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Re: Re: Ode to the Red Cliff? New photos of the handwriting

Posted By: rat
Posted Date: Mar 26, 2023 (06:57 PM)

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Ok, finally trying to sort this out but my ability to translate older Japanese in classical Chinese style is pretty bad, so some of the following is speculation that I've tried to render in idiomatic English, possibly taking some unacceptable liberties in the process, so I trust that others will improve on this effort :)

The text seems to be something like this:

交/友(?)人致堂三畫,夜忘寢食,苦心製此図窮使半溪畫伯添加点体樹木及扁舟人物等為一幅之山水畫,而贈予題詩,是亦風流,可謂學能因法師之作策者乎? 呵呵! 蜕山翁人

An incomplete translation is hopefully not too far away from something like:

A friend(?) brought three paintings to me, and (in my excitement?) I forgot to eat or lie down all night and I made extra efforts to create a landscape painting with trees, a skiff and passengers (am uncertain exactly how to render this part of the text: 窮使半溪畫伯). Then I added a poetic inscription (presumably the poem in the top inscription). (Then there's what seems to be a rhetorical question I can't quite figure out:) This is also 风流 (has varying meanings, from "dissolute/louche" to "accommplished/outstanding"). Could it be that such actions are steps on the path to enlightenment (toward becoming a Buddhist master)? Could it? Zeizanhojin (a name Yanada took for himself).

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