伏波山 Fuboshan on bank of Li River in Guilin

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Passing By The Wave-Calmer's Shrine

Nguyen De By the river's edge the waters surge          and the waves lap the sky, A single shrine stands towering up         firm from the bank. bronze pillars arrayed on a peak         his merit is still recorded, An iron ship submerged in the waters         his fierceness is still recorded. The vestiges of a southern vassal         have stood tall for a thousand ages, While the portraits from the Eastern Han         lasted just a hundred years. In our boat we leave the village         and head down from the river crossing, Thick incense condences above a golden censor         while mist rises in the river.

Guò Fúbōcí

Ruǎn Tí Jiāng tān xiōngyǒng làng jiān tian, Yī cù chóng cí zhì ànbiān. Tóngzhù chén shān xūn shàng jì, Tiě chuán chénshuǐ liè yóu fù. Nán fān jíjì gāo qiān gǔ, Dōng Hàn túxíng zhèng bǎinián. Kè gě zhuāng cóng jīn xià guò, Jīn lú xiāng yù shù shēng yān.

Translator:

Liam Kelley 翻譯者

Notes: In Nguyen De's time there were many shrines to Ma Yuan, the Han Dynasty Wave Calming General. Today there are few. So we cannot be certain that this shrine in Guilin is the right one for this poem. However on his trip north to Peiking as an envoy from Vietnam, De passed through Guilin and this karst outcropping fits the description. From Liam Kelley's fascinating tour through Northern Vietnam, Guangxi, Hunan and beyond in his study of Vietnamese envoy poetry, Beyond the Bronze Pillars, Envoy Poetry And The Sino-Vietnamese Relationship, University of Hawaii Press, 2005

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