c i P oe t ry : s Hor t s ong ly riC s 2476 This separation grief.
It’s altogether a different kind of flavor in the heart.
[QTWDC 4.450]
烏夜啼
(wū yè tí)
without word alone ascend west pavilion 無言獨上西樓 △
(wú yán dú shàng xī lóu)
moon like hook 月如鉤 △
(yuè rú gōu)
lonely lonely wu- tong deep courtyard lock deep autumn 寂寞梧桐深院鎖深秋 △
(jì mò wú tóng shēn yuàn suŏ shēn qiū)
cut not break 剪不斷 ▲
(jiăn bú duàn)
tidy still mess 理還亂 ▲
(lĭ huán luàn)
this separation grief 是離愁 △
(shì lí chóu)
another is a kind taste flavor in heart [suffix] 別是一般滋味在心頭 △
(bié shì yì bān zī wèi zài xīn tóu)
The most visually striking feature of this song lyric is the variation in line length.
This particular tune title requires lines of three, six, and nine characters. Like the
five- or seven-character lines of Tang regulated verse, these lines can be broken
down into units of two and three characters each. The nine-character lines can be
seen to derive their rhythm from the basic (2 +) 2 + 3 rhythm of a regulated-verse
line, with the addition of one more segment of two characters at the beginning of
the line. Similarly, the three-character line has one less two-character segment
than a regulated-verse line. This relationship demonstrates how the semantic
rhythm of the ci at once derives from and constitutes a deliberate departure from
that of the shi.
Regulated shi poetry of the Tang requires a single rhyme in the level (ping)
tonal category. In contrast, the ci permits the rhyme to be in either the level or
the oblique tonal category and allows for more complex rhyme schemes. As the
following diagram of the tonal patterning of this tune shows, two rhymes are in
evidence. The first is in the level tonal category (as indicated by ─ and the hollow
triangular rhyme marker △), and the second is in the deflected or oblique (ze) tonal
category (as indicated by │ and the solid triangular rhyme marker ▲; symbols in
parentheses indicate that either tonal category is acceptable in that position) (for a
discussion of tonal categories, see pp. 170–172).
(─)─(─)│──△
│──△
(│)│(─)─(─)││──△