In the moonlight, legendary beauties
Wang River Collection no. 15
White Boulder Shallows Wang Wei Beside white rocks, the silver shallows swashing, Green sweet flag almost long enough to pick. In moonlight, farm girls east and west are washing Their laundry, as a fatal beauty did. 王维 白石滩 清浅白石滩，绿蒲向堪把。 家住水东西，浣纱明月下。
Sweet flag is a water plant that grows in the river.
The fatal beauty was Xi Shi, born around 500 BCE. Legend has it that she was so beautiful the dazzled fish would forget how to swim, and birds would fall from the sky. She was found washing laundry at the river, and plucked from her farm home by agents of King Goujian of Yue, who brought her to the palace. Later, after suffering a humiliating defeat against Wu, Goujian decided to use her as a distraction, so he sent her as a gift to the king of Wu. Sure enough, the rival was bewitched by Xi Shi's charms, and over a period of years, neglected the rule of his country. Goujian was finally able to beat Wu and get his revenge.
Xi Shi’s name is not mentioned in this poem at all. It’s the pair of words Wang uses for doing laundry: 浣纱. This is the phrase that is always used to describe what Xi Shi was doing at the moment she was taken from her simple farm life and thrust into the world of international intrigue. It’s like the way mentioning a sword in a stone would immediately bring a whole mythic series into your mind, without me ever saying Arthur or Merlin.
Pei Di's poem at the same site (prose translation):
We sit on the stones and lean to the water;/we never tire of playing with the rippling water./As the sun sets, there is a chill on the river;/the floating clouds fade away.
Previous installments in this series:
Wang River Collection (1) The Dip by Meng Wall 辋川集（一）孟城坳
Wang River Collection (2) Glory Ridge 辋川集（二）华子冈
Wang River Collection (3) Pavilion of Rich-grained Apricot Wood 辋川集（三）文杏馆
Wang River Collection (4) Bamboo Loggers' Forest 辋川集（四）斤竹岭
Interesting that the setting of the poem and the setting of the prose translation by Pei Di is similar, but the timeliness of what they are describing is a bit different.
In Wang Wei’s poem the river is bathed in moonlight. But in Pei Di’s prose version the sun has just set and the clouds have disappeared suggesting a time just after dusk, almost full darkness, no mention of moonlight.
But the line in Pei Di’s prose, “there is a chill on the river” almost acts similarly to the line where Wei references the myth of the beautiful, kidnapped girl. Perhaps both would bring up the myth in the mind of a contemporaneous reader.
Very nice explication for how the poem would have been read and understood by his contemporaries using the analogy to our Arthurian legend.
I like learning that aspect of these poems from China where 1 or 2 characters (浣纱) have such a deeper meaning. It reminds me of the 4-character sayings (成語/chéngyǔ) where the 4 characters have a much deeper backstory and context than the surface translation. Thanks for sharing.