Song of Everlasting Regret
Written by Bai Juyi of Tang Dynasty
The emperor of Han preferred women of great beauty,
He sought them out for years but in vain.
A girl in the Yang family just grew up,
Not known to anyone, being raised in deep boudoir.
Born too beautiful to give herself away easily,
She was eventually chosen at the side of the emperor.
One glance back from her beamed one hundred kinds of charm,
And the beauty of all the ladies in the six palaces1 was shadowed.
In still cold spring she was granted a bath in the pool of Huaqing2,
Her smooth skin bathed in the warm spring water.
So delicate, she was helped up by her maids,
That's the first time she enjoyed the love of the emperor.
Cloud-like hair, flower-like face, golden dangling ornament,
Spring3 nights all spent under the warm lotus canopy.
The night was too short and the sun rose high,
The emperor neglected his morning levee ever since.
Pleasing and waiting on the emperor at feast, she got no moment to spare,
Outing in spring every day, sleeping with the emperor every night.
The emperor had three thousand fairs in the harem,
But his love of the three thousands centered on one.
In the golden boudoir she made herself up for the evening,
After a feast in the jade pavilion she's drunk in spring3 action.
Her brothers and sisters all got fiefs,
Her family was admirably endowed with imperial glory.
This made all the parents under the heaven
Desirous of having girls instead of boys.
The palace on the Li Mountain towering high into the clouds,
The fairy music carried by the wind, heard everywhere.
Charming songs, graceful dances with string and bamboo instruments,
The emperor could not enjoy enough all day long.
The war drums came from Yuyang4, shaking the ground,
Breaking the Melody of Rainbow Dress and Feather Garments5.
Smokes and dusts rose from nine gates6 of the capital,
Thousands of coaches and horses marching southwest.
With emerald coach canopies swaying, they moved, then stopped.
Only a hundred miles west outside the capital.
As the troops refused to advance, the emperor could do nothing,
And the sobbing beauty died in front of his horse.
Pearl-inlaid headdress fell on the ground, but none cared to pick it,
Also hair ornaments of emerald and gold in bird shape, and jade hairpins.
The emperor couldn't save her, only covering his face,
When looking back, there flew tears and blood.
Yellow dusts floated up in the air, the wind soughing,
They scaled to Sword Pavilion7 on zigzag wooden board way up into clouds.
At the foot of E-Mei Mountains8 travelers are seldom seen,
While the banners lost brightness and the sun looked pale.
The river of Shu9 was green and the mountains of Shu were blue,
The mood of the emperor morning and evening imaginable.
In the temporary palace as the emperor watched the moon, its light seemed grievous.
In the night rain the sound of bells was heart-rending.
Like heaven and earth whirling, the dragon coach10 returning,
But at that moment, he hesitated to leave there.
In the earth at the foot of Mawei Mound11
There's no body of the buried beauty seen.
Emperor and courtiers looked at each other, their clothes wet with tears;
Their horses cantered eastward to the gate of the capital.
When returning, the pond and gardens were still the same,
Also the peonies in Taiye Pond and willows in Weiyang Palace.
Her face like the peonies and her eyebrows like willow leaves,
Confronting these, how could the tears not be trickling?
Also on the day when the blooms of peach and plum blew in spring,
And at the time when the leaves of Chinese parasol fell in autumnal rains.
There's a lot of autumnal grass in western and southern palaces,
And the ruddy fallen leaves all over the steps no one swept.
The performers of the imperial troupe had new white hair growing.
The eunuchs and maids in her former chamber became old.
As fireflies darted in the evening hall, the thought of her stole in,
When the wicker in the single lamp burned up, sleeplessness lasted.
The night grew long and the morning bell and drum sounded late,
The day's breaking and the Milky Way still seen across the sky.
The dews dense on the cold tiles shaped in mandarin ducks,
The emerald quilts also cold since no one to sleep in together.
During the lasting separation of life and death experience for years,
Her ghost had never come into the dream of the survivor.
The Taoist from Linqiong12 was the visitor to Hongdu12,
Who could summon the ghost with his spirit of earnestness.
Touched by the whole-hearted thinking of the emperor,
The Taoist set his heart on searching her ghost far and wide.
He rode on the air into the other space as swift as lightning,
Exploring everywhere in Heavens and in the other world.
He sought in paradise and he sought in Hades,
And her ghost was not there in either place.
All at once he heard of the fairy mountains on the sea;
The mountains were situated in the vast void.
The magnificent pavilions rose among five-colored clouds,
In which there were a lot of elegant goddesses.
One of them was called Taizhen13,
With snow-white skin and flower-beautiful face as she had.
He knocked at the jade door of the west chamber in the golden pavilion,
Asking Xiaoyu14, the maid, to tell Shuangcheng14, another maid,
When hearing the arrival of the messenger of the Han emperor,
Her ghost startled from the dream in splendid canopy.
