I like this Chinese poem

I once posted several topics in this forum. I pay attentions to the rplies. But some people mind me not answering there questions and keep silent on others' topics. In fact, I really have not so much time to reply you. Even though the postS are not vevy long, but sometimes it is hard for me to understand it. You know that after all English is a foreign language for me.But I will try! By the way, is there anyone who is interested in Chines poem? I like it very much. It sounds well and meaningful. Here I am meaning Chinese old poems that were written in ancient times. For example in the Tang and Song Dynasties.Here is a beautiful poem written by Lu You, a famous poist of Song Dynsties.
 《卜算子·咏梅》 陆游              《Bu suan zi·Yong mei》 Lu You


驿外断桥边，寂寞开无主。        Yi wai duan qiao bian, ji mo kai wu zhu.

已是黄昏独自愁，更著风和雨。    Yi shi huang hun du zi chou, geng zhu feng he yu.


无意苦争春，一任群芳妒。        Wu yi ku zheng chun,yi ren qun fang du.

零落成泥碾作尘，只有香如故。    Ling luo cheng ni nian zuo chen, zhi you xiang ru gu.

But what does it mean?

Good translation practice for you!

"Thoughtless Yongmei" Lu You
Yi, the broken bridge edge, a lonely orphan
Dusk is unhappy alone, the wind and rain

No bitter intention ,
real spring
last Qunfang Envy.
Scattered crushed to dust into mud,
only incense as before.

This is pretty much a straight translation - probably not what the author meant at all!!

Paraphrased (mine), a single plum blossom is alone at West Lake's Broken Bridge (Duan Qiao) on a windy, rainy night. Though the plum blossom has fallen into the mud and been crushed, it still retains its fragrance.

The poem is known as "Ode to the Mume Blossom".

Interstingly, Mao Zedong who, in his lighter moments enjoyed writing poetry, wrote a sort of "Reply to the Mume Blossom" in which (paraphrased) winter comes, then spring, and that same plum blossom will bloom again unique among all the other blooming plum blossoms.

Cite re: Mao: http://www.yfta.net/view.asp?xxid=422

You are clever enough. This poem just praise plum.The poet considered himself to be like the plum.It is upright and pure.It does not want to compete with other flowers. The poet himself also just want to live his own noble life.He does want to fight with others in powers and politics.

Song of Divination

Beside the broken bridge and outside the post hall
A flower is blooming forlorn
Saddened by her solitude at night fall
By wind and rain she's further torn
Let other flowers their envy pour
To spring she lays no claim
Fallen in mud and ground to dust, she seems no more
but her fragrance is still the same.

Lu was pissed at the Jin invaders, supposedly, and at the capitulationists.  Behind his back they'd been calling him Plum Blossom.  So, y'know, he let em have it with both barrels.  But I like the babelfish translation. 

Outside the post breaks 桥边,
lonely opens not advocates.
Already was the dusk alone worried, wind and rain.

Has no intention painstakingly to struggle the spring,
beautiful and fragrant flowers are jealous.
Zero is completed
the putty to grind makes the dust,
only has the fragrance 如故.

It rhymes, goes industrial, and bares the bones of the grumpiness beneath the godawful self-pity.

Yvonne, thanks for sharing this poem with us.  Do you have any others you would like to share?  Sometimes the meaning of poetry doesn't translate well, but we can try to understand.

CF lovely translation..Chairman Mao also wrote a poem about a fish dish that was his favourite.  The Wuchang Fish.  Eyvonne or CF enlighten me.

Weren't me translated it.  My Chinese reading doesn't go further than 你好美女.  The text came out of the title link. 

In here I found "Swimming", aka, Also Eats the Megalobrama Amblycephala:

游泳

才饮长江水，又食武昌鱼。
万里长江横渡，极目楚天舒。
不管风吹浪打，胜似闲庭信步，今日得宽余。
子在川上曰：逝者如斯夫！
风樯动，龟蛇静，起宏图。
一桥飞架南北，天堑变通途。
更立西江石壁，截断巫山云雨，高峡出平湖。
神女应无恙，当今世界殊。

I have just drunk the waters of Changsha
And come to eat the fish of Wuchang.
Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze,
Looking afar to the open sky of Chu.
Let the wind blow and waves beat,
Better far than idly strolling in courtyard.
Today I am at ease.
It was by a stream that the Master said --
"Thus do things flow away!"
Sails move with the wind.
Tortoise and Snake are still.
Great plans are afoot:
A bridge will fly to span the north and south,
Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare;
Walls of stones will stand upstream to the west
To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain
Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.
The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed.



"Bye!  Come back any time!"

Great picture!
Almost makes me wish MOP were here...

Cheers for that Yvonne. Lovely poem.

Ode to a bloody plum!  Plums are delicious. End of story! Blood plums are the most delicious of all. Sorry Yvonne, but I'm a total heathen when it comes to poetry. At Noles Bootcamp, they wanted to teach us a poem about a bloody Goose, fer Chrissakes!!!
"There was movement at the stati agagagagagon, etc, etc.....Now, that's poetry!!

Poetry speaks to the soul.

That's why I'm a doggerel kind of guy.

Once there was a plum,
now there is a stone,
Tasted great was lots of fun,
But now I sit alone.

Or the goose:

Looks like a chook, or maybe a duck,
Tasted great so who gives a fu**

  Speaking to my soul, Mr. N.