薛涛诗
Poems of Xue Tao
Index
秋泉
Autumn Spring
|
冷色初澄一带烟 幽声遥泻十丝弦 长来枕上牵情思 不使愁人半夜眠 |
Cold color emerges pure into clouds of mist. Its distant voice a torrent of ten silk strings. I've lingered on my pillow, led around by thoughts of you That keep me sad and up awake all night. |
-- 薛涛
废话
Or, just for fun, more plainly:
cold color, at first limpid, all around it mists
distant voice, distant flood, ten silk strings
long here, on my pillow, tethered feelings missing you
won't let, sad person, half night sleep
That's a bit closer to how it reads in the original. Seven character lines are "usually" read as 2, 2, and 3. Occasionally, someone will break those boundaries. But it's unusual. This one keeps to the boundaries, as the second version shows. The ten silk strings are the lute and this turns around the idea that a lute imitates the rush of water by having the water imitate the lute.