25 february 2024
John Bjarne Grover
Here is a fourliner by Hé Shàojī = 何紹基 (1799-1873):
坐看倒影浸天河，
风过栏杆水不波。
想见夜深人散后，
满湖萤火比星多。
The glosses by the Yabla dictionary
The fourliner seems to concern the theory I have suggested in my article on 'the magic images' - the four rotations of the magic image (used on the cover to 'Der Dornenstrauch') which seems to be the theme also of the first part of the first Duino elegy of Rilke, down to line 25, which can be read as successive reading of the four rotations of the image:
The rotation here annotated #1, for Rilke's lines 18-25 and He Shaoji's poem line 1, can be seen as an image of 'carnal love and alcoholic beverage consumption' - the strongman waiter comes with another tray heavy with beers. Rotation 2 (line 2) talks of 'touching beverages' - which must be the woman touching her own breast. Hence the beverages on the tray of #1 is lifted over onto the touch of #2. There is a dark hole in the forehead of the face in rotation/line 3, as if man is about to fall apart, and in rotation/line 4 there is a gesture (as in a mirror?) for touching the heavenly stars. There are very clear traces of these in the four lines of the poem.
The poem could contain elements somewhat like the following:
Sit down and look at the rotating image - soaked (with) Milky Way (or 'Beers on Tray'?)
The fresh touch on (or 'News crossing') the fence lever (or 'railing') - the beverages no ripple (?)
The dark hole in the image - man about to fall apart
and fill the lake of fireflies, reaching for the many stars.
There should have been a big bird or angel in line #2? 'Bird' = traditional 鳥 or simplified 鸟 and there seems to be no traces of this whatsoever in line 2 - but the first sign in line 3 exhibits some graphic similarities - in the 'supposed to appear' (in the magic graphic) - like the 'beverages' were carried over from line 1 to line 2. The bird on the image touches her 'railings' (ribs) like she touches her own breast - which means in a rotating movement like the image itself - and here rotating over from line 2 to line 3.
Sit down and watch the image turn - it is soaked with Milky Way,
the wind crossing the banisters like waters in the bay.
There is a dark hole in the image - man is about to fall apart
and fill the lake of fireflies - reaching for all the stars.
Sources:
100 ancient chinese poems. Sinolingua, Beijing 2010.
Rilke, R.M.: Die erste Elegie
© John Bjarne Grover
On the web 25 february 2024
