#Su Dongpo

[lionofchaeronea]

We humans are like wild geese carrying messages in autumn while the world's affairs, like dreams of spring, vanish and leave no trace. --Su Dongpo (1037-1101), trans. Jiann I. Lin and David Young

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

HELP ME IM IN THE DONGPO WIKI

Families when a child is born Hope it will turn out intelligent. I, through intelligence Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope that the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he'll be happy all his days And grow into a cabinet minister.

MR PORK IS SO SAVAGE SDFSDFSSDFSDFSD

[leahsfiction]

happy delayed gushiwensday, here's master Su Dongpo at his loudest and brashest. truly haofang in style

A Hunt in Mizhou

to the tune "River Town"

Su Shi (Su Dongpo)

Make an old man young again for now, headstrong, With a yellow hound leashed And a goshawk too, Brocade hat and a sable coat on As a thousand riders make the flat hilltop tall. The whole city's turned out; like a good governor I'll Shoot a tiger myself Like a second Sun Quan.

Intoxicated, with chest inflated and courage too See these grays coming in Is that a crime? Ride out with a pardon to Yunzhong, Feng Tang, ride out soon. My painted bow's ready to bend round like the moon, Sight northwest And shoot the wolf down.

--

江城子·密州出猎

苏轼

老夫聊发少年狂，左牵黄，右擎苍，锦帽貂裘，千骑卷平冈。为报倾城随太守，亲射虎，看孙郎。 酒酣胸胆尚开张。鬓微霜，又何妨！持节云中，何日遣冯唐？会挽雕弓如满月，西北望，射天狼。

Yunzhong: modern-day Togtoh county, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia

shoot the wolf down: the Heavenly Wolf Star, Sirius (lol), symbolized invasion and strife. in the context of Su Shi writing in the Northern Song dynasty, this would be Western Xia in the northwest (it didn't go well for the Song, as Li Qingzhao's satirical poetry will attest).

i'm too tired to write extensive notes for this one but you can find more of them on this bilingual post from Stanford's Global Medieval Sourcebook, my new fav resource for ci poems. Or just search the web, this is a pretty famous one of his and there's multiple English translations out there.

i think my translation is a fun one to read aloud, though. it's probably the closest i've gotten to a rhyming translation with this project (as the original is strongly rhymed too with all those -ang lines). it helped that i bounced it between scratch paper on tues night, to a notepad file, to an entirely new draft today on my laptop after some more research on my phone.

[any-which-way-poetry]

[Episode transcript here.]

苏轼 Su Shi (Su Dongpo) 江城子·乙卯正月二十日夜记梦 Dream, 20/1/1075

十年生死两茫茫， 不思量，自难忘。 千里孤坟， 无处话凄凉。 纵使相逢应不识， 尘满面，鬓如霜。

夜来幽梦忽还乡， 小轩窗，正梳妆。 相顾无言， 惟有泪千行。 料得年年肠断处， 明月夜，短松冈。

ten years -- the haze of distance between the living and the dead one doesn't think on it much one never forgets it

a thousand miles of lonely graves nowhere for my living voice to speak misery

even if we meet again, you would hardly know me a face full of dust white in my hair

with a strange dream at night i am suddenly back home that little window where you are getting ready

we look at each other, but words don't come only a thousand lines of tears

i will be waiting every year at the place of my heartbreak the bright moon at night a mound of short pines

Further reading:

#gushiwensday translation by garden-ghoul

Notes by Nina Du, Runqi Zhang, and Dante Zhu; translation by Quan Jia (Global Medieval Sourcebook)

[ochoislas]

VIENDO LAS CIMAS DESDE EL RÍO

Del barco veo galopar las cimas, ciento en manada pasan en un guiño. Delante mudan como leño en torno; detrás varían como en desbandada. Vese una senda en alto cuarteando, con viandantes que van éter arriba. Por señas desde el barco quiero hablarles: vuela hacia el sur mi solitaria vela.

