New post on Stories from a Burning House: in which we meet mopey Zen collectives, Daoist murderesses (alleged), bumptious exam candidates, and brassy dames, and a loudmouth gets what's coming to him.

https://www.burninghou.se/p/susu-does-the-dozens

#ChineseLiterature #TangDynasty #ChinesePoetry #Translation #寒山 #魚玄機 #王蘇蘇 #北里志

HS 99, which I like to think of as "former gifted children stfu challenge":

蹭蹬諸貧士， 飢寒成至極。
閑居好作詩， 札札用心力。
賤他言孰采， 勸君休歎息。
題安糊䴵上， 乞狗也不喫。

Broke scholars who can't catch a break,
Hungry and cold as can be,
Using your down-time to versify,
Pouring your hearts into every strip of paper --

Low as you are, who'd listen to your words?
I'm telling you: Quit moaning and groaning.
If you wrote your verses on a bun,
A starving dog would shun it.

#寒山 #HanShan #ChineseLiterature #TangPoetry #Translation

Han Shan 55 is good too:

桃花欲經夏， 風月催不待。
訪覓漢時人， 能無一箇在。
朝朝花遷落， 歲歲人移改。
今日揚塵處， 昔時為大海。

Peach blossoms long to last the summer through,
but wind and moon compel them ceaselessly.
Look for the people of the Han --
there's not a one alive today.
Dawn after dawn the flowers aged and fell;
Year in, year out, the people moved and changed.
There, where your foot kicks up the dust:
That once was boundless sea.

#寒山 #HanShan #ChineseLiterature #TangPoetry #Translation