wang lung went in the fifth month on his horse
to the funeral of the second wife of the daughter of the
duke. in her palm her death had been foretold to the
exact phase of the moon. though it was spring the time was really
autumn the season was really winter was still.
a wooden age. the chief mourner was descended
from the emperor, was born when her mother was still
asleep so that when she came to she screamed &
forever hated her. they lived in the provinces rooted,
pervasive as grass. calamities surrender to their own accord.
will you attack the king with just footmen & chariots?
she dug deep into the earth unto the autumnal spring
and sat on its beaches and sang of her dead mother.
all this being a flagrant corruption of the manuscript.
take the silk utensils locusts keep the body fresh for 2
months after death before the burial there being no
impropriety in miscommunicating the death in such a ways
demonstrate your grief and then be silent. bury it again with
no mistakes in the ritual in a separate grave overlooking
a separate bay with flowers suchlike. discard no praise no blame
dress the corpse meet the bride travel to the western seaboard with
its older tribes. respect but kill. keep old friendships. here
the force is small the leaders hungry their warlike practices
only show. the 13th cycle of winter the 3 yr the 17th radical see the essays
on astrology by the learned and recently deceased mr.y.
wang lung wondered at the terms appropriate to narrate
the death of a princess, her soul's investiture
now passing to her daughter's husband and further
east past the mountain-ranges where the people
all helped pay in southernwood for the burial-(is there an error
in these texts on these sites or dates?). the mathematicians
calculated this as the dynasty's early years using the eclipse
and the odd usage of the phrase "paying interest on the moon".
the news of the death of the sovereign left the fort slowly
heavily, passing as a procession, past warring dukes
who now questioned every edict. propriety breeds presents.
the lord of the altars raised a powerful faction, breaking
each rule of the fourteen kinds of subordination accelerating
catastrophe, and soon here, an army this, an army that and there
sequels to covenants. affect the people by virtue, ravel the silk
you cannot lay down fire.a pantomime of insects. gather
the river's fish for the great sacrifice of atonement. the ruler this
and the ruler that, it wears one out. hunters have no rules no
husbandry. you cannot without without preparation nor
without anxiety. a house and tablet for the second wife
breaks the rules. the duke tells his feather weavers to
write his story even as the enemy crosses the suburb.
compassion is imperilled. the grain is in the locust's heart.
peace means to change.
wang lung's daughter goes to the harem at the statutory age
her sense of her worthiness makes her appear, twice,
in the classic. unseasonable as the undertaking was
covenants needed to be upgraded , more silk, more jade
she arrogates to her dignity as she thinks fit. the phrase
might mean more than seizure, certainly less than torture
the smearing of the lips of the daughter with the blood
of her victim. does this phrase mean son or hostage?
autumn is the seventh month. the sense of a hurried meeting
remains through all the sycophant's commissions. she built
a city while meditating, and a temple for her brother.
verily it is said the queen progresses the constellation
he was mated and then announced king in the temple.
let the sword separate the virtues and clan-bloods
merit for generations does not come simply
which river which fathers which officers which city
feet deep in snow?- which duke's suburb, on whose chariot
light and nimble may be your ancestors in ambuscade
smitten and cut to pieces hanging upside down as meat
in the mouth of crows. in every month an army
and a chronicle unconcluded. in spring the army entered.
in her virtue she did not covet territory the thread
of her karma light as muslin. discord amongst themselves
and secret dissatisfactions and so defeated. a lively
prejudiced account in the Book of . of course this tattoo
is a verb though it cannot be rendered. cross hostage princes
appear in each other's father's eyes. take your curved chariot
out of the temple. fill your mouth with the air of different countries
maintain your vigor. repentance is for the mature, the aged.
in the manner of killing he retained all propriety
feeding all tutelary deities, all fetuses of sons unborn.
every army must contribute a hundred pigs and fowl.
what use is it to curse a depraved man from field to field?
