2018 推句 05 - 10

Original Script

::: 推句 :::

5.

春水滿四澤이요

夏雲多奇峯이라.

秋月揚明輝요

冬嶺秀孤松이라.

7.

月爲宇宙燭이요

風作山河鼓라.

月爲無柄扇이요

星作絶纓珠라.

9.

春作四時首요

人爲萬物靈이라.

水火木金土요

仁義禮智信이라.

Translation

Poem 5 : (Kyrie)

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Spring water, fills all ponds,

Summer clouds, many wondrous mountain peaks.

Autumn moon, raises bright splendor,

Winter mountain ridge, distinguishes the lonely pine.

• Discussion Questions:

+I tried to maintain the sense of a poem by separating the topic of the line (ie/ summer clouds) from the description with commas. Is this too fragmented? Would it be preferable to the readers if I connected the two clauses? (ie/ Summer clouds are many wondrous mountain peaks)
(YO) If we follow the parallelism, "being many" applies to the clouds rather than to the peaks, no?
+This poem (the whole quatrain) is attributed to Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (365-427), but many have suspected that it was by Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (ca. 345-406). According to the Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 (a Tang-dynasty leishu 類書 compiled by Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢), theses lines were selected from Gu Kaizhi's "Shenqing shi" 神情時 [A song for spiritual emotion], although slightly different—the last line had "cold pine tree' instead of "lonely pine tree". ("晉顧凱之神情詩曰春水滿四澤夏雲多奇峰秋月揚明輝冬嶺秀寒松摘句," Yiwen leiju, Vol. 3.) This quatrain, as a whole or parts of it, have been used and augmented by several later poets as homage to Tao Yuanming.

Poem 7 : (Okyang Chae-Duporge)

The moon becomes the candle of the universe,

The wind makes the mountains and rivers a drum.

The moon becomes a fan without handle,

The stars are made of the beads scattered from a severed tassel.

• Discussion Questions:

+ We have discussed how to handle the parallel of 為 - 作 alternation in 1-2 and 3-4. The difficulty is in the seemingly shifting use of 作 ('make, create'). I wonder if we can understand 作 to mean something like "to create a feel, image, or semblance of"?
+ 絕纓珠 is literally "beads of severed string" or "beads of which the string is cut".

Poem 9 : (Ewa)

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Spring is the head [the first] of four seasons

Human beings are the soul of the myriad of things.

Water, fire, wood, metal and earth

Humanness, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trust.

• Discussion Questions:

+(YO) Translating 靈 as 'soul' is a good try—somehow it sounds better than 'spirit of myriad things' equated to human beings—but I must mention for a record that almost all scholars so far have translated it 'spirit' or 'numen' and it is almost as if they have avoided 'soul'.