行香子.草际鸣蛩
原作：李清照 （宋）
英译：戈登.奥赛茵，闵晓红
草际鸣蛩，惊落梧桐。
正人间天上愁浓。
云阶月地，关锁千重。
纵浮槎来，浮槎去，不相逢。
星桥鹊驾，经年才见，
想离情别恨难穷。
牵牛织女，莫是离中。
甚霎儿晴，霎儿雨，霎儿风。
In the meadow crickets startled parasol trees
-- to the Tune of Xingxiangzi
written by Li Qingzhao （ 1084-1155？）
translated by Gordon Osing & Julia Min
modified by Julia Min ( 2024)
In the meadow crickets startled parasol trees
Into dropping leaves, and an ancient sorrow
Fills Heaven and Earth, and the lunar world
Sees cloud-wrought stairs strewn with hurdles.
Although he goes on boat searching to and fro,
He rarely meets among the stars a single soul.
Only once in a year over the vast Starry River,
Magpies gather building a bridge for the lovers,
Herdsman and Weaver, just one night together.
The rest of the year they won’t see each other,
An endless struggle like this changing weather.
Nothing stays, wind or rain, sunshine or pleasure.
For appreciation:
This ci comes from the period after the poet had moved south to avoid the conquering Jin armies, when her married life was not only interrupted by her husband's departure on official duties, but it was cast into peril for the unforeseeable future. The folktale of the Herdsman and his weaver wife is the usual one summoned to capture the perpetual remorse of lovers whose separations outnumber their times together.
Notes:
1. ‘cloud-wrought stairs strewn with hurdles’: the stairs of heaven are made of clouds, the Moon goddess lives in her jade palace, an ideal domain very hard to reach.
2. ‘boat’: Legend says that there are boats sailing in Autumn and August ( Chinese Calendar) in the Starry River every year. So one man decided to set sail to the River and arrived in ten days. He saw the Herdsman with his cows on the riverbank but his wife is far away in some palace on the other side of the River.
3. ‘Herdsman and Weaver’: Just like westerners celebrate Valentine’s Day, Chinese have their celebration on July 7th (Chinese Lunar Calendar). Legend has it that the Herdsman and his weaver wife join each other on a bridge built by the birds for their brief moment. Their one reunion in a year on the "Birds' Bridge", or “Star Bridge”, as it is also called, is their punishment for disobeying Heaven's rules and loving defiantly (fairies are forbidden to marry humans).
Pinyin and Word -For-Word Translation:
xíng xiāng zǐ
cǎo jì míng qióng ，
jīng luò wú tóng 。
zhèng rén jiān tiān shàng chóu nóng 。
yún jiē yuè dì ，
guān suǒ qiān zhòng 。
zòng fú chá lái ，
fú chá qù ，
bú xiàng féng 。
xīng qiáo què jià ，
jīng nián cái jiàn ，
xiǎng lí qíng bié hèn nán qióng 。
qiān niú zhī nǚ ，
mò shì lí zhōng 。
shèn shà ér qíng ，
shà ér yǔ ，
shà ér fēng 。
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