Lifting her dress, pushing away her pillow, she loitered forth,
The silver screen with pearly foils opened gradually.
With her piled-up hair tilting aside, just awake from the sleep,
She walked into the hall in disheveled wreath crown.
Her fairy dress fluttered up in the wind,
Like in a dance of rainbow-colored feather-adorned garment.
Her pretty face reflected solitude with tears trickling,
Like a pear blossom in the spring rains.
She thanked the emperor with a gaze full of feelings,
His voice and visage was so far away after parting.
Thus ended the love expressed in Zhaoyang Hall;
But here in Penglai Palace the time was eternal.
When looking down back to the human world,
She couldn't see Chang An, the capital, but mists and dusts.
To show her deep feelings she could only produce the old stuff,
And wanted to send the gold hairpin and decorated box,
She kept half of the pin and box for herself.
That's half of the pin gold, half of the box decoration.
If only our hearts so sincere as gold and box so sturdy,
We'd meet either in heavens or in the world.
When parting, she sent words by the Taoist,
There's a vow in the words they both knew.
On the seventh day of the seventh moon in Longevity Hall,
They vowed to each other at midnight when none were near:
They wished to be birds flying side by side in the sky,
They wished to be two bough-interlaced trees on earth.
Heaven and earth, though everlasting, might have an end,
The parting regret of theirs would last without an end.
Notes：
[1] Six palaces denoted the living quarters of the emperor's women collectively.
[2] Huaqing is the name of a place where there was a bathing pool for the imperial family.
[3] The Chinese character "spring" can imply sex.
[4] Yuyang is the name of a place, where a rebellion happened.
[5] The Melody of Rainbow Dress and Feather Garments meant the dance with music performed by Concubine Yang. The emperor liked it very much. When the rebellious army came, he could not watch the dance any more.
[6] Nine gates meant that the capital city had many gates and also could mean that there were gates after gates to the palace.
[7] Sword Pavilion is the name of a place in the present Sichuan Province.
[8] E-Mei Mountains are in the Sichuan Province, on which there are many temples.
[9] Shu is the nickname of Sichuan Province.
[10] Dragon coach was a coach used only by the emperor. Dragon in China was the imperial emblem.
[11] Mawei Mound was the name of a place where the concubine Yang was forced to die and buried there.
[12] Linqiong was the name of a place and Hongdu denoted the capital.
[13] Taizhen was another name of Concubine Yang.
[14] Xiaoyu was the daughter of King Fucha of Wu Kingdom in the East Zhou Dynasty. Shuangcheng was the daughter of Queen Goddess in Chinese mythology. Both were used here to denote the maids of Concubine Yang in the fairyland.
“长恨歌”是唐代著名诗人白居易的名作，本人从小喜欢诗词，特别为诗中真挚的爱情故事感动。后来学了英文，也特别喜欢英文诗歌。以后工作之余，喜欢把中国诗词译成英文，介绍给外国读者。外国人有许多爱情诗，中国人也有爱情诗。而最脍炙人口的爱情长诗就是“长恨歌”。所以我把它译成了英文。向外国人表示我们中国也有这么高质量的爱情长诗。因为翻译这么长的诗，当然不可能考虑音步与押韵，否则太花精力脑力了。
"Song of Everlasting Regret" is a famous long poem by Bai Juyi, a renowned poet of Tang Dynasty. As I liked and learned poetry since childhood, I was especially touched by the tale of the true love between the emperor Xuanzong and his imperial concubine Yang, who had an age difference of some ten years. AfterI learned English, I also like English poetry. When I was grown up, I did some translation work at my spare time. As there are lots of love poems in English, I'd like to introduce some Chinese love poems to foreigners and the first love poem I thought of to translate is this long poem. So the work is done here.
The Translator
吴兴禄，网名海外逸士，上海人，自幼喜好诗词古文，及长专业英语，曾执教国内某大学。及今赴美三十余年，安享退休岁月。已出版两本诗词古文英译，两本中文小说：《新西游记》和《荒唐女侠》，十一本英文书：《功夫大师》《慈禧太后》《武则天大帝》等等，均可见于美国最大网购站上。
Xinglu Wu, his web name is Oversea Hermit, coming from Shanghai. He loved poetry and classics since childhood. When he was adult, his major was English and was a teacher in some University in Shanghai. He lived in the US for more than 30 years and is now enjoying his quiet retired life. He has published two books of translation of Chinese old poems and essays into English, and two novels in Chinese:New Journey to West and Swordswoman of Absurdity, also eleven books in English, such as Kungfu Masters, Empress Dowager Cixi, and Empress Wu the Great, etc. They can be checked on amazon.com.
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发表于 2019-8-7 14:52:14
