Dawn to Dusk

No Cinderella

No Cinderella here, she did not receive an invitation to the ball. Worse was to come for the author of the poem, Yu Xuanji.

寄国香
Jì guó xiāng,
Send this to the Sweet Smelling Outdoors
(To Guo Xiang)

旦夕醉吟身
Dànxì zuì yín shēn,
Dawn to dusk, she sighs, she drinks too much,

相思又此春
xiāngsī yòu cǐ chūn.
Once again lovesick this Spring

雨中寄书使
Yǔzhōng jì shū shǐ,
As a messenger carries a letter in the rain,

窗下断肠人
chuāng xià duàncháng rén.
To a love-struck girl in her window above.

山卷珠帘看
Shān juǎn zhū lián kàn,
As she raises her curtain to gaze at the mountains,

愁随芳草新
chóu suí fāng cǎoxīn.
Worries come like the fragrance of new grass.

别来清宴上
Bié lái qīng yàn shàng,
“Stay away from the eloquent banquet,”

几度落梁尘
jǐ dù luò liáng chén
Spending much of her time covered in dust from the rafters.
(Being unlucky)

Yu Xuanji,

Yu Xuanji

“Send this to the Sweet Smelling Outdoors” (To Guo Xiang), a poem by the female poet Yu Xuanji 鱼玄机 (c. 840-868).

One might assume that the life of a courtesan in the Tang dynasty was one of gorgeous garments and fine banquets. Not so for Yu Xuanji who was executed by decapitation at the age of 28.

None of Yu’s poems were included in the Anthology of 300 Tang Poems. (Being female was a distinct disadvantage.) Forty nine of Yu’s poems were however collected in the Quan Tangshi, the Complete Collection of Tang Poems (49,000 and counting).

Notes on Translation

Woe is he or she who tries to translate, for words get in the way of the meaning.

The title, “the sweet smell of the outdoors” gives the sense of Yu Xuanji’s poem. Jì (send, post, as in posting a letter) guó (countrywide) xiāng (fragrance). Leonard Ng titles the poem “To Guo Xiang,” hinting that Guo is an unidentified person. Dean Maris also uses this title in a lovely translation of the poem.

The sign at the park where I walk my dogs said, “Park is open dawn to dusk.” I mention this

Dànxì 旦夕, literally dawn to dusk. Sometimes, said to mean “day and night” or for a “very short time.” If we take Yu Xuanji to be the girl in the poem (a perfectly reasonable idea) we see a lonely girl who drinks too much. Not night and day, for a courtesan must work at night, but dawn to dusk to mask the sorrow she feels.

Duàncháng 断肠, broken hearted, distressed; literally “cut off at the intestines” deriving from that gut feeling that one experiences when the one you love doesn’t reciprocate.

Xiāng sī 相思, a one-sided love sickness.

Fāng cǎoxīn. Fragrant new grass.

Qīng yàn shàng 清宴上. One imagines a beautifully laid out banquet, the type of ball Cinderella might have gone to with not only dancing and singing, but food.

The last verse.

几度落梁尘
jǐ (much) dù (spending time) luò (left behind) liáng chén (literally, dust from the rafters)

Liáng chén 梁尘, a metaphor for a beautiful singing voice. Compare liáng chén jí rì (良辰吉日), a Chinese idiom meaning a “fine day” or “your lucky day”. Literally, the “dust or dirt from the rafters.”