Teaching
Activities
Reading Group
The Classical and Literary Chinese Reading Group brings together those with an interest in the textual cultures of the pre-modern period. It centres on the collective reading, translation, and discussion of a pre-circulated text. Texts are chosen by participants for their chronological, thematic, generic, and linguistic variety. The Group’s emphasis is on close reading and depth of philological understanding: the final aim is to produce a high-quality translation of the text at hand, and to acquire as precise a sense as possible of its linguistic structures and intellectual import. As part of this aim, the Group has played an instrumental role in several research publications.
The Group runs each Friday, between 3.00pm and 5.00pm. Participants include scholars and graduate students from in and outside the ANU; advanced-level undergraduate students are also welcome.
ANU China Seminar Series
The ANU China Seminar Series is the pre-eminent forum for discussion of China and the Sinophone world at the ANU. Invited speakers come from across the full range of disciplines. They include senior scholars from in and outside the ANU, younger academics, post-doctoral research fellows, and advanced graduate students.
The seminar usually runs between 4.00pm and 5.30pm on alternate Thursdays during the University’s teaching term.
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Li Qingzhao 李清照
常記溪亭日暮。
沉醉不知歸路。
興盡晚回舟，誤入藕花深處。
爭渡。爭渡。
驚起一灘鷗鷺。 -
Li Qingzhao 李清照
Always I recall the river arbour at twilight,
so muddled with wine we didn’t know the way back,
excitement over, heading home by evening boat,
a wrong turn taking us deep into lotus blossoms,
and struggling to push through,
struggling to push through,
we’d startle into flight a whole sandbar full of herons.(Li Qingzhao 李清照 (1084? – 1151), trans. Burton Watson)
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Su Shi 蘇軾
小兒不識愁，起坐牽我衣。
我欲嗔小兒，老妻勸兒痴。
兒痴君更甚，不樂愁何為。
還坐愧此言，洗盞當我前。
大勝劉伶婦，區區為酒錢。 -
Su Shi 蘇軾
Children don’t know what worry means!
Stand up to go and they hang on my clothes.
I’m about to scold them
but my wife eggs them on in their silliness.
“The children are silly but you’re much worse!
What good does all that worrying do?”
Stung by her words, I go back to my seat.
She rinses a wine cup to put before me.
How much better than Liu Ling’s wife,
grumbling at the cost of her husband’s drinking!(Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-1101), trans. Burton Watson)
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Mao #87
子惠思我、褰裳涉溱。
子不我思、豈無他人。
狂童之狂也且。
子惠思我、褰裳涉洧。
子不我思、豈無他士。
狂童之狂也且。 -
Mao #87
If you think kindly of me,
I’ll hike up my skirt and wade the Chen.
But if you have no thoughts for me,
are there no others,
you most foolish of foolish boys?If you think kindly of me,
I’ll hike up my skirt and wade the Wei.
But if you have no thoughts for me,
are there no other men,
you most foolish of foolish boys?(Mao #87, trans. Burton Watson)
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Mao #279
豐年多黍多稌。
亦有高廩、萬億及秭。
為酒為醴、烝畀祖妣、
以洽百禮、降福孔皆。 -
Rich is the year with much millet and rice,
and we have tall granaries
with hundreds and thousands and millions of sheaves.
We make wine and sweet spirits
to offer to ancestor and ancestress,
thus to fulfill the hundred rites
and bring down blessings in abundance.(Mao #279, trans. Burton Watson)
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Miu Xi 繆襲
生時遊國都，死沒棄中野。
朝發高堂上，暮宿黃泉下。
白日入虞淵，懸車息駟馬。
造化雖神明，安能復存我。
形容稍歇滅，齒髮行當墮。
自古皆有然，誰能離此者。 -
Miu Xi 繆襲
In life I stroll the capital city,
in death I am cast in the midst of the plain.
At dawn I step forth from the high hall,
at dusk to lodge beneath the Yellow Springs.
The white sun sinks into the gulf of Yu,
its chariot halted, its four steeds at rest.
The Creator, for all its glory,
cannot restore me to wholeness again!
Body and face slowly loosing shape,
teeth and hair bit by bit falling away –
since time began it has been like this for all –
who’s the man [who] could ever break away?(Miu Xi 繆襲 (186-245), trans. Burton Watson)
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Li Bo 李白
李白乘舟將欲行，忽聞岸上踏歌聲。
桃花潭水深千尺，不及汪倫送我情。 -
Li Bo 李白
Li Bo on board, ready to push off,
suddenly heard the tramping and singing on the bank.
Peach flower pool a thousand feet deep
is shallower than the love of Wang Lun who sees me off.(Li Bo 李白 (701-762), trans. Burton Watson)
