Poetic Yunnan 9: Four poems on Mid-autumn Festival

An event is staged in south Yunnan's Mengzi county-level city on September 13 for the coming Mid-autumn Festival.

I
zhōng qiū yuè
中秋月
sū shì
苏轼

mù yún shōu jìn yì qīng hán
暮云收尽溢轻寒,

Mid-autumn Moon
By Su Shi; translating by Xu Yuanchong

Evening clouds withdrawn, pure cold air floods the sky;
The River of Stars mute, a fine plate turns on high.
How often can we have a fine Mid-autumn Night?
Where shall we view next year a silver moon as bright?

Residents and tourists in central Yunnan's Kunming city enjoy a light show for the 2024 Mid-autumn Festival.

Culture ABCs:
a. Su Shi (1037-1101) was a nationally-renowned poet who was born in Yunnan’s neighboring Sichuan province. He wrote over 2,700 poems in various styles. Also a prominent essayist, calligrapher, painter and statesman in the Northern Song dynasty, Su was exiled twice for his political views. Xu Yuanchong (1921-2021) was a renowned Chinese translator and professor at Peking University.

b. The poem Mid-autumn Moon was probably written when Su Shi's pollical career was going through ups and downs, for it conveys a touch of uncertainty and sadness on the poet’s mind: “Since the onset of my official career, I’ve moved to different places. I see the bright moon here this year, but I don't know where to see it next year. Good days hardly come by, merry sights won't last long, so they should be cherished in time.”

c. The allusions of 银汉/yín hàn and 玉盘/yù pán in Line 2 refer to the Milky Way and the moon in classic Chinese literature.

Residents and tourists watch the 2018 mid-autumn moon at Daguan Park, central Yunnan's Kunming city.

II
zhōng qiū
中秋
yáng shèn
杨慎

sì bì qióng yín bái lù tuán
四壁蛩吟白露团，
xī yuán qīng yè wèi shuí huān
西园清夜为谁欢。
qiān jiā mén bì zhōng qiū yuè
千家门闭中秋月，
zhī yǒu chóu rén dú zì kàn
只有愁人独自看。

Mid-autumn Night
By Yang Shen

The crickets sing near walls amid white dews;
Whose bliss is the clear night in West Garden for?
All households keep the autumn moon off their doors,
So that homesick folks like me could watch it alone.

The 2018 mid-autumn moon is seen at Daguan Park, central Yunnan's Kunming city.

Culture ABCs:
a. The poet Yang Shen (1488-1559) is a Number One Scholar of the Ming Dynasty, who was banished to Yunnan province for over 30 years. Yang was amazed by the provincial scenic beauty, but he largely lived a lonely life in Yunnan. Separated from his family on the Mid-autumn Festival, an occasion for family reunion, Yang can’t help showing a touch of sadness in the poem like Su Shi.

b. The 白露/white dew in Line 1 refers to the 15th solar term on Chinese lunar calendar, and it’s usually the period when Mid-autumn Day falls.

c. The 西园/West Garden in Line 2 largely refers to today’s Daguan/grand-view Park in central Yunnan's Kunming city. According to online sources, the garden was first built up by Mu Ying (1345-1392) who ruled Yunnan in the early Ming Dynasty, and it was incorporated into the Daguan Park in the subsequent Qing Dynasty, specifically in 1690 when the Daguan Pavilion was built up. The garden lies across from Yang’s residency at the foot of the Western Hills.

A tourist poses for a photo at the Caoxi Temple in Aning, a county-level city in central Yunnan.

III
cáo xī yè yuè
曹溪夜月
chén mèng zhāng
陈孟章

lín mì shān cáng sì
林密山藏寺，
chán qīng yuè lì kōng
禅清月丽空。
tiān kāi yín sè jiè
天开银色界，
shuǐ yǒng yù huá gōng
水涌玉华宫。
hè xī sōng shāo yǐng
鹤息松梢影，
tāo míng shù miǎo fēng
涛鸣树杪风。
qīng guāng kān yì chù
清光堪挹处,
yōu xìng jǐ rén tóng
幽兴几人同!

Night Moon at Caoxi Temple
By Chen Mengzhang

Mountain temple hides in thick forest;
Beautiful moon shines in clear Zen air.
The heaven offers a silver realm;
The tides rush into a jade palace.
Cranes rest in the shade of pine tips;
Waves sound like wind through tree tops.
The moon light can almost be scooped;
How many can share the serene mood?

A view of the Baohua pavilion at the Caoxi Temple in Aning, a county-level city in central Yunnan.

Culture ABCs:
a. The poet Chen Mengzhang was native to Aning, now a county-level city in central Yunnan. He once served as head of the Ministry of Revenue during Emperor Jiajing’s reign (1522-1566) in the Ming Dynasty.

b. 曹溪/cáo xī in the title refers to the Caoxi Temple in Aning, where the Night Moon at the Caoxi Temple was rated as a top 8 sight: “Every 60 years, specifically on the Mid-autumn Festival of the first year in the Chinese sexagenary cycle, the full moon will shed its light onto a budda statue in the temple’s Baohua pavilion through a 42cm hole in the middle of the front eave.” Located at the waist of the lush Conglong mountain, the temple is just two kilometers south of the Aning Hot Spring site.

c. 水涌/shuǐ yǒng in Line 4 refers to the daily three tides of a holy spring near the Caoxi Temple, while玉华宫/yù huá gōng, literally the Jade Palace, is located in today's Shannxi province, and it was built in the Tang Dynasty for Emperor Taizong (reign 627-649) to escape summer heat. Here the palace's name is borrowed to just mean a cool place.

The Daguan/grand-view park in central Yunnan's Kunming city is richly adorned on the occasion of the 2024 Mid-autumn Festival.

IV
hé yáng shèn zhōng qiū yùn
和杨慎中秋韵
wáng shì xué
王世学

xiān sheng yì bié shù bǎi nián
先生一别数百年，
rú jīn xī yuán yǐ dà guān
如今西园已大观。
huá dēng qiān zhǎn nào zhōng qiū
华灯千盏闹中秋，
hào yuè dāng kōng wàn rén kàn
皓月当空万人看。

Echoing Yang Shen’s Mid-autumn Rhyme
By Wang Shixue

Your excellency has been away from us for centuries;
The West Garden has evolved into a grand-view park,
Where countless decorations are lit up for mid-autumn,
And the full moon in the sky is admired by thousands.

The Daguan/grand-view park in central Yunnan's Kunming city is richly adorned on the occasion of the 2024 Mid-autumn Festival.

Culture ABCs:
a. During his decades of exile in Yunnan, the number-one scholar Yang Shen contributed a lot to socio-cultural progress in the province, and he has thus been widely loved by local residents ever since. On the occasion of the 2024 Mid-autumn Festival, when the Daguan/grand-view park is richly adorned in sharp contrast to the scene depicted in poem II above, the editor tried to write something in response.

Chinese sources: The books of Golden Treasure of Quatrains and Octaves, Selected Yang Sheng’an Poems and Lyrics at Refined Residency near Jade-rooster Mountain, and Selected Yunnan Poems and Lyrics in Past Dynasties; Photo sources: Yunnan Daily, Yunnan Net and others; Trans-editing by Wang Shixue