徐灿·《青玉案·吊古》英译

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携血泪、

无挥处。

半月模糊霜几树。

紫箫低远，

翠翘明灭，

隐隐羊车度。

 

鲸波碧浸横江锁，

故垒萧萧芦荻浦。

烟水不知人事错。

戈船千里，

降帆一片，

莫怨莲花步。

 

Qingyu’an:

Mourning Antiquity      

Xu Can

 

Heartbroken, by mistake I took the road to Desolate City; ¹

I’ve brought my blood and tears,

But there’s nowhere to shed them.

The half-moon looks blurred, frost covers a few trees:

Once purple flutes sounded low and far,

Kingfisher ornaments shone bright and dim,

And goat-carriages passed indistinctly by.

Towering blue waves have buried the chains across the river;²

Old ramparts lie forlorn by the reed shore.

Mist and water know not the flaws of human affairs:

A thousand miles of warships,

A stretch of sails pulled low in surrender

Don’t blame them on women’s lotus steps!

 

1. Guangling (Yangzhou) in Jiangsu province.    

2. In 280, the Jin general Wang Jun captured Jinling (Nanjing, capital of the Wu kingdom), which had been defended by iron chains laid across the Yangzi River. The second stanza alludes to an earlier poem on the historical site by the Tang poet Liu Yuxi (772842), “Xisaishan huaigu”

 

（Charles Kwong 译）