Friday, December 3, 2010

Watching Princess Yung Le Leaves For Foreign Lands

觀永樂公主入蕃 (孫逖)
邊地鶯花少
年來未覺新
美人天上落
龍塞始應春

Observe - Forever - Happy - Public - Lord - Enter - Foreign (Sun Ti)
Border - Land - Oriole - Flower - Few
Year - Arrive - Not - Feel - New
Beautiful - Person - Sky - Up - Fall
Dragon - Pass - Begin - Ought - Spring

Watching Princess Yung Le Leaves For Foreign Lands (Sun Ti)
On the frontier orioles and flowers are rare
After a year nothing feels new
Spring shall not come to Dragon Pass
Until a beauty falls from heaven

永樂: Yung Le. The name of a princess from 717 A.D. Can be translated as, "paradise". She had an arranged marriage with a "barbarian" chief to secure an alliance.

公主: princess

蕃: any foreign land; same as 番

邊地: borderland or frontier

龍塞: Dragon Pass

始: Indicates that something shall not happen until something else does. In this case, the arrival of spring is preceded by the arrival of the princess.

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