Gu Taiqing: Zhuying yao hong: Hearing Eunuch Chen Jinchao of the Pear Garden [the Imperial Troupe] Play the Qin

烛影摇红·听梨园太监陈进朝弹琴

顾太清

雪意沈沈，

北风冷触庭前竹。

白头阿监抱琴来，

未语眉先蹙。

弹遍瑶池旧曲，

韵泠泠，

水流云瀑。

人间天上，

四十年来，

伤心惨目。

尚记当初，

梨园无数名花簇。

笙歌缥缈碧云间，

享尽神仙福。

叹息而今老仆。

受君恩，

沾些微禄。

不堪回首，

暮景萧条，

穷途哀哭。

Zhuying yao hong:

Hearing Eunuch Chen Jinchao of the Pear Garden [the Imperial Troupe] Play the Qin

Gu Taiqing

A sense of snow hangs heavy,

North winds coldly cuff a courtyard bamboo-clump1

A white-haired eunuch enters, bearing his zither;

Ere he speaks, his brows knit in fret.

He plays through all those old Jasper Pool2 tunes:

Tones purling, clear waters flow, clouds cascade.

Here on earth, up in heaven,

Well on forty years now

Hurts the heart, stabs the eye.3

I still recall, back at first

Pear Garden’s numberless bevy of famous blossoms.

Pipe and song drifting aloft among slate clouds:

We enjoyed all the luck of the sylphs.

Heave a sigh: and now this aging servant

Thanks to milord’s grace draws a scanty stipend.

I can’t bear to turn back

Dusky prospects dim and desolate

Crying a song at road’s dead-end.4

1. The first lines of this poem recall an allegorical ode to bamboos Su Shi (Su Dongpo) wrote while jailed by Censorate officials. His first six lines: “Today the wind comes from the south/And blows atumble courtyard bamboos. / Low and high, struck to tonal harmony: /Armor and blades cuffing in profusion. / Desolately sad, sense of wind and snow / That can snap but not disgrace them” (translated by David McCraw). Gu’s lyric shares Su’s rhyme category and his implicit comparison between noble bamboos and a singer out of luck.

2. Jasper Pool refers to the Heavenly Court; it introduces the Heaven/ imperial court vs. Earth/exile motif that organizes the eunuch’s lament.

3. Here and elsewhere in this poem Gu paraphrases lines from Li Yu’s laments in exile.

4. Out of favor at court, the high-minded but frustrated Ruan Ji, one of the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, would drive his cart through the wilds till he reached a dead end, then cry bitterly.

（David McCraw 译）