China the Beautiful

chinapage · Last edited by chinapage on Mon Jul 28, 2003 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mr. Khomeriki from Georgia sent me this poem by Li Bei

I do not know this poem. Would any one care to comment?

I am puzzled by the 5-th word in the 3rd line. What is it?
Is it xun? or is it yin? What does it mean?

Ming

sllee · Joined: 10 Jul 2002 Posts: 731 Location: USA

Dear Ming,

I already posted this in the other thread. Here it is again.

The Du Fu poem is Shan Zhong Wen Da (Questions and Answers in the Mountains), a pretty popular one. Here is my own translation:

I live in the blue mountains, you ask me why,
I just smile with nothing to say.
Peach flowers and the stream sadly go by,
There is a different world where I stay.

The word you asked is pronounced as "yao3". It has several meanings: deep eye socket; deep and unfathomable; sorrowful.

In here I translated it as 'sadly'.
_________________
SL Lee
http://www.asiawind.com

chinapage · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 11:28 am Post subject:

Dear SL:

Thanks for the clarification.

I carelessly consulted Xinhua Zidian for the word and could not find it. After your message, I went back to an dictionary and sure enough the word is listed there all the time.

I have a small point about your translation - about "blue mountain".
It seems that this refers to the name of a place, and not 'a mountain whose color is blue today.' If so, then it should be capitalized.

There are other mountains in China such as Huang Mountain (Yellow Mountain). In the U.S., there are White Mountain, Blue Mountain, Black Mountain and Smoking Mountain, to name a few.

I put up the poem and your translation in the web site. Thanks again.
http://www.chinapage.com/libai2n.html

http://www.chinapage.com/poet-e/libai2e.html

Ming