双调 · 拔不断 · 四景之一 / Spring Song

BY Yao Sui
TRANSLATED BY David Lunde
Chinese

草萋萋，日迟迟，王孙士女春游戏。 / 宫殿风微燕雀飞，池塘沙暖鸳鸯睡，正值着养花天气。

English Translation

The grass grows lush
beneath a leisurely sun;
boys and girls frolic in the green.
Swallows and sparrows dart
on the breeze by the palace;
mandarin ducks sleep
on warm sand by the pond.
It’s just the right time
to plant flowers!

 

Biography

姚燧 (1238－1313), 元代文学家。字端甫，号牧庵，原籍营州柳城，迁居河南洛阳。以文著名，与虞集并称，对散曲发展有一定的影响。

YAO SUI (1239-1313), also known as Tuan-fu, was born in the tenth year of the reign of Emperor T’ai-tsung of Yuan Dynasty. Known as a classicist, he served in several minor positions for the government. He died in the second year of the reign of Jen-tsung.

DAVID LUNDE‘s poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, Triquarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Northwest Review, and others. His work has been included in forty anthologies. He is the author of eleven books of poems and translations, including Nightfishing in Great Sky River (Anamnesis Press, 1999); The Carving of Insects: Brian Zhilin’s Collected Poems (Renditions, 2006, co-translated with Mary M.Y. Fung, winner of the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award); Instead (Mayapple Press, 2007); Breaking the Willow (White Pine Press, 2008), and 300 Tang Poems (White Pine Press, 2011).

Related

 

Printed from Cerise Press: http://www.cerisepress.com

Permalink URL: https://www.cerisepress.com/04/11/spring-song