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jordaylagifs · 2 years
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JORDAN & LAYLA — All American: 4x18
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pocket-size-cthulhu · 9 months
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Every time i hear a re-recorded Taylor Swift song I'm like women really do just get better with age huh
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xiakeponz · 2 months
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I just wanted to translate a lil' bit of this book I was reading, because I didn't realise just how many poems (in the case of this book, Tang dynasty poems) have been lost to the ravages of time, and what a miracle it is that we even have a 唐诗三百首 today. Short note from me about translation approach is at the end under the cut.
唐诗寒武纪
王晓磊 (六神磊磊) 著
ISBN: 978-7-5302-2250-8
The Cambrian Age of Tang Poems by Author Wang Xiaolei (ISBN: 978-7-5302-2250-8)
Chapter 1 
Do you know how fortunate you are to be able to read Tang poems today? 
我志在删述,垂辉映千春。- 李白
My ambition is as grand as when Confucius compiled The Book of Poems, so that the radiance of my poems may shine a thousand springs from now. 
At a time 400 years ago from the present day, during the Tianqi Era (1621-1628) of the Ming Dynasty, when Eunuch Wei Zhongxian’s (魏忠贤)authority could eclipse the heavens- 
In the Haiyan district of the Zhejiang Province, there was an old man who silently shed his official’s robes, and folded them neatly. This was a set of blue robes embroidered with white pheasants, signifying that he was a fifth-rank court official. 
Outside, someone yelled, “Official Hu, why haven’t you come out yet! We’re waiting to escort you to De Zhou so you can take up your post there!”
“Take up my post?” The old gentleman gave a small smile, then muttered to himself, “Goodbye,  court politics! I have long grown weary of you. I’m going back to my hometown, and spending the rest of my years completing a very important matter- to compile the most complete set of Tang poems, so that there will no longer be any left out, so that no longer will there be any lost to the ages, so that our descendents can read them all!”
Let us remember the name of this old gentleman: Hu Zhenheng (胡震亨). 
Perhaps it is very difficult for people of the present day to understand - wasn’t he just wanting to make a compilation of poems, was that really so difficult? Did he need to really go this hard? Actually, yes. Back in that time period, it really was that difficult.  During that time, there were no publishing companies, printing factories, libraries, or convenient search engines. If you wanted to look up a poem, you’d have to pore through countless scrolls, you may even need to  trek over mountains and cross rivers just to be able to make a copy - and even after all that, you may not even have been able to make that copy. 
If Ol’ Hu slacked off, and didn’t make this Tang poetry compilation, what would have happened? The answer to that is, that the consequences would have been very dire.
At that time, Tang poetry was already starting to go extinct just like how our flora and fauna species are going into mass extinction today. According to Hu Zhenheng’s estimations, at least half of all Tang poetry had already been lost. 
Perhaps you are thinking, how the hell does poetry just go missing? As long as the poet is good enough, as long as the poem is good enough, then wouldn’t such works just be passed down through the ages, and be able to endure, that way? 
It really doesn’t work like that. 
Let me ask you a very broad question: out of all of the Tang poems, which one is the best? Perhaps many people will respond, off the top of their heads, “A night of moonlit blossoms on the river in spring” (春江花月夜“). This poem is lauded as the “a singular page eclipses the entire Tang dynasty” poem of poems, after all. Well then, who is the author of this fine poem? Many of you readers can answer, Zhang Ruoxu(张若虚). 
This Mister Zhang has written such a great work, and has made such a great contribution to Tang Poetry. Well then, how many of his poems remain today? A hundred poems? Eighty? The answer will shock you - merely two of his poems remain today. 
The only reason “A night of moonlit blossoms on the river in spring” was able to be passed down to the present day, is really nothing more than a giant fluke. It was thanks to a very accidental opportunity, that when people in the Song dynasty were compiling a book of songs and ballads for their music bureau, they recorded this very poem by Zhang Ruoxu into the compilation, and enabled it to be passed down through the ages. 
Apart from two poems, all the other works created by Zhang Ruoxu in his lifetime, do not exist today. 
