28. Having Left Yangzi First, Dispatching to Mr. Royal Librarian Yuan
A poem by Wei Yingwu, translated by Hyun Woo Kim, and an announcement
Mournfully, mournfully, I leave the beloved,
Floating, floating, to enter the fog.
A man who returns to Luoyang, paddling;
The bell of Guangling's forest, lingering.
This morning, we part like this;
Where will we meet each other again?
Worldly affairs are a boat upon the waves;
Up and down, how can one stay?
「 初發揚子寄元大校書」
悽悽去親愛
泛泛入煙霧
歸棹洛陽人
殘鐘廣陵樹
今朝此爲別
何處還相遇
世事波上舟
沿洄安得住
From Hyun Woo:
We are reading another poem by Wei Yingwu today. It is easy to regard “Yangzi” in the poem’s title as Yangzi River (traditionally romanized as Yangtze), but it is the name of a quay. Meanwhile, the government post which I translated as “Royal Librarian”, Jiaoshu (校書), was held by many famous writers. Some speculate that Mr. Yuan was in fact Yuan Jie, whose poem we read two weeks ago. While Yuan Jie did work as a royal librarian for some time, we cannot know who Mr. Yuan was for sure.
I love how Wei Yingwu depicts the scene of departure in today’s poem but also find it fascinating how people, no matter their backgrounds, tend to liken the uncertainties of life to a boat on the water. The Great Gatsby’s last line, “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”, comes to my mind first, followed by Dickinson’s “Adrift! A little boat adrift!/And night is coming down!/Will no one guide a little boat/Unto the nearest town?” In addition, I think I know what you are thinking too: “Row row row your boat,/Gently down the stream./Merrily merrily merrily merrily/Life is but a dream.”
Announcement:
Remember me telling you that I plan to send out Classical Chinese poetry postcards to paid subscribers? This is the design of the postcard that I will send out in October. Some subscribers may have already seen it on Substack Notes or Chat, but I am showing it again in case you are receiving my emails only.
I know $6 a month or $50 a year can be a lot to ask. I believe I won’t be asking for it again until December, when I will be preparing a new postcard. (Generally, I feel so embarrassed whenever I ask for money, for whatever occasion.) However, if you are already willing to financially support this translation project, please consider upgrading your subscription before September ends. I really do want to send you the postcard, and those who become paid subscribers after September 30th will not be able to receive it this autumn, as I intend to send the next postcard in January 2025 to those who become paid subscribers by December 31st. (Again, paying is not the only way you can support this newsletter. I am grateful that you are reading it now.)
For the postcard, I chose lines from a poem by Gao Qi, a Ming poet. He was born about six centuries after Wei Yingwu. Gao Qi’s poem, My Grief (我愁), is exceptionally modern and personal. The poet asks “Whence comes my grief?” but cannot find a specific reason to be sad. However, the grief is always there with him. It is the existential grief of a poet, and one rarely finds such a theme in premodern Chinese poetry. Could it have been his such sensitive traits that angered the emperor? Later, the emperor deemed a phrase from Gao Qi’s essay to be an act of treason and ordered him to be executed by slicing his body in two at the waist.
Until next Wednesday!
Hyun Woo
If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.