孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

清东曲

A Pure East Tune


樱桃花参差
香雨红霏霏
含笑竞攀折
美人湿罗衣

Cherry blossoms, rampant here, fall
Fragrant in a thick, pink rain.
And smiling women, in wet silk robes,
Compete to pick the branches.

采采清东曲
明眸艳珪玉
青巾艑上郎
上下看不足

In the luxuriance of a pure east tune,
Bright eyes are like imperial jade.
And blue-clad men, nearby in skiffs,
Can hardly get an eyeful.

南阳公首词
编入新乐录

Nanyang's head official's lyric
Recast as New Yuefu.

-- 孟郊


废话

I think this was written in the last seventeen years of Meng Jiao's life. For starters, he is back in the east. So he is remarried and has official status. But most important is his reference to 新乐(府) or New Lyric Poetry. This was a poetry movement founded by Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi and their poet friends. Bai Juyi started publically writing poetry at seventeen and Meng Jiao died when Bai Juyi was thirty-four. Do the math. Seventeen.

Also, this is a kind of answer-poem. But not of regulated poetry. Meng Jiao must be responding to the mayor of Nanyang's lyric written to the tune of Pure East (or similar title) which would have been a song heard in the streets. Meng Jiao has answered with not only a competing lyric but one in the New Lyric style.


Index