Su Shi

di-versión©ochoislas

*

江上看山

船上看山如走馬　倏忽過去數百群 前山槎牙忽變態　後嶺雜沓如驚奔 仰看微徑斜繚繞　上有行人高縹渺 舟中舉手欲與言　孤帆南去如飛鳥

蘇軾

[wangchuan-shizhe]

su shi sushi

nom nom

[armchairsoapbox]

He (Su) also wrote this absolute banger of a poem, which I often think back on in these benighted times:

[Image ID: this contains the text of the poem “On the Birth of a Son” by Su Dongpo, also transliterated as Su Tung-Po. The translator is Arthur Waley. The text reads: “Families when a child is born / Hope it will turn out intelligent. / I, through intelligence / Having wrecked my whole life, / Only hope that the baby will prove / Ignorant and stupid. / Then he'll be happy all his days / And grow into a cabinet minister.”]

You’ve probably seen that post floating around Tumblr a while ago:

my favorite thing i’ve learned in college is that way back in ancient china there was this poet/philosopher guy who wrote this whole pretentious poem about how enlightened he was that was like “the eight winds cannot move me” blahblahblah and he was really proud of it so he sent it to his friend who lived across the lake and then his friend sends it back and just writes “FART” (or the ancient Chinese equivalent) on it and he was SO MAD he travels across the lake to chew his friend out and when he gets there his friend says “wow. the eight winds cannot move you, but one fart sends you across the lake”

So I got curious, and I did some research, and apparently, the poet was Su Dongpo, also known as Su Shi (8 January 1037 – 24 August 1101), and he wasn’t just a poet - he was a writer, poet, painter, calligrapher, pharmacologist, gastronome, and a statesman of the Song dynasty.

That particular event happened while he was assigned to an official post at Guazhuo, and the “friend who lived across the lake” was actually Chan master Foyin, who was the master of a temple on the mountain on the opposite shore.

A translation of the poem Su Dongpo sent to master Foyin:

“Bowing with my highest respect To the deva of devas Whose fine light illuminates the whole universe, The eight winds cannot move me, For I am sitting upright on the golden purple lotus blossom.”

Foyin wrote “Pi” on the poem (”fart”, but also “nonsense”), and sent it back, and the rest is history.

[oacasodaspalavras]

Su Dongpo, Poemas, 2023 https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Shi

[rivvyelf]

Chapter 4 Reflection. AKA, How the Hell did I write this in 3 Days?

ff.net link

ao3 link

Last year, I published chapter 4 on the LOTR Fanatics Plaza in only 3 days after I published chapter 3. WTF. And this is one of those chapters where I didn't substantially revise later.

Spoilers ahead

What I remember about this chapter was a couple of things. The description of how Gao did those tricks with the football was largely inspired by how he did it in the 1998 Water Margin TV series.

There's something so... modern about how he became Grand Marshal. I wish this was the true story of his actual history: how he became buddies with the crown prince due to their passion for sports and that led him to become one of the most powerful people in the country.

Beware the power of.... the Football!

So Gao also gets his name Qiu in this chapter, and I wanted to make this a more memorable thing than its blink-and-you-miss-it moment in the book. His name, 俅, if you replace the left side (he) with king (王), you get "ball." Hence his nickname, Gao the Ball. Not really flattering since he got kicked in the balls in an earlier chapter.

Yanny (now known as Yanyi) then transforms into Gao Yannei. Pretty fun conversation to write between the two.

Gao then goes on his rampage against those who rejected him (his father for one) but I wanted to show his more compassionate side to people who supported him in the past, like Su Dongpo. Now I'm pretty sure he wasn't able to thank him directly in history, as I recall him helping out Su's family financially when Gao became powerful, implying Dongpo had passed already. Make him more than your typical one-dimensional corrupt person.

Then of course I end it with him realizing that this Wang Jin he looks forward to meeting is the person that beat the crap out of him.

That last line works in Mandarin Chinese. Since he would've said execute "ta." Ta can mean anyone and anything verbally since Mandarin dialect has only one gendered pronoun. And we'll see how Wang Jin takes advantage of that linguistic mishap.

[pastelcheckereddreams]

I added more things to Lotus Tower! Can you spot them all? To be honest, I can't pick anything I'm the most proud of. I'm so pleased to see all of it come together like this. Perhaps my brain will finally let me put the project to rest 😂

Breakdown of all the new fun decorations and modifications below.

