He ambles along like a walking pin cushion, Stops and curls up like a chestnut burr. He's not worried because he's so little. Nobody is going to slap him around.
Okay, 9th century means he's Tang, which means he should be in the Complete Tang Poems, which means if I can figure out how his name is spelled I should be able to find the original text. Or maybe it'd be better to search CTP for 刺猬, or maybe just 猬 since this is Classical Chinese ... :wanders off muttering:
ETA: Okay, found it, in a book of comic poems, under the title "Song of the Hedgehog" -- only in CTP it's credited to 李贞白, Li Zhenbai. Which is not surprising for Rexroth. At a quick glance, though the poem is at least roughly accurate -- here's a version with meanings when you hover over a character. I'll see if I can sot up a rendering. I'm not the poet Rexroth is, but it'll be fun to compare ...
ETA2: I did Rexroth a wrong -- the author is credited, in different texts, as both 李贞白/Li Zhenbai and 朱贞白/Zhu Zhenbai, the latter of which is rendered as Chu Chenpo in Wade-Giles transcription.
Edited (found it / correction) 2023-10-20 18:17 (UTC)
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ETA: Okay, found it, in a book of comic poems, under the title "Song of the Hedgehog" -- only in CTP it's credited to 李贞白, Li Zhenbai. Which is not surprising for Rexroth. At a quick glance, though the poem is at least roughly accurate -- here's a version with meanings when you hover over a character. I'll see if I can sot up a rendering. I'm not the poet Rexroth is, but it'll be fun to compare ...
ETA2: I did Rexroth a wrong -- the author is credited, in different texts, as both 李贞白/Li Zhenbai and 朱贞白/Zhu Zhenbai, the latter of which is rendered as Chu Chenpo in Wade-Giles transcription.
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A nice kickstart to finally getting around to investigating the humorous poems of the Tang Dynasty. Thank you!
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Heh.
FWIW, I'm not satisfied with my first line -- the rhythm is wonky. Well, that's what revisions are for, fixing things.
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Aww, lovely!
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