“it’d break my heart in two / if you were to fall / into my arms / and tremble like a flower”

A “jade terrace” ordinarily means the quarters of an upper-class woman; here, however, it refers to a genre of semi-erotic poetry (also called “palace style” poetry) collected in the mid-6th century anthology New Songs from the Jade Terrace—see here for a couple examples. This is a set of imitations from the late 8th century, one of which I previously translated as 3TP #243. Back when I did that, I’d no idea it was part of a set, and since I liked that poem and was looking for a palate-cleanser of something easier than Du Fu, I pounced. Even though, yes, they’re written by a late Tang poet imitating an outdated Southern Dynasties genre, but as I said, I was looking for easy and different from the restricted contents of 3TP.

(Y’all do realize that 3TP has a deliberately limited range of topics and styles, yes? It is far from a comprehensive anthology, being a textbook following orthodox NeoConfucian precepts of the early Qing Dynasty, a period not noted for its liberalism or tolerance, with a bias towards language simple enough for schoolboys to understand. Eventually, I want to explore the last hundred-odd chapters of Complete Tang Poetry, which collect things like poems by non-royal women, school primers, riddles, proverbs, counting songs, popular rhymes, dreams, ghosts, specters, rebels, and other interesting stuff—I’ve starting dipping into this domain with the poems by ghosts, of which more anon.)

To be explicit, these are semi-erotic poems written by a man from a patriarchal culture, so CW: very male-gaze, even when female POV.

As usual, revised from earlier drafts posted in the other journal, sometimes significantly. These turned out to be *cough* not quite as easy as assumed.

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In the “Jade Terrace” Style: Twelve Poems, Quan Deyu

1.
Orioles sing, orchids are very red—
I look outside, east of the Phoenix City.
This “face-paint” perspires in the slanting light,
My fragrant robes caught one by one in the breeze.
A feeling comes before I am aware—
Halting in the shadows: five flowery steeds.

( Concealed, revealed by a thin silk jacket, / Her delicate jade-like wrist is round )

( Original texts )

( Translator notes )

And there you have it—more “lonely lady” poems than not, several of them slight, with occasional wit and only a little actual eroticism. The one picked up for 3TP really was one of the most interesting.

I think I need to translate either more actual Jade Terrace poems or more poems by actual courtesans.

---L..

Index of Chinese translations

Subject quote from Let’s Dance, David Bowie.