A Song on Begonia

According to the traditional Chinese solar and lunar calendars, Autumn has already started (though we have a few more weeks till the equinox starts the season in the Western calendar). In Chinese the begonia is called the “Autumn Sea Crab-Apple,” a calque of which becomes the Manchu name, bolori fulana ilha.

Begonias grow in China, but south of the Yellow River basin.

	bolori fulana ilha be irgebuhe uculen		A Song on Begonia
	Staatsbibliothek 11.75 (View Online)
	hojo kai,		She is beautiful,
	ilhai endurin,		the fairy of the flower.
	bolgo gingge boco fiyan,		Clean and pure of color and hue,
	urhu haihū banin wen,		her staggered appearance
5	fiyanggai geoden.		is a colorful deception.
	soktohoo,		Is she drunk?
	cira jing fuhun,		Her face suddenly looks angry,
	elhe alhai aššan,		her movements are languid.
	nilgiyan fiyanggai simelen,		The wetland, brilliant with color,
10	buyecuke ten.		is the height of loveliness.

The last Plum Blossom poems (for now)

These are the last of the plum blossom poems that I have found so far. Over the last few weeks I have learned that the plum blossoms symbolizes hope for Spring in the dark months of Winter, as well as the harmonizing influence of sweetness that balances salt.

The first is a poem in seven-syllable couplets, with one extra non-rhyming line at the end. The second is to the tune of Black-Naped Oriole.

	nenden ilha be kidurengge [憶梅],		Longing for Plum Blossoms
	Staatsbibliothek 11.41 (View Online)
	nenden ilha atanggi,		When will there be plum blossoms?
	emu tolgin kidumbi,		I long for them in a dream.
	bolori fon manaha,		The Autumn season is worn out,
	tuweri yasai juleri,		Winter is before me.
5	ilarangge jing teisu,		Anything blooming just now,
	sitahangge ainu ni,		how could it hang on?
	dergi edun talihūn,		The east wind is uncertain,
	buyan yafan simeli,		humble is my garden, and wretched.
	fon toloci erin giyan,		If I count the seasons, the time is right,
10	biya bodoci esi bi,		if I calculate the months, it is certain.
	ho ging [和靖] sargan aibide,		Where is the wife of Hé Jìng?
	hoo žan [浩然] gucu absi,		Whither the friend of Hàorán?
	ilha geren secibe,		Though one may speak of many flowers,
	gecen fonde ya beki,		which ones are strong enough for the icy season?
15	jiki jiki jiki bai.		Come, come, come, please!

	nenden ilha		Plum Flower
	Staatsbibliothek 11.79 (View Online)
	tuweri alin de,		In the winter mountains,
	eiten moo,		all the trees,
	tuheke,		have lost their leaves.
	juhe gecen edede,		Frozen is the ice, (shivers)
5	šeyen boco,		White in color,
	nenden bonggo,		the plum is first,
	nimanggi de sur sere,		laughing on the snow.
	biyai dolo,		From within the moon,
	ebunjiheo,		has it descended?
10	endurin gege.		Goddess.

Translation Notes

tuweri yasai juleri. The text actually has tuwari, which looks like it could be some form of tuwa-, so I’m not sure if this is a play on words or just a misspelling.

buyan yafan simeli. The use of buyan instead of buya is interesting because it is not motivated by requirements of meter or rhyme. If the author had intended to say “the humble garden is wretched” it would have been fine to say buya hafan simeli. Instead, it seems the writer used the predicate form of the adjective, which you might expect to see in a sentence like hafan buyan “the garden is a humble one,” and lifted it up to the head of the line. I tried to recreate this effect in my translation.

ho ging sargan. Hé Jìng [和靖] was another name for the poet Lín Bū [林逋], who lived the life of a recluse, and was famously said to have taken “the plum tree as his wife and the crane as his son” [以梅为妻，以鹤为子]. Compare the allusion in Jakdan’s poem to gu šan alin where this poet was buried.

hoo žan gucu. Mèng Hàorán [孟浩然] wrote a poem about an early-blooming plum tree in his garden [早梅].

