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
10	naranggi,		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?

Captain of the Team

This seems like a good poem for World Cup season. It is one of a group of poems relating to sports.

The primary meaning of mumuhu is apparently a kind of leather ball, but looking at the 1771 Qianlong dictionary it seems this can also refer to someone who plays with such a ball:

sukū be muheliyen arame ufifi dolo fuka teleme sindafi fesheleme efirengge be mumuhu sembi

“one who sews leather to make a ball, stretches it around rings within, and plays with it by kicking it, is called mumuhu”

This poem is apparently intended to invoke both meanings of “ball” and “player,” since it starts out describing a ball, and ends up describing a person. According to zdic.net, the Chinese title 行頭 (pronounced háng tóu) was a term for the captain of a squadron in ancient times, and I have tried to incorporate this sense in my translation of the title.

The word mumuhu also has a derisive meaning, perhaps because a person who spends his time playing ball was considered idle and aimless. If the derisive sense is intended in this poem, it is not overt, but there might be a bit of a joke here anyway. Suppose we read the entire poem with the vision of a ball in our mind, end then the last line hits us like a punchline and we realize it is not the ball but the handsome player who is being called mumuhu.

	mumuhu [行頭],		Captain of the Team
	Staatsbibliothek 11.53 (View Online)
	tor sehei,		Spinning,
	aimaka biya,		like the moon,
	pio seme,		floating,
	wesihun ya,		so high.
5	fahara sain		Good at throwing down,
	alire mangga,		and difficult to withstand,
	karahai geren yasa,		all eyes are looking on,
	oihori saišacuka,		exceedingly praiseworthy,
	yalake,		truly,
10	hojo haha.		a handsome guy.

Crows, to the tune Drunk on the East Wind

	gaha [烏鴉],		Crows
	Staatsbibliothek 11.56 (View Online)
	ya gasha,		What are crows?
	kara boco,		Their color is black.
	ai jilgan,		What is their call?
	lurgin hele,		Rough and raucous.
5	hiyoošunggai banin,		Like filial people,
	gulu hing seme,		they are plain and sincere.
	amasi,		Henceforth
	ulebure,		feed them.
	feniyen feniyelerede,		When they form up in flocks
10	sasari,		together,
	hūwangga uhe.		they’ll join you on good terms.