念奴嬌 · 赤壁懷古 - Musings on the Red Cliff

作詞//Lyrics：蘇軾 (Su Shi)
作曲/編曲/海報手繪/題字//Composer/Arrangement/Poster art and calligraphy：Winky詩（特邀）[Winky Shi (specially requested)]
演唱/和聲//Vocals/Harmony：5ive_years（特邀）
後期//Post-production：洋蔥 (Yang Cong / Onion)
視頻//Video：秦七 (Qin Qi)


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大江東去，浪淘盡，千古風流人物。
故壘西邊，人道是，三國周郎赤壁。
亂石穿空，驚濤拍岸，卷起千堆雪。
江山如畫，一時多少豪傑。

The great river runs east, waves washing thorough, all the figures of history.

West of the ancient fort, they say, was Zhou Yu’s Red Cliff, of the Three Kingdoms.

Riotous rocks pierce the sky, shocked waves slam unto the banks, propelling a thousand stacks of snow.

A scenic land, once held how many valiant heroes.

遙想公瑾當年，小喬初嫁了，

雄姿英發。

羽扇綸巾，

談笑間，檣櫓灰飛煙滅。

故國神遊，

多情應笑我，早生華髮。

人生如夢，

一尊還酹江月。

Think of Gong Jin that bygone year, to him Xiao Qiao’s newly wedded, 

A handsome figure in his prime. 

With a feather fan and silken headscarf, 

Amid laughter and casual talks -- ship masts, oars disappeared in flying ash and smoke!

In a trance I wandered this ancient site, 

My sentimentality a jest to me, my hair grays before its time.

Life’s akin to a dream,

A cup of wine I offer as libation to the rivers and moon.

-- Poem by Su Shi, or Su Dongpo

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Translator's note:

About the poet - Su Shi, of the Song Dynasty (1031-1101 AD)

I shall one day dedicate lots of words for my homie the great poet and literary giant Su Shi (苏轼 or 苏东坡; pronounced like “Soo-sher”, not the Japanese dish). To put it simply, I think he’s the physical embodiment of awesome. Just all around a person with integrity, sincerity, good-will, talent, resilience, wisdom, and best of all a killer sense of humor. I’m planning to translate another song featuring him in the next few posts, so I’ll leave the fangirling for another day.

For context, Su Shi wrote this poem during his exile/demotion. He had been at the top of the game once, a high official, a literary superstar -- he used to have everything. However, his strong political opinions spurred his enemies to accuse him of writing inflammatory poems targeting the emperor at the time, Emperor Shenzong of Song. Su Shi was then demoted and exiled to Huangzhou after nearly escaping execution. He became buddies with the local officials (yeah this guy made friends absolutely everywhere, even with people who were supposed to give him a hard time), but still the setback cast its gloom over his head. (Exile life is not very fun guys. It is only made less shitty because he’s an awesome person and people wanna help him.) Slowly, he broadened his perspective on life and success, and attained peace with his lot in life (thriving all the way even!). During his trip to the Red Cliff in Huangzhou (not the historically accurate one, he knew, but folks called it so), he was inspired to write this masterpiece. Today, the Red Cliff in Huangzhou is known as Dongpo’s Red Cliff.

About the translation

This is my first serious attempt at translating classical poetry, one that I absolutely love to bits and sends chills down my spine for its pure distilled epicness. The aesthetic of the poem can never be fully translated into another language, with its linguistic and cultural nuances. It’s like I am converting a 720p HD video into 240p. But hey, at least there’s something. 

For this project, I did refer to multiple existing translations, some really well done (you can search it easily on Google, there’s loads; but still I can’t resist to try it out myself). It is my rendition of it, and I styled it in the way where it flows with the song in the video, as contrast to the approach of stylizing it in the form of English poetry.

念奴嬌 (Nian Nu Jiao) is the name of the tune. This form of poem is called “ci” (词), which can be translated to “lyrics”. In the Song Dynasty, cultured people liked to write poems that could be sung with certain tunes, so you can have hundreds of “念奴嬌” but all with different lyrics. The true title for this piece specifically is  “赤壁懷古” -- "Musings on the Red Cliff".

“Propelling a thousand stacks of snow” is a somewhat literal translation of the line "卷起千堆雪", but it actually refers to snow-like foams when waves hit the banks.

The Battle of the Red Cliff (208 AD) and Zhou Yu (175-210 AD)

Zhou Yu (周瑜；周郎 in the original text, “郎” means young man, usually used with positive connotations), courtesy name Gong Jin, a young general serving the soon-to-be state of Wu during the three kingdoms. He was the commander who won the ultimate battle of the Red Cliff against Cao Cao’s numerically superior army. Zhou sent boats full of ignited flammables towards the enemy fleet, whose ships were chained together to provide stability for the northmen, more comfortable on horseback than on water. The resulting fire decimated the northern force, and never ever again could Cao Cao mount a large-scale invasion down south.

Xiao Qiao was a renowned beauty during the Three Kingdoms, who, as implied in the poem, became Zhou Yu’s wife. Though by the time of the battle of the Red Cliff, she’s already been wedded for many years. The statement that she was newly wedded to Zhou was for artistic purposes, to accentuate the perfection of our hero at that very moment, a refined gentleman with a romantic side, yet still demonstrates exceptional prowess on the battlefield.

All that glory and fame, all disappeared in a glimpse of time, like the ship masts and oars of Cao Cao’s burning fleets, stories of the myriad players in history run by like the endless flow of the great Yangtze river.



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