"Yulou chun: Gazing into the Distance ..."
吳山 Wu Shan (fl. mid-17th century)
"Yulou chun: Gazing into the Distance at Evening and Remembering the Talented Woman Wang Chenrou"
By the azure edge of the evening clouds - do you know where it is?
Beyond the four mountains - perhaps you dwell in the mountains there.
One sheet of crimson clouds comes, cutting across the bamboo,
Two lines of white birds go, parting the smoke.
I stretch my eyes: my heart is tangled in ten thousand threads.
Leaning against the wall, I softly chant "Jian jia."
My longing makes me dream of the far horizon,
Though I still don't know the way on the far horizon road.
[trans. Ruth Rogaski]
line 6: 'Jian jia' is poem 139 from 詩經 Book of Odes and "describes 'the pursuit of an elusive lover or divinity" (384).
I had a long entry written about Wu Shan, but QIM freaked and crashed my journal program (thanks QIM!). To sum up shortly: Wu Shan was from Anhui, her husband died during the battles down south after the Qing invasion, she moved first to Hangzhou then to Yangzhou, where she supported herself and her two daughters (who wound up marrying the same man!) by painting and writing. Wu joined the literary community of Jiangnan women (some contemporaries said she was the best woman poet of her generation), including 王端淑 Wang Duanshu and 黃媛介 Huang Yuanjie. She sometimes signed her poetry as 女遺民, nu yimin, "The Surviving Woman Loyalist" (383). Referencing the Ming, obviously.
(This part is too interesting to excise): "The struggles and sorrows of her condition must have weighed heavily on Wu Shan, for late in life she lost her memory, a condition that lasted for two years. As a result of this crisis, Wu gave up writing poetry, shunned feminine ornaments, and became intensely drawn to Daoism. She died in Yangzhou around the age of sixty" (384).
I found her poetry heartbreaking, and not just this particular selection. Really beautiful, though - not mawkish or overwrought at all, just terribly, terribly sad.
[383-6]
"Yulou chun: Gazing into the Distance at Evening and Remembering the Talented Woman Wang Chenrou"
By the azure edge of the evening clouds - do you know where it is?
Beyond the four mountains - perhaps you dwell in the mountains there.
One sheet of crimson clouds comes, cutting across the bamboo,
Two lines of white birds go, parting the smoke.
I stretch my eyes: my heart is tangled in ten thousand threads.
Leaning against the wall, I softly chant "Jian jia."
My longing makes me dream of the far horizon,
Though I still don't know the way on the far horizon road.
[trans. Ruth Rogaski]
line 6: 'Jian jia' is poem 139 from 詩經 Book of Odes and "describes 'the pursuit of an elusive lover or divinity" (384).
I had a long entry written about Wu Shan, but QIM freaked and crashed my journal program (thanks QIM!). To sum up shortly: Wu Shan was from Anhui, her husband died during the battles down south after the Qing invasion, she moved first to Hangzhou then to Yangzhou, where she supported herself and her two daughters (who wound up marrying the same man!) by painting and writing. Wu joined the literary community of Jiangnan women (some contemporaries said she was the best woman poet of her generation), including 王端淑 Wang Duanshu and 黃媛介 Huang Yuanjie. She sometimes signed her poetry as 女遺民, nu yimin, "The Surviving Woman Loyalist" (383). Referencing the Ming, obviously.
(This part is too interesting to excise): "The struggles and sorrows of her condition must have weighed heavily on Wu Shan, for late in life she lost her memory, a condition that lasted for two years. As a result of this crisis, Wu gave up writing poetry, shunned feminine ornaments, and became intensely drawn to Daoism. She died in Yangzhou around the age of sixty" (384).
I found her poetry heartbreaking, and not just this particular selection. Really beautiful, though - not mawkish or overwrought at all, just terribly, terribly sad.
[383-6]