You can see the first part of my model build here, or more of my art and my craft projects in my pinned post, where you can also find a link to my INPRNT store and my ko-fi if you would like to support my creative projects in any way 💛

So, the first thing I wanted to do was utillise some spare parts from my Life of Su Dongpo booknook kit to make Li Lianhua a small tea tray:

I cut tiny planks of wood from a strip of basswood to form the sides, but the base and teapot come from the Su Dongpo kit. I was also able to make the goodest girl Hulijing a stand from the same piece that makes the base of the tea tray. Now she can sit in Lotus Tower anywhere she wants to instead of being stuck into the wood outside her kennel!

To hold the tea tray, I also made a table and stool similar to the one in the show, and created some tiny baskets out of beige cross-stitch aida to replicate the many baskets and storage Li Lianhua has hanging from the Tower:

In that same vein, I used thread to make a net for some more storage beneath the stairs:

And used part of a bamboo place-mat and some dried flowers to create a herb drying rack on the upper level.

One of the more complex pieces I created was a second sail to hang under the eaves of the gourd door:

It was difficult trying to get this sail to hold a good final shape as, just as with the other sail in my first build, I had to guess how much material would be needed and how to gather it. But I'm pleased with how it turned out in the end! It, like the herb rack, is hung from the eaves with small pieces of metal wire, bent into hooks and stuck into the reinforced card.

You can also see in the pictures above that I added "rope" and a fake hook to the shelf on the side of the Tower to make it a bit more accurate to the show's design.

(You will also see in the very first picture that I made a set of removable stairs for the porches - unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of their building process and kept forgetting to move them back into the big picture.)

The biggest addition, though, is of course the lanterns:

I am so proud of these. I made them from paper and basswood, and they are ridiculously tiny (about 1.5cms). I wasn't going to put lights in them to start with, but when I bought the tiny bulbs (I was planning to try and put them inside Lotus Tower at the time) and shone them behind one of the lanterns - it looked so good I knew I just had to try it.

So here's how I pulled it off:

I first carefully slotted the bulbs and their wires through the beams of the sail awning, twisting the red and blue cables around each other to give them more structure and make sure they were hanging at the right length. I made sure the wires both led back to the side of the Tower I was going to store the battery pack on, and fastened them to one of the supports of the awning so that the wires would discretely trail down to the floor of the upper level. (I also painted them at this time.)

As for the battery pack, I stuck a small piece of wood underneath the porch where Hulijing's kennel sits for the battery to sit on. I tidied up the wires as neatly as I could and fastened them to the side of the Tower with a spare U-shaped piece from the Su Dongpo kit, wedged into the window slats of the ground level (making sure there's plenty of slack for me to unfasten it and change the battery without struggle). I then joined the wires as best I could and painted it all a yellow-brown colour.

As you can see, it looks a bit crude, but once the roof is back on over the door, the wires all but disappear!

I am so sooo happy with how it's turned out. Please let me know what you think! Is there anything else you would add? Anything you would do differently?

[scarletlich]

There's a poem by famous Song Dynasty poet Su Shi (Su Dongpo) that is used in the Chinese HSR fandom to describe Jing Yuan. It's quite fascinating, the original poem is Su Shi lamenting the death of a famous painter, but the nature of classical Chinese is that the same line can be reinterpreted with minimal grammar shenanigans.

闻说神仙郭恕先，醉中狂笔势澜翻。 百年寥落何人在，只有华亭李景元。

[I] heard of the legendary figure Guo Shuxian, in a drunken state paintings emerged from his brush like crashing waves.

A century on who can compare? Only Li Jingyuan of Huating.

The reason the fandom latched onto this poem is that the last line can be easily reinterpreted because the historical artist Li Jingyuan's given name Jingyuan is the exact same characters as Jing Yuan. So a reinterpretation of this line could be:

Centuries of loneliness, who remains? Only the magnificent pagoda's plum tree and Jing Yuan.

The connection was, as far as I'm aware, first made in a video on Jing Yuan by bilibili user 七月Altair and has since found its way into various fanfics and fanart captions on lofter and other platforms.

