Tune: Green Jade Table
Legends of Dragon Boat Festival
By William He
Beatrice is playing the zither and the drum.
Eternal moxa and calamus rival,
Confederate roses in the shade.
Dragons arise and rainbows arch across the sky.
The inmost haunt of being here,
Ringing with melodious chime.
In some plums' heart might glow the rain.
Montaigne comes to the Ark on that ridge now.
And brings along a vivid and strange dream.
The Walden recluse is chasing a wild goose.
Spirits cursed beyond imagining,
Dread environing and grim path.
Arno River unfolds the secret to me.
青玉案
庚子端午
作者:何威廉
湘妃鼓瑟红裙步。
艾叶巧、
芙蓉妒。
竞夺龙舟飞画塑。
波灵鱼沫,
滋兰橘露。
弄雨梅黄愫。
江边渔父清歌去。
触眼榴花也成絮。
漱石枕流长铗误。
浮心涡漩,
难沉祭赙。
弭棹骚魂溯。
Notes:
“Beatrice”: Beatrice was the fiancee and lover of Dante Alighieri. Although described by all as a "pure" soul worthy of Heaven, after losing a bargain with Lucifer, she was forced to accompany him to Hell to become his bride. Her capture was the catalyst for Dante's journey through the Inferno and the redemption of his soul.
"Montaigne": Michel de Montaigne, French writer whose Essais established a new literary form.In his Essays he wrote one of the most captivating and intimate self-portraits ever given, on a par with Augustine’s and Rousseau’s. Montaigne could have been ranked among the most erudite humanists of the 16th century. Montaigne saw his age as one of dissimulation, corruption, violence, and hypocrisy, and it is therefore not surprising that the point of departure of his essays is situated in negativity: the negativity of Montaigne’s recognition of the rule of appearances and of the loss of connection with the truth of being.
“Ark”: Noah’s ark on mount Ararat, shortened eyewitness accounts Agri Dagh, a 5165 metres high mountain in Eastern Turkey, international better known by its name ‘Ararat’, is one of the mountains that has the reputation of beeing the final landingssite of Noah’s ark. One important reason for that is that it’s mentioned in the Holy Scriptures.
"Walden": Series of 18 essays by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. An important contribution to New England Transcendentalism, the book was a record of Thoreau’s experiment in simple living on the northern shore of Walden Pond in eastern Massachusetts (1845–47). Walden is viewed not only as a philosophical treatise on labour, leisure, self-reliance, and individualism but also as an influential piece of nature writing.
“Arno River”: Arno River, Italian Fiume Arno, Latin Arnus, principal stream of the Toscana (Tuscany) region, in central Italy. Dante Alighieri was standing near the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge that crosses the Arno River in Florence. Dante saw Beatrice standing on the bridge. He was a young man, she even younger, and that vision contained the whole of eternity for him. Dante did not speak to her and saw her very little.
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