Plum Blossoms, to the tune Journey of Youth

[Note--I have updated this post since discovering that references to “harmonious tripods” and “harmonious stew” have long been allusions to the fruit of the plum tree.]

In addition to the Poem on White Plum Blossoms and Jakdan’s Song on Plum Blossoms, there is another plum blossom poem in the Staatsbibliothek material that mentions “harmonizing stew.”

This shorter poem is set to a cí style double tune. The poem ends with a reference to a Táng dynasty official named Sòng Guǎngpíng (宋廣平), who was famously described as having “iron intestines and stone heart” (鐵腸石心), but despite this “hard heartedness” once wrote a rhapsody on plum blossoms (梅花賦). This seems to echo the reference to sele gu-i duha do “iron and jade internal organs” of the first poem.

	nenden ilha [梅花],		Plum Blossoms
	Staatsbibliothek 14.22 (View Online)
	tumen wanggai da uju,		Principal among the myriad fragrances,
	i esi encu,		of course it stands apart.
	juhe canggi,		There is nothing but ice,
	gecen niša,		the frost is hard,
5	nememe luku,		not only that, but thick.
	šasigan hūwaliyambure,		At harmonizing stew
	dzaisiyang ben fulu,		the zǎixiàng [宰相] was clever and excellent.
	selei niyaman,		An iron heart,
	gu-i dere,		and a jade face:
10	sung guwang ping [宋廣平] agu.		Mister Song Guangping

Jakdan’s Take on Plum Blossoms

Pages from a manual of plum blossom painting, from Wikimedia.

In this poem, it seems that Jakdan is trying to encourage a dispirited friend. The subject is simultaneously a plum tree and a person, with an inner strength that defies the hardship of winter and emerges before Spring with the first fragrant flowers in the desolate landscape.