Now let me ask you another similar question: out of the pentasyllabic quatrain poems (五言绝句)in the Tang dynasty , which one is the best? Many will immediately respond, “Climbing White Stork Tower” (登鹳雀楼). Yes, the one which everyone recited as a child - the sun sets against the mountains, the yellow river flows into the sea” (白日依山尽,黄河入海流). Its author is recognised by most people as Wang Zhihuan (王之涣). 
So then, how many poems has the great poet Wang Zhihuan left behind? The answer will again flabbergast you as you read it: there are only six poems left behind, the rest are all gone. 
Within a thousand years, we do not know how many lines like “the sun sets against the mountains (白日依山尽)”, and “the tides of the ocean and the moon rise in tandem (海上明月共潮生)” have been lost to the ages forever. 
The misfortunes of our friends Wang Zhihuan and Zhang Ruoxu, were not mere happenstance. 
How many poems of Li Bai (李白)have lived on to see the light of today? The most pessimistic takes say that, about one-tenth of all his poems exist today. 
This great genius has been writing poetry all his life, so estimates of his total poem count sits at around five thousand to ten thousand poems. For every ten of his poems, we may never ever be able to read eight or nine of them. 
Before passing away, Li Bai had sorted out all of the drafts and writings he had made in his lifetime, and solemnly entrusted it all to his uncle (族叔), Li Yangbing (李阳冰), and asked that he compile them into volumes, so that it can be passed down through generations. Li Yangbing did not fail Li Bai’s wishes, and poured his heart into compiling the Thatched Cottage Anthologies (草堂集)of which there were ten scrolls … which then subsequently got lost to the ages in the Song Dynasty. 
Now let’s talk about Du Fu (杜甫)。Essentially all the poems written by this similarly great poet before the age of forty, have been lost to the ages. How long did Du Fu live? Until age fifty-eight. That is to say, that all the poems he wrote for most of his life, were all for nothing. 
Another big shot, Wang Wei, (王维)fared no better. During the Kaiyuan era alone (713-741) he wrote hundreds if not thousands of poems. By the end, less than one-tenth of the total remained. 
There are countless other examples. The early Tang poet, Song Zhiwen(宋之问)was big-name poet who established the foundations of regulated verse poetry. He had poetry volumes circulating during the Tang Dynasty, however the circulation still ended during the Jiajing era of the Ming dynasty, and was finally lost during the Wanli era. All twenty volumes of the writings of gifted female scholar-official, Shangguan Wan’er (上官婉儿), were entirely lost in the Song dynasty, and we only have thirty-two of her poems remaining today. 
The poetry volumes written by one of the “Elite Fours” of the early Tang dynasty, Wang Bo (王勃),the genius who famously wrote “the hues of twilight fall in line with the solitary flight of a wild mallard (落霞与孤鹜齐飞)”, were arduously able to survive for a few hundred years, however, come the Ming dynasty, they were all completely lost all the same. 
This is like saying that the complete works of Jing Yong (金庸)were all lost to the ages, and you would only be able to glean snippets and excerpts of his original writings from the column writings of Liushen Leilei (六神磊磊)to get your hit. Just the thought of it makes me want to cry. 
The great Meng Haoran (孟浩然) can be counted as lucky. Shortly after he passed away, there were already people making compilations of his poems. Even so, many of his creations have still been lost. There is also the great Li Shangyin (李商隐), who wrote “the silkworm spins silk even ‘til death (春蚕到死丝方尽)” and “our hearts are connected through a singular nexus (心有灵犀一点通)” , who personally compiled forty-odd scrolls of his writings, however, those have all been lost, and not a single volume remains. His poems have all been scrabbled together piece-by-piece, by those after his time. 
So, do you still think that those poems which have been lost to time, were lost purely because they were shoddy poems, of little worth, so no one wanted to remember them? Not at all. Even if they made a mark in their heyday, poems that are handed down will eventually be lost to time, all the same. 
People in the Tang dynasty have recorded, that of Li Bai’s CiFu (辞赋)poetry, the poems Dapeng Fu (大鹏赋)and Hongyou Fu (鸿猷赋)were incredibly marvelous, so much so that they even surpassed the calibre of writings of the big guardians of CiFu poetry from the previous generation, Sima Xiangru (司马相如) and Yang Xiong (杨雄). Fortunately, we can read Dapeng Fu today, but … where is Hongyou Fu? Sorry, it’s gone, lost forever to the ravages of time. 
