李冶诗

Poems of Li Ye


Index

春闺怨

Spring Boudoir Complaint


百尺井栏上
数株桃已红
念君辽海北
抛妾宋家东

Sitting on the railing of a hundred-foot well,
I count those peach branches which are already pink.
You must be north of the Great Wall's sea end
Abandoning me here, east of ancient Song.

-- 李冶


废话

This is the last poem we have of Li Ye. I feel as if she is being ironic with the "boudoir" in the title, consciously playing to cliché. He is north of the Liao Sea where the Great Wall ends in the northeast. She, presumably, in Southern Hill monastery, is east of the old Song dynasty, of which there are two older than the Tang. But I don't know which one she means. I think they both apply. The translation is about as direct and literal as a translation of a Chinese poem gets.


Index