武陵春

Today in the afternoone I attempted to post a long prose on my Chinese blog.  , while I didn't have a clue about know which word in my essay triggered the was included in the sensitiveforbidden-word-list and so , it finnaly failed to be was never posted.

 

I don't want to have an abortion like such censorship even like that though the blog is not public at all. Now I picked up used a one poem from the whole in my writing and article to put post it here for translation. 

 

It is not good, so you can translate it as you see fit.  what you likes to, Even to change it. It's just for fun. 

 

And I will be Most appreciative for those who could if any would like to point out the mistakes in this note entry.  I am only good enough to correct your English :)

 

武陵春1                   Spring in Wuling (Spring at the Martial Mound/Hill/Tomb)

 

一绸2春心3无去处       Nowhere love expressed on the silk scroll can go.

睇4草渐行远5            Espied from the corner of my eyes, the grasses seem to creep afar

空碾6冰水7伫8棂9边   Icicles on window lattices drip drip melting so ever slowly

终怯耐春寒10            Finally in trepidation, no longer could the cold of spring be born1

 

可憾风住春已尽11       How regretful it is that the wind had stopped and spring is gone.

阙残12墨迹13干         Too late, a mistake made and the ink had dried.2

只恐三夏14无限好       Nothing good, I am afraid, the three periods of summer shall bode.

再不敢、拂15尘笺16    Never again, shall poems be written; let the paper be dusty! 3

                              Never again, shall I try to flick the dust off the paper.

 

1.  Past participle of "bear".

2.  According to your footnotes: "A paragraph written"

3.  How this image got into my head in the first place I never know!

 

Simply gorgeous!

 

Because My English is too poor; I can't use don't know any elegant words. So I shall resort to can only put some footnotes after it. Does Anyone want care for a try？

 

Footnotes:

 

1.武陵春：it This has no meaning. There are two main kinds of Chinese traditional poems, one is neat???, the other is made up with several written lines which includes different numbers of characters. It is originally used for singing. These characters serve as tones so that so There are different tunes. Poets could put lyricists can use different lyrics characters to match the tune which are set as that in each line there must be certain number of characters.

 

“武陵春” is one name of the for such tunes. It is set goes like this:

the first paragraph:

the 1st line:7 character;

the 2nd:     5 ones;

the 3rd:     7 ;

the 4th:     5;

the second paragraph:

the 1st line:7;

the 2nd:     5;

the 3rd:     7

the 4th:     3+3 or 6  I don't understand all these.

 

2.绸：In ancient times, people in nobles-class could write on the reels of silk. Besides, 绸 is homophonic with 愁=sad. That's why I didn't select other characters like 卷,etc

 

3.春心：the feeling about the of spring or the feeling in the spring. It always implies a girl's love.

        While it is put Together with '一绸', it may (but not definitely) means a piece of poem is written on a steel sheet of silk.

 

4.睇:斜视,stare but not in direct way. Here could be Wanting to see but dare not to see, or see looking at something absently. Haha, in Cantonese it just mean to see.

 

5.草渐行远: it literally means when the grass is more far further away, it could can hardly to be seen. And According to the second paragraph, it means with "time flies", the grass grows so fast that you can seea it from a long distance. But because it is derived It alludes from a the famouse line :"离恨恰如春草，更行更远还生" and '离愁渐远渐无穷',(there are a lot of many kinds of these kinds of poems! but However, this is what I was thinking thought when I wrote was writting.) so,There has is an implied meaning of "leaving", "missing"and"shame".

 

6.碾：reading This word independently, it alone makes no sense. While Accrording to six line 6,"墨迹干", then you can figure out that it means the slow process of grinding Chinese ink on an ink slab. boabark with cold water.'磨墨'. and Hence 碾 means very slow and yet strong.

 

7.冰水: cold water. because Since it is the early spring. and when I was writting, it I thought about "一片冰心在玉壶", 冰心: a sincere ans pure feeling of pureness.  However, I interpret it to be water from the ice considering the word order in classical Chinese.

 

8.伫：to stand.

 

9.棂：the Ancient style of windows with wooden lattice and paper in ancient time.

 

10. 终 (finally) 怯 (scare) 耐 (bear) 春寒: the heroine finnaly finally cannot bear didn't dare to undergo the cold climate outside even though there had been a lot of plenty of grasses are growing. (So she opted to stand inside and write her imagination about  of the grasses growing outside.)

 

11.风住春已尽：the wind has stopped, and the spring has passed by.

 

12. 阙残: as I introduced in footnote 1, there are two paragraphs（阙）in one the poem. 残 means not completed yet.

 

13.墨迹: ink mark.

 

14.三夏: a whole The period of summer is separated divided into 3 parts: 孟夏、仲夏、季夏.

 

15.拂:flick away, whisk.

 

16.尘笺: 笺: a kind of expensive small sized paper which is always small piecesand expensive; and usually used to write for writing letters or poems. 尘笺: this kind of paper with covered with dust.