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A fourth installment of translations of Tang ghost poets, which are all from Complete Tang Poems chapter 866 (headnotes). Which is far enough into the collection, we finally get to the poems by female ghosts—a lot of them, actually, and they’re almost all interesting. Certainly, this chapter, there’s a lot more variety in types of episodes, compared to ch865.
Highlights this time include what I swear is the pilot episode of a BL historical drama, a musical number advertising a ghostly brothel, and several messages from wives to their widowers, including one who rescues her children from their cruel stepmother. Oh, and a woman who claims what traditionally was a strictly male title.
Presented to Ma Zhi, (Man) Dressed in White in a Gorge
Cut bamboo turned into a pipe is a flute to blow—
Above Paired-Phoenix Pool paired phoenixes are flying.
I’ll trouble you to travel south to Guizhou with this:
That for the governor, it’s like ten-thousand seasons.
( That night he saw a young woman, who sent over a servant in purple to soothingly invite Liu to the house of her and her six maternal aunts and forty maternal uncle’s wives—she lived nearby to the south, this quite outstanding young lady. )
And that’s enough for now. The next installment will have way fewer entries, but will if anything be slightly longer. Not to scare you or anything … which is, okay, a silly thing to say about ghost stories. Nevermind.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations
Highlights this time include what I swear is the pilot episode of a BL historical drama, a musical number advertising a ghostly brothel, and several messages from wives to their widowers, including one who rescues her children from their cruel stepmother. Oh, and a woman who claims what traditionally was a strictly male title.
Presented to Ma Zhi, (Man) Dressed in White in a Gorge
Cut bamboo turned into a pipe is a flute to blow—
Above Paired-Phoenix Pool paired phoenixes are flying.
I’ll trouble you to travel south to Guizhou with this:
That for the governor, it’s like ten-thousand seasons.
( That night he saw a young woman, who sent over a servant in purple to soothingly invite Liu to the house of her and her six maternal aunts and forty maternal uncle’s wives—she lived nearby to the south, this quite outstanding young lady. )
And that’s enough for now. The next installment will have way fewer entries, but will if anything be slightly longer. Not to scare you or anything … which is, okay, a silly thing to say about ghost stories. Nevermind.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations