New Songs from a Jade Terrace

An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry, Translated with Annotations and an Introduction

Anne Birrell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780367770600
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000583076
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi regionali

This book, first published in 1982, was the first translation of the Chinese classic Yü-t-'ai hsin-yung – the unique anthology of love poems, compiled in AD 545. This traces the development of love poetry from the second century BC to its full flowering in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Dr Birrell's incisive introductory essay provides a concise survey of the historical and literary setting to the poems and explains the conventions governing courtly love poetry. In particular, the reader's attention is drawn to the many and varied artistic uses of imagery in the poems. Major poets are noted for their artistic achievement and for their contribution to the development of the genre. Dr Birrell also supplies a valuable section of notes on the poems to guide the reader through unfamiliar historical events, legends, anecdotes and famous places and people, and there is a similar section of notes on the poets offering biographical details.

Chapter One Early Folk-songs and Ballads (first and second centuries ad)

Anon. Eight Old Poems

Bittersweet

Uphill I picked sweet herbs,

Downhill I met my former husband.

Kneeling I asked my former husband,

‘Your new one, what is she like ?’

‘My new one is good, I suppose,

But not as fine as my old one.

In looks they are like each other,

But their hands are not the same.

My new one comes in through the main gates,

My old one would leave by the back door.

My new one is skilled at weaving finespun,

My old one was skilled at weaving homespun.

Finespun is one yard a day,

Homespun over a yard.

Comparing fineweave and plainweave,

My new one won’t match the old!’

Cold winds

Chill, chill, the year now fades.

Mole-crickets at dusk sadly chant.

Cold winds suddenly blow fierce,

The traveller feels chill with no cloak.

A brocade quilt he sent to Lo shore,

My bed-sharer has betrayed me.

Alone I sleep endless long nights.

In my dreams I see his bright face :

My darling remembers past rapture,

Drives toward me, offers his coach strap.

I long for eternal charmed laughter,

Holding hands share his carriage home.

He did come, but for a moment,

Not to live within my many doors.

Clearly without the wings of Dawn Wind

How can I soar on the wind ?

I glance sidelong to send my thoughts,

Lean forward staring far after him.

Uncertain, I nurse wounded feelings,

Trickling tears soak twin door-leaves.

There is a time

Bit by bit the orphan growing bamboo

Marries its roots to Mount T’ai’s flank.

To you am I newly wed,

Dodder attached to creeping vine.

There is a time for dodder to grow,

There is a time for man and wife to join.

A thousand leagues far we are married,

Wide, wide by mountain slopes divided.

Longing for you makes me grow old,

Your high carriage comes so slow.

I’m wounded by the rich orchid bloom,

Full glory brandishes brilliant gleams.

It lives its season, but is not plucked,

With weeds of autumn to wither.

If you hold true to your chaste vows,

What would be better for me ?

Fierce winter’s cold air

Fierce winter’s cold air has come,

North winds so bitter and cruel.

Sorrow keener knows long night.

I gaze up at hosts of serried stars.

The fifteenth’s bright moon is full,

The twentieth’s toad and hare are waning.

A traveller came from faraway,

He brought me a letter.

Above it says ‘I’ll always love you’.

Below it says ‘Long must we part’.

I put the letter in my bosom sleeve.

Three years no word has faded.

My single heart keeps true, true.

I fear you’ll never know.

Joy of Love quilt

A traveller came from faraway,

He brought me a length of silk.

Gone from me more than ten thousand leagues,

My old love’s heart is still the same.

Its pattern of a pair of lovebirds

I make into a joy of love quilt,

Stuff it with always love you padding,

Bind it tight, never to sunder.

Throw glue into lacquer -

Who could ever break them apart ?

The bronze censer

Gentlemen, not so loud!

Please hear me sing a song,

Let me tell of a bronze censer.

Craggy like Mount Chungnan,

Summit boughs are of pine and cypress,

Roots overspread its brazen dish.

Carved patterns of all different kinds,

Convolutions interwoven.

Who could create such a vessel ?

Kung Shu and Lu Pan.

Scarlet flames flicker within,

Black smoke billows around,

Borne on a breeze it slips inside your breast.

Of her audience there was none but sighed.

Perfumed breeze does not stay long,

Only makes the orchid waste away.

Come back h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Table of Contents
• Chronological Table
• FM-chapter
• Map The Southern Dynasties
• Introduction
• Chapter One Early Folk-songs and Ballads (first and second centuries AD)
• Chapter Two Poets of the Wei and Chin Dynasties (third and fourth centuries)
• Chapter Three Poets of the Chin Dynasty (third and fourth centuries)
• Chapter Four Poets of the Southern Dynasties (early fifth century)
• Chapter Five Poets of the Southern Dynasties (the decades AD 490-510)
• Chapter Six Poets of the Southern Dynasties (early sixth century)
• Chapter Seven Royal Poets of the Liang (the Hsiao Family)
• Chapter Eight Twenty Poets of the Liang Dynasty (sixth century)
• Chapter Nine Love-songs in Irregular Metres  (from second century BC to sixth century AD)
• Chapter Ten A Treasury of Short Love Poems (from third to sixth centuries AD )
• Notes
• Appendix Hsü Ling’s Preface to the anthology
• Notes to the Preface (in the order of their appearance in the text)
• Background to Poets and Poems
• Poem Titles