鱼玄机诗
Poems of Yu Xuanji
Index
江行
Floating the River
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大江横抱武昌斜 鹦鹉洲前户万家 画舸春眠朝未足 梦为蝴蝶也寻花 |
Long River nurtures a horde of darting bream And another horde of parrots, nesting on the shoals. On a painted boat, a spring nap whiles away a morning As I dream I am a butterfly, searching for flowers. |
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烟花已入鸬鹚港 画舸犹沿鹦鹉洲 醉卧醒吟都不觉 今朝惊在汉江头 |
Spring runs riot along Cormorant Creek where My boat glides along down the parrot-covered shoals. Drunk, I relax. Sober, I chant. All without even thinking. This morning, my fears are beyond the stars. |
-- 鱼玄机
废话
I wondered in her first poem what Yu Xuanji knew about fear. Perhaps that poem and this one both come after she knows something is wrong with her health and before she knows she will not live. This could be around 869 or 870. Both poems take place relaxing along a river. Both talk about fear. All of this is speculation. But the details of a life coalesce and cohere. And Yu's short life intensifies these historical gravitational fields.
While she is probably on or near the Han River (汉江), which passes by Chang'an, she is hundreds of miles from its headwaters (汉江头) and mouth. Large rivers are used as symbols of the Milky Way, stars, remoteness. If she's on her own, she probably is on Cormorant Creek, as she says. Of course, the final line could be: "This morning, I am startled from my reverie to find myself drifting out onto Han River." In which case, no fear and no hints about her life.