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larryhammerFor Poetry Monday, another short poem from another language, this time with my translation:
Inscribed in the Temple of Mulan, Du Mu
I bend my bow in battle, serving as a man—
Within my dreams, as formerly, I paint my brows.
I often long for home, yet raise my cup at banquets.
Upon Fuyundui’s shrine, I pray to Wang Zhaojun.
题木兰庙
弯弓征战作男儿，
梦里曾经与画眉。
几度思归还把酒，
拂云堆上祝明妃。
Yes, this is the Mulan you all know, and yes, a temple to her—southern China has many Mt. Mulans, literally “magnolia mountain,” and when her legend spread in the 5th and 6th centuries, those with Daoist temple complexes started dedicating one of their temples to her worship. (One in Wuhan, founded before 700, can still be visited.) Du Mu (803-852) was a late Tang poet from the same Du clan as Du Fu, though they weren’t closely related. According to his biographies, this temple was near the Hubei-Henan border.
The speaker is Mulan during her army service on the northern steppes. Fuyundui is a pass near Baotou, Inner Mongolia, on the north bank of the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, where Xiongnu and other steppe nomads would pray before raiding south into Han lands—just as Mulan wants to return south herself. Wang Zhaojun was sent by Han Emperor Yuan (so a few centuries before Mulan’s supposed time) to make a diplomatic marriage to the Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire, and after his death was not allowed to return—making her another woman who went north in service of the empire and longed to go home. A lot of resonance in just one line.
Index of Chinese translations
---L.
Subject quote from Ticket to Ride, The Beatles.
Inscribed in the Temple of Mulan, Du Mu
I bend my bow in battle, serving as a man—
Within my dreams, as formerly, I paint my brows.
I often long for home, yet raise my cup at banquets.
Upon Fuyundui’s shrine, I pray to Wang Zhaojun.
题木兰庙
弯弓征战作男儿，
梦里曾经与画眉。
几度思归还把酒，
拂云堆上祝明妃。
Yes, this is the Mulan you all know, and yes, a temple to her—southern China has many Mt. Mulans, literally “magnolia mountain,” and when her legend spread in the 5th and 6th centuries, those with Daoist temple complexes started dedicating one of their temples to her worship. (One in Wuhan, founded before 700, can still be visited.) Du Mu (803-852) was a late Tang poet from the same Du clan as Du Fu, though they weren’t closely related. According to his biographies, this temple was near the Hubei-Henan border.
The speaker is Mulan during her army service on the northern steppes. Fuyundui is a pass near Baotou, Inner Mongolia, on the north bank of the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, where Xiongnu and other steppe nomads would pray before raiding south into Han lands—just as Mulan wants to return south herself. Wang Zhaojun was sent by Han Emperor Yuan (so a few centuries before Mulan’s supposed time) to make a diplomatic marriage to the Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire, and after his death was not allowed to return—making her another woman who went north in service of the empire and longed to go home. A lot of resonance in just one line.
Index of Chinese translations
---L.
Subject quote from Ticket to Ride, The Beatles.