	nenden ilha be irgebuhe ucun		A Song on Plum Blossoms
	Jakdan 8.16
	nenden ilha ai colo,		What shall we call the plum blossom?
	lo fuo endurin gege,		The fairy lady of Luofu.
	tuweri forgon-i tuwabun,		In a winter scene,
	tumen ilha-i bonggo,		it is the first of the myriad flowers.
5	abai silenggi aga,		Where is the dew and the rain?
	niša nimanggi juhe,		Heavy are the snow and the ice.
	tuwaci hūwantahūn hada,		When I look, barren are the crags,
	šaci olhoho holo,		when I gaze, dry are the valleys.
	yaya ilha layapi,		Every flower has withered,
10	eiten orho soroko,		and all the grass has yellowed,
	geren bujan niohušun,		the forests are naked,
	erei teile injehe,		but this alone is smiling.
	butui fangšaha wangga,		A dark, smoky fragrance,
	tumin šahūri boco,		a deep, frigid color,
15	gecehengge ten beikuwen,		what has frozen is so cold,
	ilakangge jing hojo,		what has bloomed is suddenly lovely,
	selei cikten sargiyakan,		the iron tree trunks are sparse,
	šušu dasiha niokso,		with a purple covering of lichen.
	simacuka udu da,		Though solitary its origin,
20	dulembuhe aniya fe,		it has passed through ancient years.
	gengge gangga simeli,		Wandering alone, spartan,
	hūwanta alin-i hošo,		at the edges of the empty mountains,
	gaksi manggai bulehen,		with only a crane for companion,
	emgi yaka cecike,		and no other bird.
25	buru bara biyai elden,		Hazy is the light of the moon,
	bolgo micihiyan muke,		clean is the shallow water,
	yadan nimalan hailan,		exhausted are the mulberry and elm,
	niyere toro foyoro,		weak are the peach and plum.
	ilan šahūrun gucu,		Three cold friends,
30	jakdan mailasun cuse,		the pine, cypress and bamboo,
	nimanggi-i sasari,		together with the snow,
	niyengniyeri be meljere,		will strive towards Spring.
	terei da banin kulu,		Its fundamental nature is strong,
	teni emhun enteke,		that is why it is solitary like this.
35	ioi ling antu halukan,		The south slope of Yuling is warm,
	tuttu nenden fushuhe,		so the plum blossoms have burst open,
	yuwan lu jidun soningga,		The north slope of Yuanlu is interesting,
	gu šan alin gebungge,		Gūshān [孤山] is renowned,
	ho hiowen dergi asari,		The eastern tower of Hexuan,
40	inu gebu tucike,		has also become famous.
	lu k'ai mukei jugūn ci,		From the road of the Lukai water,
	benjihengge hon yobo,		what was brought is quite amusing.
	bayan wesihun hafan,		An official of honor and wealth,
	tuwaki seci ai šolo,		wants to see it but has no free time.
45	giru gulu de fulu,		In form it is full of innocence,
	yangse saikan ci moco,		unskilled at looks and beauty,
	banjitai uttu hican,		so frugal by nature,
	ainahai tuttu oilo,		but not so on the outside.
	jalan an-i asari,		The tower of the Order of the World,
50	saha niyalma geli we,		who still knows of it?
	aika niyengniyeri erin,		If everyone is groaning
	niyalma tome eyoyo,		for Springtime,
	hūwaliyambure šasigan,		it is fair to set for them
	terei tebuhe tondo,		a harmonizing stew.
55	kuri kari hacingga,		Dappled and spotted,
	yaka šahūrun bongko,		with whatever cold buds,
	manggai erere aga,		and the earnestly hoped-for rain,
	geli gelere bono,		and also the feared hail,
	edun fulgiyeme jaka,		as the wind blows it,
60	teci biretei mokto,		but when it settles, everything is bare.
	yasa tuwahai wajiha,		I have seen it with my own eyes,
	emu tolgin kumungge,		a dream that is lively.
	tuttu wesihun saisa,		Thus, honored gentleman
	nenden ilha nioroko,		the plum blossoms have appeared.
65	geren wangga gurun de,		In all the countries of fragrance,
	erei teile encungge,		this alone is different.
	uthai yadahūn saisa,		Just so the poor gentleman,
	jalan akdun-i gese,		with the strength of the world,
	taifin erin somitai,		hiding away in times of peace,
70	mohon fonde serehe,		has appeared in the season of depletion.
	banjinjiha baitangga,		A useful one who has come to be born,
	tucikede oyonggo,		his coming forth is important.
	enduri-i fun beye,		Just like a god,
	damu yoo cy-i omo,		only to Yaochi lake,
75	wasibume ebufi,		he was sent down, he descended,
	jalan tuwakū ojoro,		and takes on a worldly aspect.
	ede ucun arafi,		For him I have made a song,
	akūmbume henduhe,		and completely recited it.
	erin tuwabun serenggeo,		Do we speak of seasons and scenes?
80	šumin mujilen noho,		It conceals a deeper thought.
	erei adali oci,		If this is similar to it,
	yabun hamimbi dere.		I think I have done well enough.

Translation Notes

tumin šahūri boco. I cannot find šahūri in my dictionaries, but I think it must be connected with šahūrun, “cold.”

šušu dasiha niokso. For niokso Norman has a form of algae found on the surface of water, but given the context I think this must refer to lichen on the bark of trees or something similar.

gu šan alin. This seems to be a reference to Gūshān [孤山], where the poet Lín Bū [林逋] was buried. Lín Bū was famously said to have taken “the plum tree as his wife and the crane as his son” [以梅为妻，以鹤为子].

A Poem on White Plum Blossoms, possibly by Mucihiyan?

In Manchu, the plum blossom is called nenden ilha, “first flower,” apparently because it blooms before other flowers. Like the earlier Flowers to the tune of the Black-Naped Oriole, this poem associates the flower with a spirit from White Jade Terrace (瑤台).

The imagery of the poem is wonderful, but also interesting are the concluding lines:

agu sinde ai fulu / cingkai minde ala se / mucihiyan-i šasigan / hūwaliyambure!
“Brother, what have you to add? By all means, tell me. Harmonize with this tripod of stew.”

The word for “tripod” here is mucihiyan, which is also the name of Mucihiyan Ioi Fan, a collaborator of Jakdan who translated at least three essays on Chinese poetry into Manchu (see here, here and here). It seems like we could understand these last lines to be Mucihiyan inviting his reader to respond to his poem, which he refers to humorously as a “stew.”. [Edit: see the later post on harmonious stew, which shows that references to tripods and harmonious stew are ancient allusions to the prunes that are the fruit of this tree. It is still possible that this poem is by Mucihiyan, but the case is not so clear.]