[mostotherthings]

The On1y One's ending is pre-empting you for a reunion, there is hope for the future

Can you believe, I sat down with my father for his advice on this. I must disclaim, I am an English-language user, but I know enough Mandarin to get by. Together with my father and Baidu, and after thinking about this for a few nights, my thoughts on that… the ending is hopeful – but bittersweet

The literature teacher starts off Episode 11 with the reciting of the poem 江城子 (Melody of a River Town) by Su Shi (otherwise, Su Dongpo) translations for this poem is taken from this site

十年生死兩茫茫。Ten years of separation by the immeasurable distance between life and death

不思量， 自難忘。  Is not something I'd like to think about, yet unforgettable it is already.

千里孤墳, A thousands miles away is your lonely grave,

無處話淒涼, I've nowhere to visit and my grief express.

縱使相逢應不識，Even if we could meet, we probably wouldn't each other recognise,

塵滿面，鬢如霜。For my faces has aged and my sideburns greyed as I have life's hardship sustained.

The teacher continues:

這就傳達了一種經過時間的滄桑 This expresses the inevitable change in the circumstances of life

再見面時 When we meet again

卻已幽冥兩隔的哀戚 We have already mourned our separation because of life and death

At this point, the teacher asks if the students understand. At my first watch, I’m going what the ever loving HECK (we were taught Mandarin for usage, not literature interpretation). My Mandarin is not even Taiwanese high school level, so I had to go study. Anyway!

The second part of the poem they do not go through in the show, is following,

夜來幽夢忽還。Last night out of the blue I dreamt of homecoming,

小軒窗，正梳妝。And there you were, putting on make-up after combing your hair.

相顧無言，Our eyes meet yet reticent we remained,

惟有淚千行。Yet rolling down our cheeks are tears forming far too many trails.

料得年年腸斷處，Then I realise we are where I'd visit year after year when my heart aches

明月夜，短松。On a night with a bright moon, on the hillock, among the pine saplings I'd stay.

Director Liu has indicated- instead of a 6 year separation according to the book (which I am TRYING to read; emphasis, trying), they have changed it to a ten year period. Su Shi wrote this poem 10 years after the death of his first wife, who died at the age of 17, exactly the age that the boys are now. It means the boys' separation, according to the poem, is inevitable. This pain, will be inevitable too, as Su Shi was known to be very affected by the loss of his first wife

Notice that the poem also states the night with a bright moon- this probably leads to the next part of the  show, where Jiang Tian tells Sheng Wang that he chooses the moon.

But the teacher follows up with asking Jiang Tian to explain what the idiom 破鏡重圓 means. (Note: when I asked my Dad his interpretation of it, his first words, 'this idiom is not for just anybody getting back together, it is meant for husbands and wives, you know that, right?' and I swear I disassociated for a moment)

Jiang Tian notes well- it is the story of Le Chang, a princess from the dying Chen Dynasty. Seeing that the country is at war, her husband Xu Deyan tells her, as she is a great beauty, after the war is lost, they are bound to be separated as she will be given or taken as a spoil of war by the invaders. He tells her that if they both survive the war, there will be a chance that they can meet again. He breaks a bronze mirror and tells her on the fifth 元宵节 (fifteenth day of the first lunar month) after the loss of the war, to bring the mirror out and pretend to sell it- he will look for her amongst the vendors, so that they will have a chance to meet again.

After the war, Le Chang princess indeed is taken away and the lovers separated. Every year on the agreed date, Xu Deyan takes his half of the mirror and goes to sell it, and as he traverses the vendors, one year he finds a servant selling the other half, and it was then that he finds out that Le Chang is now a concubine of a ranking official of the new dynasty. In sadness, Xu Deyan writes a poem on it and gives his half to the servant.

