Friday, February 7, 2020

Bookworm

To the tune Drunk on the East Wind.

nisiha umiyaha [蠧魚],    Bookworm
Staatsbibliothek 11.57 (View Online)
teku ai,    Where is its dwelling?
bithei boode,    In the studio.
jeku ai,    What is its food?
hergen bete,    The written word is helpless before it.
5 umiyahai gebu,    It has an insect’s name,
nisihai yangse,    but the appearance of a small fish.
somitai,    Hiding away,
hoošan tobo,    in a paper hut,
me wang [脉望] ohakū seme,    it didn’t turn out to be a maiwang, so
10naranggi,    in the end,
bolgo gingge.    it’s clean and pure.

Notes:

teku ai, literally, “what is its dwelling?”

hergen bete, I don’t understand what bete is doing here. According to the Qianlong dictionary, a weak or inferior person is called bete. My best guess is that this is saying the written word is weak and inferior before the bookworm.

me wang, [脉望] mài wàng. This is a legendary type of bookworm that only eats the characters for “Immortal Being” [神仙], ignoring all others. By eating these characters, it can become an immortal being, and by eating such a bookworm a scholar can take the highest placement in the examinations.

bolgo gingge, maybe it is the page that is clean and pure, after the bookworm has eaten all the characters?

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