let the tablets tell their lies in stone. wang lung
omitted no ceremony that would have been appropriate
to the assassination of his brother at the meeting place
of the socalled jasmine river. he borrowed the fields
and symbols and the exchange of lands. the tripod
in the temple was a bribe. the roof of thatch
the chariot of grass, the millet is clean,
the historiographer of the interior, of ancient designation
thought of states that their roots reach wide
but their fruit be small else the horse will lie entangled
in its yoke. if you married above your state
the minister accompanied the husband, modest
reverent mindful of being untouched and returned
perhaps even if the crops fail or freeze. sacrifice
to keep locusts away. the sage's pencil must sometime
be pruned. the uncertain speculations of youth
the walled cities of childhood (whose spirit
possesses the centre?) step on the square to left then right
in the fishscape's battalion. the arrow on his shoulder notwithstanding
the child-bride fought. a sacrifice is unseasonable in fall
when insects forsake burrows. was he killed in a quarrel
about a bird or a woman sitting on the back of the shaman-officer?
what auspice of virtue be this be- what marks on the body
here one cannot mention the dead's name else an incestuous commerce
indulges. don't hunt with fire in winter. bury your heart in jade.
the greed reaches to the person. as he did not like the gift
and felt insulted, he felt he must invade according to the rules
of old precedence. he attacked covertly, and won, bloodless.
wang lung in the nimble army in the suburb, ardent, at peace
in the harmonious troop. if they must win it is because the army
can dance. divine the odds of the doubt and the produce of the union.
the exit gives its names in contempt. the signification must lie
in the epigraph. covenants in autumn presage death of the marquis.
your weight in the scale is inappreciable. the error of the day
of the entering of the death. a bad king's contracts increase disorder.
every officer lies in his virtue and his fear. cross the river
in order for on the other side lies defeat. let the mandarin live
by his nine unrepentant, unavenged calamities in its granary of ice.
reprisal upon reprisal, like lightning the armies
scatter rice, disrespectful to the duke's temples, tearing
the princess' chariot. any man can be a husband but there is only one
father, one mother, one prevision, one confederacy. drunk
she stole the flag cherishing eclipse and resentment
becoming a lone prisoner, refusing the marquisate, the sacrificial
epaulets. one understands the text only by proposing error.
the moon in its epicycle wants exactitude and remonstrates.
the coffin arrived in the seventh month of fall.
the burial was in winter, the mourning was forever
though he was an evil man brought to an evil end.
conjunctions are proper to the classical; poor lord
in deference to majesty do not stay quiet at home
but renew the great crimes and friendships and the common
wickedness between the states. these bodies stay
in no coffin. she sees with only half her eye.
equal concubines must have equal sons and eunuchs and cities
and governments. these narratives retire no justice.
in autumn build a reception to house the base murder.
mourning must feel as an absence. all dead soldiers
are remembered here as heroes. a trisyllabic name
is barbarous and must suffer withdrawment. the object of the meeting
is to repeat the crime, to bury for a second time.
marriages are recorded not burials not internments
at the beginning of the battle her heart lay agitated
as a crooked spear, after fulness comes absolution
under neither the tree of heaven nor state does the bridge
to the city of heaven pass over the enemies' gravestone.
ancestors have been boiled and slandered, revenge is no vagary
great officers hazard enterprise, describe restoration increase
both flower and root in all the eleven directions & generation
multiply prisoners and spoils feasts and detainments
eat the navel of the hour feed victims perpetually to altars
extinguish enemy lineage make stars fall as rain as wheat
but an inch from the dowager the stars retreated reascending
waiting patiently for troops and the real or pretended invasion.
sow vigorously your virtue abroad. at home in the season of melons
she was bestowed the robe of the general. she had wrestled the large boar
packed full of assassins. blood was the preponderant covenant spilt.
in the war chariot she took the longer road to deceive, to pursue
the flying enemy. wang lung covered his horses in tiger skin
to make extinct for the first time a heaven, to flood it
to hold great sacrifices of condolences throwing field of millet
into the plague. swift was ruin. he killed with a single slap.
praise or blame is futile in such. gain a harem but lose the state.
the king was bound in a rhinoceros hide and his hands
and feet pickled. let critics condemn who ever heard them
but mostly the print is silent, extinguished.
when men are full of fear their breath flares up
and makes real such monsters. citizens have a doubled heart.
make compassion, but act, speak, assert. you can neither
douse the flame from afar nor approach it.
make inroads into spring. there is nothing in the circumstances
inconsistent or dilatory. in snow's winter there stay many deer.