Jiang Tian continues as the light gets brighter behind him, and his explanation is the content of the poem that Xu Deyan wrote to his wife in the half of his bronze mirror

可是這個美好故事的背後 But behind this beautiful story

卻有很深的意思 There is a deep meaning

在他們無法詳見的幾十年 In the decades that they were unable to meet

他們只能看著鏡子 They could only look at the mirror

思念當初美好的對方 And miss the other beautiful partner

團員後 Even after the reunion

在鏡中 In the Mirror

我再也看不到你當初嫦娥版的倩影 I can no longer see your Chang-Er like silhouette

只留下歲月映照後  Only leaving the impression left behind by the years

淒涼的月光 A desolate moonlight

GUYS, c’mon man I’m dying at this point. This mirrors the poem that Xu Deyan wrote to Le Chang on the mirror

鏡與人俱去，鏡歸人未歸。無復嫦娥影，空留明月輝

The mirror goes away with the person, but the mirror returns without the person. Chang'er's shadow is gone, the bright moon remains in the sky (this is from Google translate, don't come at me LOL, but you get the gist)

And perhaps they are saying now, that even reunited 10 years later, it will not be the same- you and I, will not be the same, and we will have this pain of separation be an impression on our lives in the future.

The story is psyching us up for the 10-year separation coming up ahead in the nerd-iest way and I’m still dying here please

And it’s JIANG TIAN that says this, in his glasses, and wearing his vest, the curtains of the room drawn leaving only 1 source of light behind him. He takes off his glasses at the end- two lenses signifying 2 halves of the mirror, perhaps???

The ending of the story is- the mirror is returned to Le Chang princess by her servant, and after receiving it, she goes into a turmoil so deep she doesn't eat or sleep or even wash. Her new husband, after hearing the news, allows her to return to Xu Deyan. Her new husband summons Xu Deyan to the residence and the lovers are reunited, at which he says 破鏡重圓 (literally- the broken mirror, has become whole again) - could this be a hint that any opposition to their relationship will finally be relented after a forced separation?

Of course in the later ensuring conversation, Jiang Tian expresses that he chooses the moon (ie, Sheng Wang)

Perhaps like Xu Deyan, he has already made up his mind, or prepared for the inevitable separation. I will wait for you, and not only that, I will find a way that we will be back together again.

At the end of Episode 12, another Su Shi poem appears (translations from here

山頭斜照卻相迎 The setting sun (slanting) over the mountain offers greetings still

回首向來蕭瑟處 Looking back over the bleak passage survived

歸去The return in time

也無風雨也無晴 Shall not be affected by windswept rain or shine

THE RETURN IN TIME SHALL NOT BE AFFECTED BY WINDSWEPT RAIN OR SHINE and it’s RAINING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM (lying on the ground in a puddle, POETRY)

I’m also going to link the Baidu article for this poem (if you wish to translate it for a read), but basically, the poem expresses the author returning after a drinking session when it starts to rain, and when everyone is rushing to return and to look for shelter, he takes his time going back. The teacher continues with the explanation of this -

這些日子他被流放到外地 In the days where he was in exile

寫下抒發自己內心的文字 he wrote down the feelings he had in his heart

他表示他不會害怕 He expressed that he would not be afraid

他會勇往直前 He will forge bravely ahead

且不會畏懼 and without fear

他也很期待 He also looks forward

回去的日子to the day he will return

And here, they focus on Jiang Tian tying the broken bracelet back and pronouncing that he will wait for Sheng Wang’s return.

The rain outside the window is the beginning of the separation! The bleak passage survived from the poem!

To match this poem, the POV changes to Sheng Wang

暗戀是一個人的兵荒馬亂 To be secretly in love with someone is a turmoil (the idiom 兵荒馬亂 literally translates to soldiers in a panic and horses in a mess – the war/fortress analogy is BACKKK)

因為太喜歡你 Because I like you so much

所以我如臨深淵 如履薄冰 I feel like I am facing a deep abyss, like walking on thin ice (the pure linguistic poetry of this line, it kills me)

以至於差點忘了 to the point I almost forgot

我17歲了I’m 17

這個年紀裡 整個世界都是我的 At this age, the world is my oyster

不需���猶豫 No need for hesitation

也用不著權衡 And I don’t have to compromise

我無堅不摧 I’m indestructible

也無所不能 And there’s nothing I can’t do

And the entire dialogue ends with Jiang Tian's voice asking Sheng Wang, Can you try to pass the test and return?

