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Tang Shi Table of content – 300 Tang poems

An anthology of 320 poems. Discover Chinese poetry in its golden age and some of the greatest Chinese poets. Tr. by Bynner (en).

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Five character ancient verse (35 poems)
Folk song styled verse (10 poems)
Seven character ancient verse (28 poems)
Folk song styled verse (16 poems)
Five character regular verse (80 poems)
Seven character regular verse (54 poems)
Five character quatrain (37 poems)
Seven character quatrain (60 poems)
Poems of Du Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin, Meng Haoran, Han Yu, Du Mu, Bai Juyi, Liu Changqing, Cen Can, Wang Changling, Wei Yingwu, full table

Random samples

Du Fu
Thoughts of Old Time III
Ten thousand ranges and valleys approach the Jing Gate
And the village in which the Lady of Light was born and bred.
She went out from the purple palace into the desertland; [...]

Du Mu
A Mooring on the Qin Huai River
Mist veils the cold stream, and moonlight the sand,
As I moor in the shadow of a river-tavern,
Where girls, with no thought of a perished kingdom, [...]

Li Bai
Hard Is the Way of the World III
Don't wash your ears on hearing something you dislike
Nor die of hunger like famous hermits on the Pike!
Living without a fame among the motley crowd, [...]

Introduction

« The Three Hundred Tang Poems (Tang shi sanbai shou, 唐詩三百首) were compiled by the Qing scholar Sun Zhu 孫洙, also called Hengtang Tuishi 衡塘退士 "Retired Master of Hengtang", and published in 1764. Sun was not very pleased with the poems of the anthology Qianjiashi 千家詩 "A thousand master's poems" (late Southern Song) because of its lack of educational spirit. His own compilation became so popular that it is enclosed in a corpus of books that are found in almost every household still today. Sun's intention was to elect poems that serve to cultivate the character of the reader. Today, there exist some new compositions of three hundred Tang poems containing different opera, because the Qing time attitude to poetry as educational instrument has changed until today. Sun Zhu has divided his anthology into six different styles, comprising old style poems (gushi, 古詩), regular poems (lüshi 律詩) and short poems (jueju, 絕句), both with five and seven syllable verses. Between the particular sections, poems in the style of the old Han Music Bureau (yuefu, 樂府) are inserted that were still in use during the Tang Dynasty but gradually lost their original character and disappeared during the latter half of Tang. » See Chinaknowledge's page about poetry from Tang to Yuan.

Confer

Sources
  • Chinese text and Bynner English translation found at Chinese text initiative. Almost all the poems have been translated by Witter Bynner in The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1929).
  • Les quelques traductions françaises du Marquis d'Hervey Saint-Denys qui correspondent au recueil ont été ajoutées dans la base de donnée. Voir le texte complet des Poésies de l'époque des Thang.
Links / liens
循环 circle 不可 shall not 寻 seek. A closed circle is not what we should seek for. Thats the opposite of the above translation, no?
Lu(cy) – Tangshi 4 – 2008/11/01
oh and by the way. it's the year 2009 here, same in france?
Lu(cy) – Tangshi 2 – 2008/11/01
桂花 (桂華) according to the 汉语大词典 is 木樨, Osmanthus fragrans from the family of Oleaceae (olive tree).
This sites dictionary and translation uses "cinnamonum cassia" which should actually be cinnamomum cassia 肉桂 (see. 21st century c.e. dictionary)
Lu(cy) – Tangshi 2 – 2008/11/01
If a true-hearted girl will love only her husband,
In a life as faithfully lived as theirs,

this couplet does not seem accurate to me. Isn't it rather that the chaste girl is buried with her husband and gives up her life to be like the above-mentioned?
Li Yan – Tangshi 44 – 2008/12/06
Hello, I'm a college student from Taiwan!
That's really nice to see how plentiful infomation this website gives.
I think neither China nor Taiwan wouldn't have so wonderful website like this.
Hope you really enjoy Chinese Classic Poems!
Xiqiang – 2008/12/01
a
Anon. – Tangshi 105 – 2007/11/02
I am disturbed by the translation of the last line–where does "storm" come in? Does lau-yan-bo refer to Lake Dongting?
Richard – Tangshi 155 – 2007/10/31
very interesting
Patricia – Tangshi 261 – 2007/12/06
08/06/09
Mr_waiting
finished

http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ec/300tangpoems_vol_4_203.wav
Anon. – Tangshi 203 – 2007/12/06
Wait... what, huh?!?!?!
Oh, this must be a comment board
Baobao – Tangshi 268 – 2007/12/06
Wuding means "un-fixed" or "shifting" and probably refers to the fact the sands in the desert shift, causing rivers to change course.
faux ennui – Tangshi 309 – 2006/11/01
Un jour, dans l'atelier de mon maître Sha Zhonghu, nous avons calligraphié séparément sur deux grandes feuilles de papier de riz le poème de Meng Haoran (689-740) intitulé « Sommeil de printemps » :

Au printemps le sommeil dure au delà de l'aube
De tous les côtés parvient le chant des oiseaux
La nuit est à peine troublée par le murmure du vent et de la pluie
Qui sait combien de fleurs sont tombées cette nuit ?
Anon. – Tangshi 232 – 2004/12/03
Pour entendre le poème, avec ou sans musique:
http://e-texts.org/cetexts/0051.htm
Guillemot – Tangshi 236 – 2003/12/04
Thinking only of their vow that they would crush the Tartars- -
On the desert, clad in sable and silk, five thousand of them fell....
But arisen from their crumbling bones on the banks of the river at the border,
Dreams of them enter, like men alive, into rooms where their loves lie sleeping.

The above translation was embellished with some "poetic license".

Literally, the words meant:

Pledged to sweep the Xiong-nu away without fear for their own safety;
Five thousand clad in sable and brocade perished in the dust of Hu;
Pity the bones littering the banks of the Wu Ding River,
they were the very people dreamt of in ladies' bedchambers.
fer-de-lance – Tangshi 309 – 2002/11/02
Dommage, le charme de la poésie chinoise est intraduisible
boudifou – 2002/12/09
Ce poème a fait l'objet d'une discussion sur le forum fr.lettres.langue.chinoise, avec une proposition de traduction :
— Sous la pinède, interroger le disciple.
— De répondre: Le maître cueille des simples,
— parcourant seul le coeur de cette montagne.
— Un nuage sombre isole du monde.
gbog – Tangshi 249 – 2002/12/02
Attention, seuls 310 des 320 poèmes sont traduits par Bynner. D'après la source, les numéros 1, 3, 39, 40,42, 83, 84, et 190, 191, 193 sont d'autres traducteurs.
gbog – 2002/12/02
Chinese landscape on plate (4)

300 Tang poems – Tang Shi – Chinese off/onFrançais/English
Alias Tang Shi San Bai Shou, Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty, Poésie des Thang.

The Book of Odes, The Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Three-characters book, The Book of Changes, The Way and its Power, 300 Tang Poems, The Art of War, Thirty-Six Strategies
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