#206 葡萄美酒夜光杯
| Size： | Postcard; about 15×10 cm |
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| Dressing： | framed |
What kind of verse?
| poem: | 葡萄美酒夜光杯 欲飲琵琶馬上催 酔臥沙場君莫笑 古来征戦幾人回 |
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| (imho): | When I try to drink the fine wine of grapes from a luminous cup, the sound of a lute drifts in from horseback. Even if I fall drunk onto the sand, do not laugh at me, my friend. From ancient times, how many have returned from war? |
| poet: | 王翰 (Wang Han) |
| in: | 7th-8th century |
This passage evokes a powerful image of a soldier’s lament, mixing moments of beauty and fleeting joy with the somber realization of the risks of war.
brief comment
Speaking of grapes, the “Liangzhou Poem” probably comes to mind, something familiar from classical Chinese lessons of Japanese high school, doesn’t it?
When I first encountered this poem in high school, I was captivated by the beauty of the scene it depicted, as well as the underlying sense of emptiness. The exotic atmosphere conveyed by ‘grape wine,’ ‘luminous cup,’ and ‘lute’; the endless desert stretching westward; and the profound loneliness of the soldiers cast out beyond the Jade Gate Pass…
In creating this calligraphy piece, I focused solely on the beautiful imagery of the first half, rendering it in contemporary Japanese. By deliberately concealing the second half, I aimed to highlight the true essence of the poem. I wonder how effective this approach turned out to be.