And Sheng Wang says Yes

Is it the test for returning to Class A, or is it the test of the NEXT TEN YEARS?

[leahsfiction]

Dream, 20日1月 1075年

(To the tune of "Son of Jinling")

Su Shi (Su Dongpo)

ten years -- the haze of distance between the living and the dead one doesn't think on it much one never forgets it

a thousand miles of lonely graves nowhere for my living voice to speak misery

even if we meet again, you would hardly know me a face full of dust white in my hair

with a strange dream at night i am suddenly back home that little window where you are getting ready

we look at each other, but words don't come only a thousand lines of tears

i will be waiting every year at the place of my heartbreak the bright moon at night a mound of short pines

--

江城子·乙卯正月二十日夜记梦

十年生死两茫茫，不思量，自难忘。 千里孤坟，无处话凄凉。 纵使相逢应不识，尘满面，鬓如霜。

夜来幽梦忽还乡，小轩窗，正梳妆。 相顾无言，惟有泪千行。 料得年年肠断处，明月夜，短松冈。

ghoul picked a great lyric poem from the Song dynasty by Su Dongpo, a very personal piece about mourning his wife.

i think i wrestled with the first line the MOST - do you focus on the distance? the 生死两 two, the living and the dead?

"nowhere for my living voice" -- i wish i could've kept my original line of "no living voices in the wilderness", but as we read more about the context of the poem it didn't fit anymore

even though this form and style have a kind of lilting openness to me, there's still a lot of places where words are cut off before revealing key information, like in 小轩窗，正梳妆 the gendered images of the window and the dressing-table are there, but not the "you" of the lady. (i also wish i knew more about why 相顾 means simply "to look at each other" according to the commentators but not "to look after each other"...)

for the voice of this translation i went for frank, yet kind of fragile and delicate.

[jstor]

Mind if I throw you a curve ball? I’m looking for Chinese writers/poets who were influential on Premodern Japanese literature besides Bai Juyi (aka Bo Juyi, Po Chü-i, Bai Letian, Po Letien, Haku Rakuten, etc.). Tang dynasty poets are pretty awesome but I need to branch out.

Here are a few that we came up with:

Zhuangzi (莊子, Sōshi): Zhuangzi, a Daoist philosopher and writer, influenced Japanese literature through the spread of Daoist and Zen Buddhist thought. His ideas about spontaneity and the unity of all things had an impact on Japanese poets and philosophers.

Tao Yuanming (陶淵明, Tōenmei): Tao Yuanming, a poet of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, was known for his pastoral poetry and themes of rural life. His influence can be seen in Japanese literature, particularly in works that celebrated the beauty of the countryside.

Su Dongpo (蘇東坡, So Tōhaku): Su Dongpo, also known as Su Shi, was a versatile Song Dynasty writer who excelled in poetry, prose, and calligraphy. His philosophical and literary works had an impact on Japanese literature, especially in the fields of poetry and essay writing.

Hopefully this helps!

[ochoislas]

VIGÉSIMO SÉPTIMO DÍA DEL SEXTO MES, EBRIO EN LA TORRE VIGÍA DEL LAGO, CINCO POEMAS

I

Tinta de negras nubes cubre casi el alcor; perlas de blanca lluvia brincan dentro del bote. Una súbita ráfaga rolando las dispersa: luce bajo la torre raso de aguas y cielo.

II

Los peces y tortugas siguen libres la gente; lotos sin dueño a cientos florecen por doquier. Cabezal sobre el agua, se te inclinan las lomas; la barca suelta al viento divaga tras la luna.

Su Shi

di-versión©ochoislas

*

六月二十七日望湖樓醉書五絶

黑雲飜墨未遮山　白雨跳珠亂入船 捲地風來忽吹散　望湖樓下水如天

放生魚鱉逐人來　無主荷花到處開 水枕能令山俯仰　風船解與月徘徊

蘇軾

[buried-in-stardust]

An attempt at grinding ink. OP wrote the first two characters of the Song dynasty poem 莫聽穿林打葉聲 (Listen Not To The Patter of Rain On The Forest Leaves) by Su Dongpo.