Category: Chinese Classics

吴文英：风入松Wu Wenying (1200-1260): to the tune "Winds between pine trees"
听风听雨过清明，愁草瘗花铭。Listening to wind and rain and waiting for clear weather, while the grass of sadness buries the incarved flowers.
楼前绿暗分携 路，一丝柳，一寸柔情。In front of the house in twilight green, our ways are separating. Giving you a willow twig, giving me a bit of warm emotion.
料峭春寒中酒，交加晓梦啼莺。While drinking wine in the harsh coldness of spring, a morning dream is filled with oriol songs.
西园日日扫林亭，依旧赏新晴。In the west garden I daily sweep the Forest Pavillion, enjoying the clear weather like before.
黄蜂频扑秋千索，有当时纤手香凝。The wasps attack the swing rope when I was holding it with delicate hands and fragrant shape.
惆怅双鸳不到，幽阶一夜苔生。So heavy-hearted I wait for my husband to come home, while in the dark corner of the stairs the moss grows green over night.

辛弃疾：汉宫春Xin Qiji (1140-1207): to the tune "Spring in the Han palace"
春已归来，看美人头上，袅袅春幡。Spring is back, on all the maidens' heads the springtime papercuts.
无端风雨，未肯收尽余寒。Ceaseless wind and rain, and still a little bit of cold.
年时燕子，料今宵，梦到西园。The seasonn when the swallows breed chicks is come, but in the night, I walk in dream in Kaifeng's West Garden.
浑未办，黄柑荐酒，更传青韭堆盘。No finished yet the orange liqueur, we first serve the green scallions plate.
却笑东风，从此便熏梅染柳，更没些闲。Now we laugh with the eastwind, perfuming plums and coloring willows, to have more leisure time.
闲时又来镜里，转变朱颜。In leisure time then we look again in the mirror, to change the rouge on our cheeks.
清愁不断，问何人会解连环。But our simple sadness never ceases, asking who can loose these chains?
生怕见，花开花落，朝来塞雁先还。I'm afraid to see again this place in my life. Opening flowers, falling flowers – the dawn impedes the geese to fly home.

贺铸：蝶恋花He Zhu (1052-1125): to the tune "Butterflies kiss flowers"
几许伤春春复暮，杨柳清阴，偏碍游丝度。What should hurt the spring when a spring day is over? Poplars and willows under the clear moon, their twigs just in the way of strolling people.
天际小山桃叶步，白慆花满湔裙处。On a small hill at the horizon, peach leafs come out, and with a pure delight, petals scatter all over my fresh washed robe.
竟日微吟长短句，帘影灯昏，心寄胡琴语。When the day is over, tiny sounds of short and long poems, in the shadow of the curtains, light in the dark, and hearts send their words by a zither tune.
数点雨声风约住，朦胧淡月云来去。The sound of rain has relieved the wind, amidst floating clouds the dim and hazy moon.

The Daxue 大学 "Great Learning" is a Confucian Classic. It is part of the canon of the Sishu 四书 "Four Books", to which it was added as integral Confucian writing on the order and harmony of society. It was originally a chapter of the ritual classic Liji 礼记. The Northern Song period 北宋 (960-1126) Neo-Confucian scholars Cheng Hao 程颢 and Cheng Yi 程颐 were the first to regard it as a separate treatise. The Southern Song period 南宋 (1127-1279) Neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi 朱熹 divided it into a classic (jing 经) and a commentary (zhuan 传), wrote a philological study (zhangju 章句) to the Daxue and made it part of the canon of the "Four Books". Zhu Xi believed that the part he called "classic" had been compiled by Zeng Shen曾参, a disciple of Confucius, while the the "commentary" was compiled by followers of Zeng Sen. This dispartment of the text is rather arbitrary and not based on scholarly evidence. The Qing period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Chen Que 陈确 therefore contradicted this assumption and brought forward, on the base of textual evidence, that the Daxue must have been compiled only during the Former Han period 前汉 (206 BCE-8 CE), and not during the age in which Confucius and his disciples lived (5th cent. BCE).

周邦彦：满庭芳Zhou Bangyan (1056-1121): to the tune "Fragrance filling the hall"
风老莺雏，雨肥梅子，午阳嘉树清圆。Wind raises the oriol's chicks, rain manures the plum sprouts, midday sun makes trees grow, clearing and rounding.
地卑山近，衣润费炉烟。The ground is flat, the mountains near, wet clothes damping over the fire.
人静乌鸢自乐，小桥外，新绿溅溅。As man is quiet, the kites play happily. Outside the small bridge, new green in gurgling water.
凭阑久，黄芦苦竹，疑泛九江船。Leaning upon a balustrade, amidst yellow gourds and withered bamboo, I ask myself if the ship will reach Jiujiang.
年年，如社燕，飘流瀚海，来寄修椽。Year after year, like migrating swallows, like the floating desert, they come under my eaves.
且莫思身外，长近尊前。But never think at outside of your self, if long or short, rever the ancient.
憔悴江南倦客，不堪听，急管繁弦。Emaciated and tired are the guests from the south, let them hear music, play flutes and lutes,
歌筳畔，先安枕簟，容我醉时眠。Make a banquet on the fields; first prepare their mats and pillows, and let us only sleep when we are drunk.

The Chinese literary type of Chuci 楚辞 "Poetry of Chu" or "Poetry of the South" is a sort of poem that found its origin in the works of Qu Yuan 屈原, a high minister in the state of Chu 楚.

舒亶：虞美人Shu Tan (1041-1103): to the tune "Lady Yu"
芙蓉落尽天涵水，日暮沧波起。Falling lotus flowers disturb the Heaven Pond's clear water, at dusk blue waves arise.
背飞双燕贴云寒，独向小楼东畔倚阑看。High a swallow pair flies below the freezing clouds, as I am lonely watching from the balcony.
浮生只合尊前老，雪满长安道。In a floating life, the only appropriate way is to venerate the old. Snow covered the streets of Chang'an,
故人早晚上高台，寄我江南春色一枝梅。when in old times (Fan Ye) was watching from the tower day and night, waiting for Lu Kai to bring him a flowering peach twig from the south.

苏轼：江城子Su Shi (1037-1101) to the tune "Rivertown man"
十年生死两茫茫，不思量，自难忘。The year yimao, 1st month, 20th day: recording a dream I had last night Ten years – dead and living dim and drew apart. I don't try to remember but forgetting is hard.
千里孤坟，无处凄凉。Lonely grave a thousand miles off, cold thoughts – where can I talk them out?
纵使相逢应不识，尘满面，鬓如霜。Even if we met you wouldn't know me, dust on my face, hair like frost –
夜来幽梦忽还乡，小轩窗，正梳妆。In a dream last night suddenly I was home. By the window of the little room you were combing your hair and making up.
相顾无言，惟有泪千行。You turned and looked, not speaking, only lines of tears coursing down –
料得年年肠断处，明月夜，短松冈。year after year will it break my heart? The moonlit grave, its stubby pines.