Translator’s note:
There are many ways to do a translation, and this one is more for the vibes than for the “literal” translation - that is not to say it is inaccurate, but as someone who has translated for years from Japanese to English, or from time to time, Chinese to English (when I feel like it lol) I thought I’d state the purpose of this translation so you can get a sense of my choices here.  I am translating this very casually and more for speed / for fun, it is a very pulling-words-off-the-top-of-my-head translation than the other kind of translation I do where I sit there for hours milling over a singular word. A partial reason for why I can do this style of translation is because the prose of the book itself is very conversational and casual (I will tangentially note, this writing style is kind of controversial with the Author’s other works that discuss poetry, as some readers view it as “low-brow”, but for me, I like it. I think it makes the content very digestible and accessible to readers who are new to poetry). This translation is for my buddies in the poetry club, who are mainly diaspora and/or can read Chinese to any extent anyway (in particular, I want to thank the funny and great @fwoopersongs, for always being here to chat poem stuff and making me interested in the lives of the poets and the context surrounding the poetry rather than just the poems themselves).  As such, I will try to remember to include the Chinese characters for people’s names, so you can read it with the correct tones. I bought this book and started reading, and thought wow, this is cool, I want to share it. A lot of the Chinese terms here I’ve only thought about and experienced in Chinese, I don’t watch Mandarin-language shows with any subtitles, and I don’t typically experience other Chinese Media in English so I am not sure what the “standard” (if any) terms in English would be - it’s for the vibes, especially the parts where I am translating literal poetry. For example, the author pulls verses from poetry here to set the tone for the start of a chapter, so the goal of my translation here to make a translation that it conveys to the reader a reason why that verse was chosen, rather than the “perfect” way 千秋, 碧落,独倚 or a word like that is translated (or, for example, everyone let’s agree on a translation of the poem title 《春江花月夜》 - pain - lol). I do not think I can do any of these poetry translations justice, as poetry translations in any language is more like a feeling of the soul that you try to fit within the available confines of another language, hoping that the reader on the other side can experience something in their own individual way through your shared humanity rather than language alone. Also, I do have a lot of commentary and notes that I wanted to make but I might do that in a different place (maybe as footnotes) at another time, I don’t want to interrupt the flow of the reader by sticking my own comments everywhere.
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nerdy-talks · 7 months
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Me : I'm still alive, aren't I?
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mobius-m-mobius · 2 years
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Francis? Yeah? Here's your belt.
The Darjeeling Limited (2007) dir. Wes Anderson
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Went a little crazy and spent WAY too much money on jewelry today
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ghost-proofbaby · 1 month
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the astarion fic is related to eddie because eddie would read and encourage it actually
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fragilepersonas · 1 month
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I waited And waited 4 This day to come Now That it’s here I want to be Anywhere but Here
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bipolarbabyyy · 3 days
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The impulse to CUT IT ALL OFF was oh so strong and I am oh so weak
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eff-plays · 6 months
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Astarion after the confession:
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Hiraeth after the confession:
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peridolt · 1 month
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Post number theerre
me when i spend 3 hours making the ugliest flopping photos instead of doing my french homework
edit OH GOD I LOOK LIKE AN ATTENTION SEEKER NO
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bookworms-pov · 2 years
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Don't talk to me after midnight. I get vulnerable & share things with you that I might regret sharing next morning.
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thebananwithaplan · 7 months
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. "If I catch you being really weird about my nephews I'll personally make sure you'll regret it for the rest of your pathetic little life.
Consider this your ONLY warning."
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a-concert-just-for-me · 8 months
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What is it about eucalyptus that makes a girl want to scream and frow up
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pretty-dianxia · 1 year
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[ 1.9k • Rated E • Not Archive Warnings • Status: complete • Relationships: Jing Beiyuan/Wu Xi ]
Tags: Canon Compliant, Making Out, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, dirty talk (or sort of,) First Kiss, Wu Xi is a seductress and is drunk… but NOT THAT drunk
Read it in English // Read it in Spanish
💌 Many thanks to my partner in crime and beta Moth!! // @lesbi-lan 💌
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willinglyghoulified · 5 months
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Finally bought Clip Studio Paint for the first time, and I immediately got overwhelmed hahahaha. I have to watch tutorials for like 6 hours to understand wtf I'm looking at.
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