Li Bai's 春思

[tianjinpete]

What is the consensus reading of Li Bai's 春思?...

Is the 君子 leaving her or returning to her?

The normative reading is he's returning to her, but

some translations take "怀归" to mean the 君子

is leaving his lover, because if he is coming back

to her, this should be a 喜事 happy event, so why

断肠 heartbroken？

春思

李白

燕草如碧丝，秦桑低绿枝。

当君怀归日，是妾断肠时。

春风不相识，何事入罗帏。

[skylee]

This is the explanation in my commercial press version of 300 Tang Poems -

懷歸 = 想家 (thinking of home / homesick)

斷腸 = 相思到極點 (missing the lover extremely)

Based on the explanations of my book, the guy and his wife are still separated. The guy is in the North (燕) and the woman is in the west (秦). They think of each other and miss each other extremely (no action of returning). And it is spring time, and the wind of spring is blowing, thus the title 春思.

[tianjinpete]

Thanks, Skylee...

So your commentary reads 妾 as "wife"?

《春秋传》曰:“女为人妾,妾不娉也

[skylee]

The book's explanation on 妾 is "古代婦女自稱" (what women called themselves in ancient time). The commentary reads, "以風之來，反襯夫之不來". I take that she is the guy's wife. But she could be his concubine or girlfriend.

[Littleweed]

In my understanding it's not saying her lover is leaving at all.

In a beautiful mid-Spring day in Qin (秦地), where this young woman noticed the Mulberry trees have grown branches of green new leaves. Her mind went to far away Yan (燕地), where her lover was working. "It should be very early Spring in Yan. Grass there should have just started to turn to little leafs like green silk", she thought. While she was daydreaming, a gentle breeze came in the bedroom and waved the curtain of the bed. "Spring breeze, I don't know you. Why do you come through my bed curtain?" her mind went on. She wished it wasn't the breeze but her lover. She was really missing her lover so dearly that on the day when he came back she would complain to him "why didn't you come back earlier, I have been missing you for so long".

here "断肠时" doesn't mean that she will be heartbroken. It's a very subtle feminine emotion.

I'm not sure if I made it clearer for you?

[tianjinpete]

Do you feel 断肠 = (抱)怨, as in:

玉阶怨

玉阶生白露

夜久侵罗袜

却下水晶帘

玲珑望秋月

[xiaocai]

Found the reference here for 玉阶怨. It's a 宫怨诗 based on the background, so I think this kind of 怨 here would be a bit different from 断肠.

[tianjinpete]

Thanks, xiaocai

On this definition, if 春思 is a 闺怨诗, the speaker could be a 弃妇 (forsaken lover or wife):

闺怨诗则主要抒写古代民间弃妇和思妇 (包括征妇、

商妇、游子妇等）的忧伤，或者少女怀春、思念情人的感情

And what do you make of the references to time, which seem to indicate a future action?

当君怀归日，是妾断肠时

Can't this mean, "On the day you return (go) home [leave me]/ that's when I'll feel (fill in whatever you think the meaning is for 断肠) ...

[xiaocai]

Hmmm, I don't know, but the what the commentary says has been always regarded as the "standard" for such a well-known poem. Can't help you much on this though, cause my classical literature level stops at "高三".

Judging from the context especially the first verse I'd say the standard interpretation makes more sense to me, but still more background behind the word is needed here and apparently I have no idea of it.

[tianjinpete]

Here are my working notes on 春思:

Exhibit1

Your grasses up north are as blue as jade,

Our mulberries here curve green-threaded branches;

And at last you think of returning home,

Now when my heart is almost broken....

O breeze of the spring, since I dare not know you,

Why part the silk curtains by my bed?

trans. Witter Bynner (1920s)

In a concession to Western readers, who probably wouldn't know Yan from Qin, Bynner avoids the place names, but then has to make explicit the distance between the lovers ("up" there, back "here"), and of course in so doing, he loses the direct allusions to prior poems that established the poetic conventions for spring grasses, Qin mulberries, etc. that Li Bai exploits [songs of Chu 楚辞 招隐士 “王孙游兮不归，春草生兮萋萋 ; Han dynasty folk songs 汉乐府 "陌上桑"; other references to be supplied]; Bynner prefers "blue" to "green" -- maybe he hailed from Kentucky, the Bluegrass State -- anyway, there's room for "blue" and "green" in relation to 碧, and perhaps Bynner wanted some synonymic variation, since in the next line he calls the mulberry "green" 绿 [drawing out the contrast in 碧丝 and 绿枝?] ... Bynner leaves out the reference to "silk" 丝 in line 1 (but which is echoed in 绿 in line 2)...It's hard to understand why the mulberries "curve green-threaded branches" -- the image seems rather baroque and overly complicated (19th c., Tennysonian in feel) -- but it does begin to capture the theme of feminine = vegetative lushness [further exploration of this topos, or literary commonplace, to go here] ... He finesses the underlying emotions in "断肠" by softening her criticism into "my heart is almost broken" -- For Bynner, she's on the verge of being heartbroken, she can't stand it any longer [idea: the poem as delayed emotion, the role of the reader's complicity in this] ... But then his vocative "O" is dated, and mimetically is unrelated to the text, since in the last two lines the novelistic convention of 相思 (as recorded in Gan Bao 干宝's story of Han Ping 韩凭 in the Sou shen ji 搜神记卷十一) is subtly transformed into 相识 [more interpretation is needed here] ... The real reproach to her lover/husband is in the the implication that the "northern" grasses grow slowly in spring than in the western and more southern area where she is -- Why hasn't he come back (sooner)? Because spring arrives more slowly where he is, the grasses are just now growing, but here the mulberry is thick with leaves ... His absence is contrasted with her impatience, his spareness (of emotion) with her lushness ...

