
yellow River enter ocean current
want extend thousand li eye
again up one story tower

and thought it was interesting how many interpretations there are.

[SunWuKong]

Oh, I thought it meant "Stork Tower" and assumed it was a geographical place.

I found this literal translation on the internet

climb stork sparrow tower
white sun by mountain set
yellow River enter ocean current
want extend thousand li eye
again up one story tower

and thought it was interesting how many interpretations there are.

yeah that's what it means and that's a very literal translation of the poem.