Three Female Chinese Poets: Yuan Zhengzhen, Xue Tao and Yu Xuanji
translated by Song Zijiang and Kit Kelen
長相思袁正真
南高峰，北高峰， 采芙蓉，賞芙蓉， |
paddling the laketo the tune of changxiangsi (long lovesickness) by Yuan Zhengzhen to the north these mountains, this lake, I pluck a lotus paddling a red boat no path to the one I miss
* * * |
鷹離鞲薛濤
爪利如鋒眼似鈴， |
the eagle away from the oversleeveby Xue Tao claws sharp as blades hunted rabbits over the plain received high praise for no reason I must not again be held on the emperor’s shoulder
* * * |
暮春即事魚玄機
深巷窮門少侶儔， |
the late springby Yu Xuanji lovers seldom come to this deep alley whose fragrance of damask is this? sounds of drums in the street how can I care |
Yuan Zhengzhen was a palace lady of the Southern Song Dynasty (c. 1200), a time when 99% of Chinese women were illiterate. The above poem has not been previously translated into English, to the best of our knowledge.
Xue Tao (768–831), along with Yu Xuanji (bio below) and Li Ye, was one of the three best-known female Chinese poets from the Tang Dynasty. Xue was the daughter of a minor government official in Changan, the Chinese capital during the Tang. A hundred of her poems are known to have survived to this day.
Yu Xuanji (approximate dates 844–869) was also from Changan. She is distinctive in that many of her poems are written in a remarkably frank and direct autobiographical style — that is, using her own voice rather than speaking through a persona.
Song Zijiang, Chris, a native of Guangdong Province, is currently completing a Masters degree in Literature at the University of Macau. Song has worked on many translation projects, including from classical Chinese into English, and of Australian and American poets into Chinese. His latest book of poems, Strolling, was published by the Association of Stories in Macao in 2010.
Kit Kelen is an Australian poet/artist whose literary works have been widely published and broadcast since the mid seventies. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Macau in south China, where he has taught Literature and Creative Writing for the last ten years. The most recent of Kit Kelen’s books of poetry is China Years: Selected and New Poems (ASM, 2010).
qarrtsiluni 
好！
I was very impressed with the way you collaborated to cope with the problem of intralinear caesura, particularly in “the late spring” — it’s the sort of brave, necessary intervention that academic translations almost never have, and it manages to reflect the grammar of the original while it gets the gist and rhythm into the 21st century.
Such lovely lines – thank you for this. The one I’ll carry for now is:
no path to the one I miss
… but that last stanza of the 3rd one is also memorable.
Very fine, I especially like the Yuan Zhengzhen, and the line Tony quotes.
(There’s something very exciting about it not having been translated before.)