64. Watched the Pupil of Lady Gongsun Performing the Sword Dance and Wrote, Along with a Preface

A poem by Du Fu, translated by Hyun Woo Kim

In the past, there was a beauty, Miss Gongsun—

A performance of the Sword Dance, and everything around trembled.

Those who watched it were like mountains, and their complexions paled;

Because of it, the heavens and the earth continued to rise and fall.

Swift like Yi shooting down nine suns;

Firm like emperors soaring on dragons.

Coming forward like bolts and thunders retrieving their wrath;

Retreating like rivers and seas freezing in blue light.

The scarlet lips, the pearly sleeves—both have been silenced;

A pupil from her old age passes down the flowery fragrance.

The beauty from Linying, at Baidi,

Dances to this song exquisitely, her fine figure swaying.

She asks, and answers me: "What already happened, already is.

Sensing the times and caressing the deeds add sorrows."

The former emperor had eight thousand ladies-in-waiting;

Gongsun's Sword Dance was the best from the beginning.

The passage of fifty years was like flipping the palm;

The wind and dust did not cease, darkening the palace.

The pupils of Pear Garden scattered like smoke;

The remaining grace of the women's ensemble is reflected in the cold sun.

The tree in front of Jinsu Heap is already an armful thick;

At the stone castle of Qutang, the grass is forlorn.

The banquets, the quick pipes—the song is over again;

Joy runs out, sorrow comes, and the moon rises in the east.

An old man does not know where he should go;

Callused feet, bleak mountains, and the returning ache of sorrow.

「觀公孫大娘弟子舞劍器行幷序」

昔有佳人公孫氏

一舞劍器動四方

觀者如山色沮喪

天地為之久低昂

霍如羿射九日落

矯如群帝驂龍翔

來如雷霆收震怒

罷如江海凝青光

絳脣珠袖兩寂寞

晚有弟子傳芬芳

臨潁美人在白帝

妙舞此曲神揚揚

與余問答既有已

感時撫事增惋傷

先帝侍女八千人

公孫舞劍初第一

五十年間似反掌

風塵澒洞昏王室

梨園子弟散如煙

女樂餘姿映寒日

金粟堆前木已拱

瞿塘石城草蕭瑟

玳筵急管曲復終

樂極哀來月東出

老夫不知其所往

足繭荒山轉愁疾

From Hyun Woo:

DU FU IS A GENIUS! (I WANT YOU TO SHARE THE EXCITEMENT WITH ME!) This might be the best poem I have translated so far after launching this newsletter. I am rather saddened that my translation cannot convey the beauty of his poem well enough, but a translator always has to bear with such sorrow to varying extents.

As you can see from the title, “Along with a Preface”, Du Fu wrote a short preface to this week’s poem. I did not translate the preface, but its gist is as follows: Du Fu saw Lady Gongsun performing the Sword Dance fifty-two years ago. Now he discovers someone performing the same dance, and it turns out she learned the dance from Gongsun. Even the pupil’s face does not look young, and the transience of our lives makes Du Fu write the poem.

In the poem above, the “scarlet lips” and “the pearly sleeves” refer to Gongsun, while the “beauty from Linying” is her pupil. Du Fu misses the time when he saw the dance of Gongsun, more than fifty years ago. He strikes up a conversation with her pupil, but she firmly states: “What already happened, already is./Sensing the times and caressing the [past] deeds add sorrows.” (Artists can be so brutal, and it seems female artists are often more so.)

For Du Fu, however, letting go of the past is not so easy. Fifty years have passed so quickly and easily, “like flipping the palm”. Nevertheless, “Pear Garden”, Tang’s royal academy of music and dance, is now empty, its pupils “scattered like smoke”. The brutality of time erodes everything that used to be good. “Jinsu Heap” refers to the tomb of the “former emperor”. A tree must have been planted when the emperor was buried, and it is now “an armful thick”. Du Fu now has to accept that the past is never coming back. Like always, “the song is over again”.

What does Du Fu call himself? “An old man” who “does not know where he should go”. We do not know either. Where is the time and place from which we have departed? Where is everything that we have known? Where has it gone? And where should we go? We, the readers, stand with “callused feet”, looking at the “bleak mountains”, sharing the “returning ache of sorrow” together with the poet.

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