Zhu Xizhen


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		Zhu Xizhen (Wade-Giles name: Chu Hsi-chen)

ZHU XIZHEN (UNCERTAIN PERIOD)

Zhu Xizhen was the daughter of Zhu Jiangshi and came from Jiangan. According to Talks in the Garden of Lyric Songs (ciyuan congtan), she is also known as Zhu Qiuniang, and was the wife of Xu Biyong. Her husband was a merchant and traveled often, sometimes not returning for years. Missing him, Zhu Xizhen often wrote poetry about this tragedy in her life. This is essentially all that we know about her. Her poems are also found in Complete Song Lyric Songs (quan songci), where she is put in the category of figures that appeared in Vernacular Fiction of the Song Dynasty (people who appeared in vernacular fiction could be real or fictional, since many stories were based on real life stories at that time; similarly, the works attributed to them could be their own or could have been composed by other people under their name).
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Fisherman, To The Tune of AA Happy Event Draws Near@ (three of six poems)

1
Shaking his head, he walks out on the dusty world.
Awake or drunk, he is outside of time.
Wearing green cape and bamboo hat to make his living,
he is used to wearing frost and charging into snowflakes.
The wind ceases towards evening and his fishing line idles.
The new moon is above and below.
For a thousand miles water and sky are the same color.
He watches a lonely swan goose brightening up and fading out.

2

In my sight are a few idlers.
Of them the fisherman is most relaxed.
Wearing the seal of the palace of underwater immortals
he fear no bad wind or waves.

His heart can't be fathomed by common folk
since names are only empty counterfeits.
His one oar crosses five lakes and three islands.
He just lets the tip of his boat play.

3
The fisherman arrives standing up.
I know it's him by the fishing rod.
He spins his boat around at will,
traceless like a bird across sky.

Blooming or fading, reed flowers have their own floating lives

so the best strategy is get drunk all the time.
Last night, a riverful of wind and rain.
No one heard anything.

---Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping

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A Pair of Purple Mandarin Ducks

Breaking the misty water of an autumn river,
a pair of purple mandarin ducks alight.
They must be tired from a long flight.
They cuddle under branches on the shore.

Who's that playing flute in a boat?
The ducks startle up, are gone.
If only I had thought to sketch them,
How will I ever find those ducks now?

---Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping