"Meng Jiangnan: Dream of the South: Thinking of Someone"
柳是 Liu Shi (1618-64)
["Meng Jiangnan" consists of 20 short poems in total]
II
He is gone,
Gone from the Isle of Egrets.
Lotus blossoms turn to emerald remorse,
Willow catkins rise to join the zither's grief,
Behind the brocade curtain the early autumn startles.
IV
He is gone,
Gone from the small water pavilion.
Would you say we "have not loved enough"?
Or the we "have little to regret"?
All I see is trodden moss.
VII
He is gone,
Gone from the shadow of the green wutong tree.
I can't believe this has earned us a heartbreaking tune,
Still I wonder why our love has failed.
Whence this brooding grief? No need to look.
IX
He is gone,
Gone, yet dreams of him come even more often.
Recalling the past: our shared moments were modstly wordless,
But now I secretly regret the growing distance.
Only in dreams can I find self-indulgence.
XII
Where was he?
At the middle pavilion.
Recall once after washing his face,
His carefree laughter seemed so unconcerned -
Who knows for whom he smiled.
XVIII
Where was he?
At the jade steps.
No fool for love, yet I wanted to stay,
Overly sensitive to any sign of indifference,
It must be that I feared love would run too deep.
XX
Where was he?
By my pillow side.
Nothing but endless tears at the quilt edge -
Wiping them off secretly, only inducing more,
How I yearn for his love.
[trans. Kang-I Sun Chang]
She was also known as 柳如是 Liu Rushi; she was a courtesan of note & a distinguished poet and painter. Her first collection of poetry was published when she was 20, and many of the oh-so-critical Jiangnan literati came to very much admire both her intellectual and physical charms.
She had an intense relationship with Chen Zilong (Ming-loyalist martyr, poet, and apparent heartbreaker!), who is the "he" in question in "Meng Jiangnan". She would later marry "literary giant" Qian Qianyi (350). "[H]er numerous love poems to Chen (and for that matter, Chen's to her) engendered a whole new interest in song-lyric (ci), a genre characterized by intensity of emotion" (ibid).
One has to wonder what happened, though the relationship between her & Chen (he even wrote the preface to her Wenyin cao collection) sounds both wonderfully passionate and tumultuous. The first ten poems use the "He is gone,/Gone ..." pattern and tell of the aftermath - her feelings of depression and sorrow - while the last ten use the "Where is he?" pattern, and while still quite melancholy, highlight some of the better times in the relationship, for the most part.
I simply liked her ... honesty, for lack of a better word. She vacillates between flashes of anger, bitterness, and lots and lots of regretful, still loving feelings.
Her "Eight Quatrains on the West Lake of Hangzhou" is also quite beautiful.
[350-7]
["Meng Jiangnan" consists of 20 short poems in total]
II
He is gone,
Gone from the Isle of Egrets.
Lotus blossoms turn to emerald remorse,
Willow catkins rise to join the zither's grief,
Behind the brocade curtain the early autumn startles.
IV
He is gone,
Gone from the small water pavilion.
Would you say we "have not loved enough"?
Or the we "have little to regret"?
All I see is trodden moss.
VII
He is gone,
Gone from the shadow of the green wutong tree.
I can't believe this has earned us a heartbreaking tune,
Still I wonder why our love has failed.
Whence this brooding grief? No need to look.
IX
He is gone,
Gone, yet dreams of him come even more often.
Recalling the past: our shared moments were modstly wordless,
But now I secretly regret the growing distance.
Only in dreams can I find self-indulgence.
XII
Where was he?
At the middle pavilion.
Recall once after washing his face,
His carefree laughter seemed so unconcerned -
Who knows for whom he smiled.
XVIII
Where was he?
At the jade steps.
No fool for love, yet I wanted to stay,
Overly sensitive to any sign of indifference,
It must be that I feared love would run too deep.
XX
Where was he?
By my pillow side.
Nothing but endless tears at the quilt edge -
Wiping them off secretly, only inducing more,
How I yearn for his love.
[trans. Kang-I Sun Chang]
She was also known as 柳如是 Liu Rushi; she was a courtesan of note & a distinguished poet and painter. Her first collection of poetry was published when she was 20, and many of the oh-so-critical Jiangnan literati came to very much admire both her intellectual and physical charms.
She had an intense relationship with Chen Zilong (Ming-loyalist martyr, poet, and apparent heartbreaker!), who is the "he" in question in "Meng Jiangnan". She would later marry "literary giant" Qian Qianyi (350). "[H]er numerous love poems to Chen (and for that matter, Chen's to her) engendered a whole new interest in song-lyric (ci), a genre characterized by intensity of emotion" (ibid).
One has to wonder what happened, though the relationship between her & Chen (he even wrote the preface to her Wenyin cao collection) sounds both wonderfully passionate and tumultuous. The first ten poems use the "He is gone,/Gone ..." pattern and tell of the aftermath - her feelings of depression and sorrow - while the last ten use the "Where is he?" pattern, and while still quite melancholy, highlight some of the better times in the relationship, for the most part.
I simply liked her ... honesty, for lack of a better word. She vacillates between flashes of anger, bitterness, and lots and lots of regretful, still loving feelings.
Her "Eight Quatrains on the West Lake of Hangzhou" is also quite beautiful.
[350-7]