In the Staatsbibliothek manuscript this poem is not written in Mucihiyan’s distinctive hand, so if he was the original author then the SB text is a copy made by someone else.

	šanyan nenden ilha be irgebuhengge		A Poem on White Plum Blossoms
	Staatsbibliothek 14.15 (View Online)
	tuweri beikuwen edede,		Brrrr...the winter cold
	moo anan-i gecehe,		has frosted tree after tree,
	juhe nimanggi canggi [extra tooth],		nothing but ice and snow
	edun gecen kejine,		and wind and frost for a long time.
5	damu yoo tai [瑤台] endurin,		But the fairy of White Jade Terrace,
	utulihekūi gese,		as though unaware of it,
	gengge gangga durungga,		takes form, wandering alone,
	nitan hican murungge,		takes shape, spartan and frugal,
	hojo saikan banin wen,		beautiful and lovely in appearance,
10	sele gu-i duha do,		with iron and jade internal organs.
	gecuhun-i ucaran,		The frost is met with
	halukan-i mejige,		tidings of warmth.
	šahūrun-i hesebun,		The fate of the cold,
	niyengniyeri-i šošonggo,		is to conclude with Spring.
15	hūwanta kenggehun alin,		In the bare and empty mountains,
	genggiyen micihiyan muke,		the bright shallow water,
	ilha umai ai akū,		not a flower at all
	emhun ilaka teile,		but one alone has bloomed.
	bolokon-i wa wangga,		A clean fragrant scent,
20	jenduken-i wen wengge,		a secret refined influence,
	buya bongko fulhuren,		tiny sprouting buds
	amba hafun todolo,		an omen of great passage.
	bocoi falan ya nenden,		In the realm of color, what is first?
	wanggai gurun-i bonggo,		In the country of fragrance it is chief.
25	lo foo [羅浮] tolgin-i saisa,		The gentleman of the dream of Luófú,
	biya-i fejile gege,		a lady beneath the moon,
	beye giru buruhun,		dim of body and form,
	juru akū ten hojo,		peerless in its high beauty.
	agu sinde ai fulu,		Brother, what have you to add?
30	cingkai minde ala se,		By all means tell me.
	mucihiyan-i šasigan,		With this tripod of stew
	hūwaliyambure.		harmonize!

Translation Notes

šošonggo. This word normally means “having a chignon” or “shaped like a chignon,” but in this case I think it must be connected with the word šošombi, “to compile; to summarize,” and I think the meaning is that the cold is destined to come to an end with Spring.

Three poems to The One Part Tune

There are three poems in SB 11 set to a tune called The One Part Tune (一半兒調). These short poems describe their subject and conclude with a line summarizing its attractive qualities as made of “one part this and one part that.”

	[春] tuwabun		Spring Scene
	Staatsbibliothek 11.69 (View Online)
	niyengniyeri fiyan hojo ya,		The colors of spring are pretty, oh,
	tuwabun sabugan ba ba,		everywhere the scenes and the sights,
	cecikei wei ilhai wa,		the calls of birds and the scent of flowers.
	amtangga,		What is appealing:
5	dulin donji dulin tuwa.		It’s one part “listen” and one part “look”!

	toro ilha [桃花]		Peach Blossoms
	Staatsbibliothek 11.70 (View Online)
	toro ilha hon fiyangga,		Peach blossoms, so colorful,
	saikan gege-i cira,		the face of a beautiful lady,
	fiyan fiyen hojo de wangga,		a perfume on the beauty of rouge.
	soningga,		The novelty is:
5	dulin boco dulin wa.		It’s one part color, one part fragrance!

	gefehe [蝴蝶]		Butterfly
	Staatsbibliothek 11.71 (View Online)
	urhu haihū gefehe,		Staggering butterfly,
	goiman dedenggi yangse,		charming, frivolous form,
	ilha baime šodoro,		galloping off after flowers.
	hon yobo,		What is so amusing:
5	dulin gakda dulin juwe.		It’s one part single, one part double.

