Xin Qiji Project

Like the Meng Jiao project, Xin Qiji Project plays at the borders between translation and adaptation, variation and inspiration. Xin Qiji (1140-1207) was a Song Dynasty poet who wrote in a range of genres and is famous for the 626 ci poems he wrote to 101 different tunes. Let's see how many we can respond to here.

The poems in this post are all my responses to Xin Qiji. To show some of the process though, I'll start by including the original poem with the gloss by Agnes Vong, my collaborator in this project. Later posts may show poems in English or Chinese, translations or originals by Agnes as well.



2

浣溪沙 Silk-washing Stream
細听春山杜宇啼。 Listen carefully and you can hear a cuckoo sobbing
一声声是送行诗。 It’s so sad as if he’s singing a farewell song
朝来白鸟背人飞。 Early next morning he flies away with an egret leaving me alone
对郑子真岩石卧， Thinking of the West Han hermit Zheng Zizhen laying on the rocks
趁陶元亮菊花期。 And the East Jin Tao Yuanliang enjoying himself in the chrysanthemum
而今堪诵背山移。 I’m gonna recite the hermit book and be friend with it





by a stream where silk is washed

first variation

listen carefully and you can hear a cuckoo sobbing
someone must be leaving

sure enough – next morning, the cuckoo with the egret gone
I’m the one alone

plenty of time to think about hermits
like Zheng Zizhen hanging out with just rocks
or that East Jin poet Tao Yuanliang
the one who was into chrysanthemum

why not recite a few of their verses?
you won’t truer friends than poems






by a stream where silk is washed

first variation


listen carefully and you can hear a cuckoo sobbing
someone must be leaving
sure enough – next morning, the cuckoo with the egret gone
I’m the one alone
plenty of time to think about hermits and poets
why not recite a few of their verses?
you won’t truer friends than poems






by a stream where silk is washed

third variation

hear that cry-baby cuckoo?
someone’s leaving

turned out next morning
cuckoo and egret had flown the coop

left me pondering hermits
those two

then why not recite a few verses?
every bird knows I’m had for a song



浣溪沙 Silk-washing Stream 2
新葺茅檐次第成。 The eaves are ready
青山恰对小窗横。 The green mountain is just opposite to my small window
去年曾共燕经营。 It’s been a year like a sparrow building its nest
病怯杯盘甘止酒， Because of illness, I’ve stopped myself from touching the bottle and tray
老依香火苦翻经。 Incense and light are by my side praying with me
夜来依旧管弦声。 Outside the door orchestral music is still going on





by a stream where silk is washed (2)

first variation

at last a roof
green mountain
great as window’s small

a year at my nest
I’d make a bad sparrow

illness has kept me from the bottle
don’t worry

one day and it won’t be long
I’ll be well enough

to make myself sick
for now – incense and light

pray with me
and past my door

that orchestra
no human heart can stop





by a stream where silk is washed (2)

second variation

at last a roof
green mountain
great as window’s small

a year at my nest
I’d make a bad sparrow

illness has kept me from the bottle
don’t worry

one day and it won’t be long
I’ll be well enough

to make myself sick
for now – incense and light

pray with me
and past my door

a wedding
all the world’s a wedding

an orchestra of mountains round
and heaven for their roof





1
a tip from the mountain

listing the achievements of millennia
would be quite time consuming
so much suffering to tell as well

sharks swim back into the abyss
people get about on land again
leave heaven alone for a while

see that big red sun going down?
that’s the west – waves won’t travel
backwards or sand run up the hourglass

how tangled the mind in its nowhere to go
see how quietly the mountain sits thinking


4

a good season

old men in the field say ‘enough rain this year’
wrinkles on their brows are less
they’re happy to go home and clean their rice pots

birds sing as if attending guests now
peaches bloom so beautifully – who isn’t moved?
new flowers of the pears blossom white





5
the young

the young don’t know how misery tastes
they’ve always one more step to climb
they’ve the stiff upper lip for it too
but that’s not the way a poem’s made

having been through the mill a bit
one prefers the passage down stairs
one pauses often on the way, admiring
the season, admiring the view




6
General Li

General Li was brave and smart
he lost the battle but had to have his horses back
Li Cai, his cousin, though never very bright,
was made a duke for his trouble

he took off his armour
because he’d decided to clear the country of weeds
in fact he was looking for slate to build his roof
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7
written on city wall
to a little known tune

green of the mountain far off, deceptive
like someone conversing with someone taller

thousands of horses meet the Prime Minister
smoke and rain queue for the horizon

all day bowing, shaking hands, hopeful ever
look for the future – it won’t come that way

everyone speaks of my hair
made white by unspoken sadness

I clap my hands to mock the gulls here
how miserable we are





8
names

the river has a name
the dam here has a name as well

nameless the refugees who’ve passed
uncounted their tears
no catalogue of untold sorrows

look from the northwest
down to the capital
greener and greener
mountains block sight

no matter how many
they won’t stop the river
drifts east with saddening mists

in the mountains
the solitary song
of the partridge

she makes herself
too sad





9
serene music

a brief hut by the water
green grass laps about

those southerners, when drunk
their lilt!

only grandparents
have leisure to listen

the eldest son’s
the hardest worker
farms beans
by the eastern stream

second son
weaves chicken cages

youngest is the naughty one
plays on his lute
makes people smile

all of them eating
lotus now
lying by the Sunday
stream





10
rat dreaming

a hungry rat runs past the bed
rats always run
they’re always hungry

a rat dances towards the light
this is the rodent’s joy

unending night
up on the roof
a howling wind

paper’s torn
rain beats the walls rotten

think of the shutters mumbling insensibly

‘life took me everywhere’
the old rat said

‘now only my underbelly’s still black
the rest is grey, I’ve snow white whiskers

once I dreamt I woke a man
I’ve long since slept that nightmare off’

bedclothes too thin
see how I turn

the autumn gets inside me

for thousands of miles
these mountains the same

still thousands of years
to this night