(NPPLC) Chapter #32 木兰诗

[somethingfunny]

This thread is for the discussion of chapter thirty-two in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Rouzer.

 

OK, welcome to poetry corner.  This is the last lesson before moving onto the eight chapters of Zhuangzi, so let's hope its fairly enjoyable.

 

The text I stole from here and although it doesn't have the punctuation that is in Rouzer, I don't see this as being a big problem.

 

唧唧復唧唧 木蘭當戶織
不聞機杼聲 唯聞女嘆息
問女何所思 問女何所憶
女亦無所思 女亦無所憶
昨夜見軍帖 可汗大點兵
軍書十二卷 卷卷有爺名
阿爺無大兒 木蘭無長兄
願為市鞍馬 從此替爺征

東市買駿馬 西市買鞍韉
南市買轡頭 北市買長鞭
朝辭爺孃去 暮宿黃河邊
不聞爺孃喚女聲 但聞黃河流水鳴濺濺
旦辭黃河去 暮至黑山頭
不聞爺孃喚女聲 但聞燕山胡騎聲啾啾

萬里赴戎機 關山度若飛
朔氣傳金柝 寒光照鐵衣
將軍百戰死 壯士十年歸

歸來見天子 天子坐明堂
策勳十二轉 賞賜百千強
可汗問所欲 木蘭不用尚書郎
願借明駝千里足 送兒還故鄉

爺孃聞女來 出郭相扶將
阿姊聞妹來 當戶理紅妝
小弟聞姊來 磨刀霍霍向豬羊
開我東閣門 坐我西閣床
脫我戰時袍 著我舊時裳
當窗理雲鬢 對鏡貼花黃
出門看火伴 火伴皆驚惶
同行十二年 不知木蘭是女郎

雄兔腳撲朔 雌兔眼迷離
兩兔傍地走 安能辨我是雄雌

 

Everyone, please feel welcome to make any comments you'd like.

[skylee]

I think it is called 木蘭辭.

PS - I learnt this when I was a teenager. It was called 木蘭辭 back then. According to the version I learnt, it should be 爺娘, not 爺孃. And it should be 伙伴, not 火伴. But who knows. Maybe the version in #1 is correct.

PS2 - Of course it is enjoyable. A whole story in a poem. And if you read it in Cantonese, it is like singing.

[somethingfunny]

The name given in the book I'm using is 木兰诗 but then it does indeed use 耶娘 and 火伴.  There was a time I would have been bothered by this but as has happened many times during studying this book I've discovered that there are numerous versions of these texts all with different characters in certain places.

 

Yeah, having studied all this classical Chinese, I kind of really wish I could speak Cantonese.  But that's like a lot of things in my life like how I wish I could write computer code or play the guitar or be really good at cricket.  At some point you have to accept its just not going to happen. 

[xuexiansheng]

@skylee - How does this recitation sound to you? 廣東話讀【木蘭辭】

[skylee]

Well, the rhythm is not quite right. And she read the last two words wrong. It is 雄雌 not 雌雄 (and because it is 雄雌， anyone who knows this poem should not get it wrong as it is different).

[somethingfunny]

Had a crack at this tonight and found it pretty straight forward.  I cheated and didn't go over the vocabulary beforehand but just looked up the words I didn't know as I went a long.  I figured there was going to be a lot of onomatopoeic words and flowery poetry language that I wouldn't be very interested in but actually a lot of the new vocabulary ended up being stuff I already knew from modern mandarin anyway.

 

The story itself I don't find very interesting (I'm sorry but I have been ignorant up until this point about who Mulan was aside from a vague knowledge of her as a character in a Disney film, very much equivalent to my knowledge of Pocahontas).  Although I did find the process of understanding a Chinese song (poem?) fairly fun, it is one that I've experienced before.  In fact, as I didn't concern myself with problems of pronunciation, rhyme or rhythm when doing this lesson, I ultimately found it less fulfilling than learning the words to a Chinese song or how to recite a simple children's poem.  The fact that it probably shouldn't even be recited in modern mandarin just makes me feel worse about it.

 

Anyway, it's all part of the process and there were of course a few lines that tripped me up:

 

1.  Mainly it's this bit which I guess is describing a battle

 

萬里赴戎機 万 (Ten thousand/countless) 里 (Li) 赴 (rush into) 戎 (Barbarians or weapons?) 机 (machines or significant event?)

關山度若飛 "Cross the mountain pass quickly as if like flying"?

朔氣傳金柝 "In the northern air rings the sound of the watchman's metal bell"?

寒光照鐵衣 "The winter light shines on metal armour"?

將軍百戰死 将军 (Commander) 百战 (a hundred battles) 死 (dead) ???

壯士十年歸 "The strong men return home after ten years"?

 

 

2.  I also didn't understand the second half of this line: 爺孃聞女來 出郭相扶將 "They go outside the city walls, support each other 将"?

 

3.  There seemed to be a bit of play with order and grammar but I'm happy to put this down to 'poetic licence' and not get too worked up about it.  There were quite a few instance of 当 which had me scratching my head.  Should I take 当户 to be "at the door" or "inside the house"?

 

4.  Whats the deal with the cloudy hair?

 

You can find a modern Chinese translation here and an English version here, although I'm sure many more versions are in existence.

 

I'm interested to see what you all think.

[skylee]

skylee's reading of 木蘭辭 in Cantonese (hope I have not made too many mistakes).

PS - mistake 1 - should be 千里足, not 千里走.

木蘭辭.mp3

[skylee]

Cloudy hair? You should also read 長恨歌， another great ballad with a super romantic story, and it has 雲鬢花顏金步搖 (I think 步搖 is a wonderful term).

[somethingfunny]

Thats the exact kind of thing I don't think I'll ever really be able to understand in Chinese and why I'm reluctant to invest a lot of time in poetry.  I have enough trouble with imagery and that sort of thing in English, but when it comes to Chinese all beauty of the language itself is just lost on me as I try to find at least the meaning of what is being said.

[skylee]

Some reference -http://www.skhcfcn.edu.hk/subject/chn/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87/%E5%8F%A4%E6%96%87100/11%E6%9C%A8%E8%98%AD%E8%BE%AD.htm

[xuexiansheng]

@skylee- Wow, thanks for the dramatic reading! Though I don't understand Cantonese, it does sound very musical compared to the mandarin readings I've heard.

[lips]

戎 : military; 機 : opportunity / situation.  戎機 : military engagement.

萬里赴戎機 : travel ten thousand miles to battle.

[Hofmann]

爺孃聞女來 出郭相扶將

將 here means "support."

 

當窗理雲鬢 對鏡貼花黃

雲鬢 is wavy or curly hair.

[eslang]

@skylee, 記憶中最初的你 不知何故你的聲音讓我想起了一位好友。多謝你的朗讀, 希望日後有機會能聽聽你朗讀長恨歌。

[Hofmann]

BTW, here's some dude's Middle Chinese reconstruction.

[eslang]

@xuexiansheng

The recitation on youtube (post #4 link above) comes across as "dry" reading the poem by word 字符, whereas skylee's recitation has a "flow with it" reading the poem like a story, as a language 自然言語. (that's how it sounds to me, at least.)

 

skylee's recitation of this line is really good...

出門看伙伴，伙伴皆驚惶。同行十二年，不知木蘭是女郎。  

[somethingfunny]

Having read about the upcoming Mulan film in the news this morning, I was instantly reminded of this.  It's funny to see how down I was on this chapter the first time round - I actually now have quite fond memories of reading this poem.

 

I've been busy recently with changing jobs/moving house, but I'll look to get some more stuff in this part of the forum (realistically, after Christmas).