Translation Notes:

cecikei wei. I infer the meaning of “calls” for wei based on the last line of the poem, but I don’t find this term in my dictionaries.

fiyan fiyen. This pair also came up in Flowers. The word fiyan means “color” and fiyen means “powder.” Together I think these must refer to makeup or rouge.

dulin gakda dulin juwe. I suppose this means that the butterfly is, in one sense a single creature, but with its two broad wings also a double creature.

Flowers, to the tune of the Black-Naped Oriole

There is some kind of dialog between the Black-Naped Oriole poems in SB 11 and the Wind in the Pines poems that follow them. The Black-Naped Oriole poems are fun-loving, while the Wind in the Pines poems use many of the same words and themes to produce a more profound and bittersweet effect.

The following is the Black-Naped Oriole pair to the poem in my earlier post about A Flower. The last line of a Black-Naped Oriole poem often has a surprising twist on the theme of the poem, and this one is a good example of that. After describing flowers in glowing terms, the poet ends by suggesting the scene might be strange and unearthly.

	ilha [花]		Flowers
	Staatsbibliothek 11.6 (View Online)
	hojo fayangga,		Beautiful spirits
	yoo tai [瑤台] ci,		from White Jade Terrace
	wasika,		descended.
	booci jalan šanggaha,		From that home, finishing in this world,
5	hocikon sasa,		lovely together,
	gincihiyan baba,		shining everywhere,
	fiyangga fiyan jai,		a flush blush and
	wangga wa,		a fragrant scent.
	agu tuwa,		Brother, look,
10	kumungge ten –		the height of festivity –
	hode faijuma.		perhaps it is unearthly.

Translation Notes

yoo tai. Yaotai is an abode of immortals. My translation of 瑶 as “white jade” comes from the fact that 瑶 can mean, by extension, brilliantly and purely white (zdic: 光明洁白).

faijuma. The word faijuma apparently has a negative connotation. The Qianlong dictionary explains it as follows: baita hacin sain akū jalin jobošome hendumbihede faijuma sembi, “When people talk about being distressed by things and affairs that are not good, they use the word faijuma.” I think the poet does not mean to say that flowers are creepy or unsettling, but at the same time I think he doesn’t want the reader to be completely comfortable with these strange and beautiful things that seem to have descended from some other realm.

A Song on Forsythia to the tune of Wind in the Pines

About 18 of the SBJ poems are about flowers. I’ve previously posted A Chrysanthemum at the End and A Flower, which used the aging flower to talk about human life. In A Song on Forsythia the flower is still used to talk about people, but in a different way.

The name okdori ilha could refer to forsythia or winter jasmine, both yellow flowers that bloom in late Winter or early Spring. This poem showers the flower with backhanded praise, acknowledging its beauty but deriding its simplicity and eagerness.

	okdori ilha-i [迎春花] uculen		A Song on Forsythia
	Staatsbibliothek 14.4 (View Online)
	manggai buyasi sure,		Merely simpleminded,
	sahiba teile,		only fawning,
	niyengniyeri de tosohoi,		as it ambushes Spring,
	bucetei saišabume,		and flatters it to death.
5	guwele mele saikan,		Furtively, stealthily pretty,
	dede dada hojo,		frivolously lovely.
	dembei dedenggi boco,		The silliest color,
	baibi gicuke,		simply disgraceful,
	halukan ici kani,		in league with the warm weather,
10	te uthai kūwasa cokto,		so now boastful and arrogant,
	banjitai oilohon,		superficial by nature,
	funiyagan ajige.		of little forbearance.

A Flower, to the tune of Wind in the Pines

A lot of the SBJ poems are about flowers. Since it’s now Spring, it seems appropriate to start working on some of these. This one is in the same style as Wind and Snow, which use the tune Wind in the Pines and make heavy use of alliteration.

This poem uses many different words for “beautiful,” and in teasing out the different nuances I benefited enormously from being able to look up these terms in Hu Zengyi and Qianlong through the online dictionary at buleku.org.

