Staring at a 4-line Poem by Li Tuan

On Hearing Her Play the Harp

(Li Tuan, 8th C, China)

Her hands of white jade by a window of snow

Are glimmering on a golden-fretted harp--

And to draw the quick eye of Chou Yu,

She touches a wrong note now and then.

     Today is our first meeting in Worlds1 at M-315 with the famous Miss Evasco. The day isn't so great knowing that I wasn't able to give even one story/book dated from 2500BC to Medieval Period. I feel ashamed knowing that I wasn't able to write down stories/books like: "The Epic of Gilgamesh", "The Illiad", "The Odyssey" and the like which I have read mostly during high school. And then we had to wait at the Literature Department to photocopy our readings (which by the way costs P73.00). We ate lunch at around 2:30 in the afternoon and I was really starving. Anyway, Miss Evasco gave us an assignment for Saturday--understanding the poem written above. She gave us guide questions to help us in forming our essays. So here's my first insights about the poem (I haven't researched anything about this poem yet so this idea is solely based on my understanding). Forgive me for the following insight is probably shallow for most of you.

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     Most probably the girl who is playing the harp came from a royal family considering that her hands are of white jade and that her harp is golden-fretted. And since she is of royalty, in my opinion, she is a good musician because she can devote most of her time in practicing and as I remembered upon watching " Pride and Prejudice" (2005), Bingley's sister commented that for a woman to be considered accomplished, she should be a good player of a musical instrument. On the other hand, Chou Yu is probably the man that the girl admires a lot and when this Chou Yu entered the room where this girl is playing, their eyes met, and the girl felt uneasy because she was startled to see the one she adores and because of that. "she touches a wrong note now and then".

     I believe it is very natural, especially for us women to be careless especially when the one we adore is in front of us because we become conscious of ourselves. We wanted to be perfect in their eyes but then because of the exuberant happiness we feel inside, most of the time we became so careless. So I think that even though the girl playing the harp is really good in playing, she commits mistakes because she is startled to see the one she loves.