artful but worthless he feasted the guards got them drunk
killed whom he pleased. history lies fine underneath the print.
three feet turtle attack red deer gathering at the city's end.
in gazing-in the particular gold leaf he missed the whole
the palanquin, the harem's daughters and their parasols and cooks.
the war is a pantomimic dance that never tires, it asserts its rude joy
over all calamity. the sun photographs the mountains waving at the sky.
the temple's pillars stay painted red. ancestors within were fed.
the punitive expeditions of punishment is justice by default.
sacrifice by moonlight, the beating of drums, offerings of victims.
a woman of virtue and ability. a state that does not know to dance
does not know to make war, to surprise by stealth. spirits flee
the temple walls. this city is in winter, its grain insufficient
its insects in plague, even horses bolt the stables.
graphic but fabulous the tales of tribes at boundaries:
those last conquered are set upon the next outsider.
corpses grow in rain feeding upon imagination's dark archive
historiographers of the interiors must force reason
a serf with money is still indentured in an absent hour.
every autumn a daughter is buried, age seven being the cutoff
for the historical record. the younger ones are still too much
in the womb's marine heaven. tablets commend succor
for children-marquis' culmination. if one's heart holds no flaw
how may he regret childlessness, posterity has other ways.
carriages and horses and feet and diagrams, other original dignities
new tablets will be put in old temples, even oceans age
armies are cast away, the spirit changes, new milfoils
prophesy anew, storks fly in augury. cook for your rulers
offer in sealskin, leather carriages and the cold metal of symbol.
the text conceals the manner of death in rare display
of dilatory euphemisms. but all men have relatives
and horses and jade and taxes and immigrants are in stake.
that year in spring there was no rain in the fourth month
by the rain of the sixth the new army had moved in.
the lack of rain was no calamity but an auspicious kindness.
the threat was as of the locking of the boat on a placid lake
his cheek lost color, an incursion followed, the spirits strained.
what robe will you wear in the coffin? the tortoise divines.
discriminate is the guilt. the heir-daughter walls her grief.
relentless is the fable. in fall lies the eclipse, hour of dispossession
read the clouds. assassins are not to be played with. spirits vomit.
in a grand display the flags loom. families are criminals together.
they allowed her to burn her coffin, returned her silk.
if you are resolved, don't pretend to be humble; choose strength
or alliance. morning awaits evening. do honor to virtue and the punishments.
secure succession. invade the great temple to make sacrifice of the 5th yr in it
and to interpret its tablet. the charioteer will betray & mystify.
the tribes of the east will rise. the prince lay dead unclaimed, deceived
unsceptred, inadmissable, obtrudant.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
more sayable
to be, or not. to be or not.
whether tis' nobler... or not.
to suffer slings & arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles.
& by opposing, end. no more.
them natural shocks that flesh is heir to, consummated to.
( in that sleep of death what dreams may come to?)
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, this gives us pause.
there is a respect that makes for this calamitous & long, long life.
the whip & scorn of time, the oppressor's contumely
the law's delay, the insolence of office that spurns patient merit.
(make quietus with a bare bodkin?) fardels bear & grunt&sweat.)
but. death's undiscovered country from whence none return:
muzzles the will. we'd choose present ills than fly to new ones-
conscious is our cowardice. & th' native hue of resolution is sickled by
thought's pale. enterprises' pith turns awry-.
but soft all, & ophelia, horatio too.
--" remember sins & my irresolutions too"-
whether tis' nobler... or not.
to suffer slings & arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles.
& by opposing, end. no more.
them natural shocks that flesh is heir to, consummated to.
( in that sleep of death what dreams may come to?)
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, this gives us pause.
there is a respect that makes for this calamitous & long, long life.
the whip & scorn of time, the oppressor's contumely
the law's delay, the insolence of office that spurns patient merit.
(make quietus with a bare bodkin?) fardels bear & grunt&sweat.)
but. death's undiscovered country from whence none return:
muzzles the will. we'd choose present ills than fly to new ones-
conscious is our cowardice. & th' native hue of resolution is sickled by
thought's pale. enterprises' pith turns awry-.
but soft all, & ophelia, horatio too.
--" remember sins & my irresolutions too"-
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