The first stanza talks about the fresh blooming of a flower, and the second stanza talks about the flower’s decline, a powerful contrast reminiscent of the Moon. This flower was young and shapely once, the center of attention for a cloud of butterflies, but then fades, and longs for that former desire when all the admirers have gone away.

All of the SB poems are anonymous, and perhaps we will never know who wrote them, but the SB 11 poems to the tune of Wind in the Pines seem very sympathetic to the emotional lives of women, and I wonder if we will ever learn that the poet was a woman.

	ilha [花],		A Flower
	Staatsbibliothek 11.18 (View Online)
	ice icebuhengge,		A new thing stained,
	boconggo boco,		with colorful colors,
	fiyangga fiyan fiyen, wangga wa,		a flush blush and rouge, a fragrant scent,
	yangsanggai yaya yangse,		every shape is shapely,
5	hojo kai hocikon,		lovely, indeed, and beautiful,
	yebken ni yebcungge.		fine, oh, and striking.
	geren gemu gefehe,		All settled and thick
	noroko noho,		with butterflies.
	fayangga ai farapi,		But alas, the spirit faints away,
10	buyenin buyecuke,		the desire is longed for,
	tuhen tuhekede,		when what falls has fallen,
	gegese genehe.		and the ladies have gone.

Translation Notes

boconggo boco and fiyangga fiyan fiyen. While boconggo and fiyangga may seem to be nearly the same in meaning, in poetry it seems like the latter is used more often to describe bright pink, orange and red colors, like autumn trees, sunsets and a person’s complexion, while the former is used more broadly. The Qianlong Manchu dictionary gives cira boco sain, beye ambalinggū be fiyangga sembi, “A good color of the face, or a stalwart body, are called fiyangga.” I chose “flush blush” as my translation for fiyangga fiyan to reflect this nuance.

hojo kai hocikon and yebken ni yebcungge. For these words Norman gives a set of overlapping meanings in the range of cute, attractive, likable, beautiful. A look at the Qianlong dictionary suggests that the former represents a specifically feminine type of beauty, as hehesi umesi hocikon be hojo sembi, “when women are very beautiful (hocikon) it is called hojo.” It is tempting to assume the latter is a more masculine type of beauty, but that is almost certainly not the case. Hu Zengyi gives an example sargan jui i arbun yebken saikan bisire fon i adali, “like the time when a girl’s appearance is yebken and saikan.” QL gives us getuken dacun niyalma be yebken sembi, “a lucid and shrewd person is called yebken.”

A Chrysanthemum at the End, to the tune of the Black-Naped Oriole

I had originally intended to post another weiqi poem, but I got bogged down in the details, so it will have to wait till later. In the meantime, keeping with the autumnal theme, here is another Black-Naped Oriole poem about a chrysanthemum at the end of the season.

The last line is a reference to the one of the Chinese names for chrysanthemum, 陶菊 táo jú, whose first character is the same as the surname Táo. In my translation I have taken the subject to be singular, though it could have been plural, and I have read the last line to mean that the chrysanthemum is a member of the Táo family, because I think this reading works well as an homage to an elderly person of the surname Táo.

	dubesilehe bojiri [殘菊] ilha		A Chrysanthemum at the End
	Staatsbibliothek 14.9 (View Online)
	geren ududu,		Although numerous are
	cak sehei,		the sudden
	edun su,		gusts and whirlwinds,
	ilha tuhenjirakū,		the flower will not fall.
5	banin wen gulu,		Simple in appearance,
	dubei se guigu,		it is mighty in its old age,
	salgabuha bekitu,		ordained by fate to be strong.
	da uju,		Root and head
	tuwakiyan fili —		it is resolute in watchfulness —
10	too [陶] halai gucu.		our friend from the Táo family.

Translation Difficulties

geren ududu, the word ududu, “several, many” is a reduplication of udu, “several.” In this case I feel it is intended to simultaneously evoke the other meaning of udu, “although.”

too halai gucu, this is ambiguous, and we could read it as meaning that the chrysanthemum is a friend of the Táo family, or that the chrysanthemum is a friend of ours who is a member of the Táo family. Furthermore, nothing in the poem says we are talking about a single chrysanthemum instead of many of them. My reading reflects my specific interpretation of this poem as an homage to an elderly person.