Exhibit 2:

Like green silk indeed, the Yan grasses grow;

The Qin mulberries are of green branches low;

The very day you think of going home

Will be the time heartbroken I become.

I have long been a stranger to spring breeze

For what does it on my silk curtain seize?

trans. 王玉书

精选唐诗与唐画 / Selected Poems and Pictures of the Tang Dynasty (中国传统文化精粹书系, China Intercontinental Press, p.12)

Apart from the wrenching syntax that results from forcing the poem into a Western line and rhyme scheme, this version has the advantage of introducing the idea of the lover/husband "going" home -- Why not "coming" home"? -- Most likely the translator takes 是妾断肠时 to mean she is experiencing the stirrings of emotion (Bynner's "almost") -- " will be heartbroken" -- because the alternative, that she expresses any negative emotion, is not consistent with the convention that she ought not to express a direct criticism -- see Pound's famous explanatory note appended to his trans. of 玉阶怨 Jeweled Staircase: "The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach" -- Here the "deferred emotion" is expressed in relation to the time-bound elements [ 日 / 时], a reduction of the psychological in favor of the temporal ... The quaint "indeed" in line 1 and the inversion in line 2 "are of green branches low" are attempts to preserve the pentameter but come at the cost of introducing unnecessary words and distorted syntax, and anyway the rhyme cause is lost in lines 3/4, where "home" and "become" are sight-rhymes ... More importantly, the focus on line and rhyme seem to have persuaded the translator to somewhat artificially divide the poem into three unrelated sections, lines 1/2, 3/4, 5/6; the result is that the last couplet struggles with pronoun placement and loses the nuances in 罗帷 ("gauze curtain") -- Bynner and Wang Yushu miss an opportunity to widen the scope of the poem away from "silk" and toward the "veiling" of emotions that the poem enacts ...

Exhibit3:

Various comments on the web, each of which struggles with the implications embedded in 断肠 :

...“当君怀归日”，自然是团聚的先兆，这是喜事，为什么“断肠”呢？或者是一种含啧的撒娇，犹如说，你什么时候回来呢？等到你回来的时候，恐怕我已经相思、憔悴而亡了。因此才有后面无端的斥责春风，非是在斥责春风，而是在抱怨那春风中远行的人儿。

...虽然知道了丈夫最终要回来了，这对思妇来说无疑是一件天大的好事，但是她转而一想，又觉得委屈满腔，你怎么到这时才想起回家？

teachercn.com

...三四两句直承兴句的理路而来，故仍从两地着笔：“当君怀归日，是妾断肠时。”丈夫及春怀归，足慰离人愁肠。按理说，诗中的女主人公应该感到欣喜才是，而下句竟以“断肠”承之，这又似乎违背了一般人的心理，但如果联系上面的兴句细细体会，就会发现，这样写对表现思妇的感情又进了一层。

The first task of any reader is to separate the conventional from the innovative ... We all know the conventional Li Bai, what about the innovative Li Bai? ... Genre (categories for literary works) can create blinders ... Maybe Littleweed's suggestion that the poem reflects "a subtle feminine emotion" will inspire a translation that actually is faithful to a dimension of this poem that in conventional interpretations (especially of 断肠) seems to remain unexplored...

[studentyoung]

当君怀归日，是妾断肠时

Can't this mean, "On the day you return (go) home [leave me]/ that's when I'll feel (fill in whatever you think the meaning is for 断肠) ...

And at last you think of returning home,

Now when my heart is almost broken....

郎君啊，当你在边境想家的时候，

正是我在家想你，肝肠断裂日子。

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=%B4%BA%3B%CB%BC&url=http%3A//baike%2Ebaidu%2Ecom/view/151545%2Ehtm&p=8b2a960cc08419b308e2947c5654&user=baidu

When you’re missing home on the border,

it is the very time I’m missing you with my broken heart at home.

Do you feel 断肠 = (抱)怨, as in:

玉阶怨

玉阶生白露

夜久侵罗袜

却下水晶帘

玲珑望秋月

Interesting! I think 怨here means “the blue meditation caused by lovesick”.

Cheers!

[tianjinpete]

Interested readers can see an expanded version of my working notes here:

http://easternity.com/

under a post called 卧游: Spring Longing

[Sam Addington]

It reminds me of the famous opening lines to TS Eliott's "The Wasteland"

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.