Thanks Hyun Woo! I've been working on music for this for my own project. I love your explication and want to add that it occurred to me that the "flipping the palm" is part of the dance. Change happens as easily as a dancer turns the palm of her hand. Change is the dance -- containing all ocassions: fierceness, grace, beauty, destruction, etc. Du Fu was indeed a genius!
sadly, it took me a while to realise this as being rather attached to Li Bai I mostly read his poetry. But having realised that, most definitely, Du Fu is a Genius, i read his works often now. And usually my eyes start watering. He is so poignant, musing about the tragedies that befall us/him, but he always manages to consider that the lot of the common people may have been worse than his. The preface, a common thing in Chinese poetry, is worth translating. Du Fu says that Lady Gongsun's 玉貌錦衣 - jade like beauty is dressed in brocade, and the Gongsun family's sword dance 《劍器》Qi Sword and 《渾脫》Hun Tuo - a Tang dynasty sword dance mixing dances from the western regions with Central Plains style - are 瀏漓頓挫，獨出冠時 a clear and deep pattering, (usually translated simply as "rhythm") that stands out in its timing. Even Du Fu's prose is exquisite!!
What a beautiful sense of the weight of time. The beautiful is always passing away. The gesture of the dancer flipping her palm and fifty years go by and it's not the same woman, even though it's the same dance.
So beautiful~ Thanks for sharing and for your translation and interpretation. 絳脣珠袖兩寂寞 -- 五十年間似反掌 -- 樂極哀來月東出, 老夫不知其所往 wow these really add on the blues I've been feeling much of this week! Feeling the feels and I need to ponder more with an aged moon light white tea now.
Thanks Hyun Woo! I've been working on music for this for my own project. I love your explication and want to add that it occurred to me that the "flipping the palm" is part of the dance. Change happens as easily as a dancer turns the palm of her hand. Change is the dance -- containing all ocassions: fierceness, grace, beauty, destruction, etc. Du Fu was indeed a genius!
What a beautiful poem! The grace of dancing. The cruelty of Time, passing so well expressed in the old poetry.
Thank you.
As we get old, it is not a matter of choice to revisit our past. It comes in dreams when I am asleep.
this is beautiful and sad - and so true: What already happened, already is. Sensing the times and caressing the deeds add sorrows.
"Like flipping the palm", so true, and masterfully expressed.
DU FU IS A GENIUS!!
sadly, it took me a while to realise this as being rather attached to Li Bai I mostly read his poetry. But having realised that, most definitely, Du Fu is a Genius, i read his works often now. And usually my eyes start watering. He is so poignant, musing about the tragedies that befall us/him, but he always manages to consider that the lot of the common people may have been worse than his. The preface, a common thing in Chinese poetry, is worth translating. Du Fu says that Lady Gongsun's 玉貌錦衣 - jade like beauty is dressed in brocade, and the Gongsun family's sword dance 《劍器》Qi Sword and 《渾脫》Hun Tuo - a Tang dynasty sword dance mixing dances from the western regions with Central Plains style - are 瀏漓頓挫，獨出冠時 a clear and deep pattering, (usually translated simply as "rhythm") that stands out in its timing. Even Du Fu's prose is exquisite!!
What a beautiful sense of the weight of time. The beautiful is always passing away. The gesture of the dancer flipping her palm and fifty years go by and it's not the same woman, even though it's the same dance.
I really liked this one. I started reading and then partway through got really invested in it.
Wonderful poem, the feelings we share are truly universal and unbound by time and place.
I agree! This is my favorite so far since finding your newsletter. ❤️
So beautiful~ Thanks for sharing and for your translation and interpretation. 絳脣珠袖兩寂寞 -- 五十年間似反掌 -- 樂極哀來月東出, 老夫不知其所往 wow these really add on the blues I've been feeling much of this week! Feeling the feels and I need to ponder more with an aged moon light white tea now.