50. Listened to Dong Da Playing the Playing with a Barbarian Reed Flute and Passing the Word to Royal Attendant Fang

A poem by Li Qi, translated by Hyun Woo Kim

In the past, a Miss Cai composed the Sound of a Barbarian Reed Flute;

Once she played it, there were ten and eight beats.

Barbarians shed tears and wet the grass of the frontier;

The Han ambassadors faced the returning exile with severed intestines.

The old military camp is quaint, and its beacon fire is cold;

The wide wilderness is dim, with white snow fluttering.

He first plucked the Shang string, and then Jiao and Yu;

All around, the autumn leaves are astonished, rustling and rustling.

Master Dong is connected to the divine:

From the deep mountains come the spirits to eavesdrop.

Slow and fast again, so to speak, everyone following the hands,

Intending to go and then come back, as if they had their feelings.

A hundred birds scatter and return to unite in an empty mountain;

The clouds, floating ten thousand lis away, cast shadows and clear up again.

The devastated cry of a little wild goose, who has lost its flock at night!

The heartbreaking voice of a barbarian child, who misses his mother!

The stream quiets down its waves;

The birds break their callings too.

From a village in Wusun, the hometown is far;

On the dunes of Luosuo, sorrow and regret grow.

The mellow notes change their tunes—wind and rain:

A long wind blowing through a forest, and rain falling on the roof tile.

A vibrant spring gurgles and gurgles, flying itself to the end of a tree;

A deer of the field howls and howls, running at the foot of a house.

The wall of Changan continues to the department of the eastern brim,

Where the Fenghuang Pond faces the Qingsuo gate.

The high talent has broken free from fame and profit;

Day and night, waiting for you to arrive, holding a zither.

「聽董大彈胡笳弄兼寄語房給事」

蔡女昔造胡笳聲

一彈一十有八拍

胡人落淚沾邊草

漢使斷腸對歸客

古戍蒼蒼烽火寒

大荒沈沈飛雪白

先拂商弦後角羽

四郊秋葉驚摵摵

董夫子通神明

深山竊聽來妖精

言遲更速皆應手

將往復旋如有情

空山百鳥散還合

萬里浮雲陰且晴

嘶酸雛鴈失羣夜

斷絕胡兒戀母聲

川爲淨其波

鳥亦罷其鳴

烏孫部落家鄉遠

邏娑沙塵哀怨生

幽音變調忽飄灑

長風吹林雨墮瓦

迸泉颯颯飛木末

野鹿呦呦走堂下

長安城連東掖垣

鳳凰池對青瑣門

高才脫略名與利

日夕望君抱琴至

From Hyun Woo:

Before I began to translate Three Hundred Tang Poems, I had not read any work by Li Qi. His poems really stand out among Tang poems, reminding me a bit of Allen Ginsberg and Ezra Pound. I might be thinking it the wrong way though. Pound and Ginsberg were influenced by medieval Chinese poetry.

It seems Li Qi listened to a musician named Dong Da playing the piece Playing with a Barbarian Reed Flute and wanted to let his acquaintance know about his experience, a Mr. Fang who worked as a royal attendant. The first four lines of the poem are about the origin of the musical piece. Cai Wenji, a third-century figure, is known to have arranged a reed flute piece of Huns into a piece for zither. She was captured by Hun soldiers and given to their king as a present. After some time, long enough time for Cai to learn their music, Cao Cao sent ambassadors to the Huns and paid the ransom for her (Yes, it is the Cao Cao you have heard of, the archenemy of Liu Bei from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Sadly, she could return home but could not bring along her two children whom she had with the Hun king.

“The old military camp is quaint, and its beacon fire is cold”: time has passed. Han, the dynasty of Cai’s times, is gone, and it is now the Tang era. Dong Da starts playing Cai’s piece with “the Shang string”. Then we are faced with all the images that the music brings to Li Qi’s mind. Indeed, it is a wild ride. I do not remember any other Tang poets, or medieval poets of any other nationality, with such an intense and (seemingly) modern imagism.

The last four lines are referring to Royal Attendant Fang. The “department of the eastern brim” must have been where Fang worked, and we can see how eager Li Qi is to share his excitement. I have kept my commentary relatively simple, but today’s poem, I believe, requires many more deep analyses.

If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.