While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At forteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

- Li Bai, translation Ezra Pound

Poemas de Li Bai

Ansiedade
Extingue-se a luz do sol,
a névoa cobre as flores,
a Lua, branca como a seda, chora e não dorme.
Esfiapadas nas cordas da cítara,
não mais dedilhadas.
Melhor escutar ao longe
o tanger do alaúde.
Ninguém sabe
o porquê desta canção
arrastada pelo vento da Primavera
para terras longínquas.
Tu, tão distante,
por detrás do céu azul.
Tive outrora
um vislumbre de ti,
em meus olhos,
hoje um poço de lágrimas.
Se não acreditas
no rasgar de um coração,
regressa e olha comigo
este espelho.

Li Bai é considerado o maior poeta romântico da dinastia Tang. Conhecido como o poeta imortal, encontra-se entre os mais respeitados poetas da história da literatura chinesa. Aproximadamente mil poemas seus subsistem em nossos dias. O mundo ocidental introduziu os trabalhos de Li Bai através de muito liberais traduções de versões em japonês dos seus poemas, realizadas por Ezra Pound.

Li Bai é mais conhecido pela sua imaginação extravagante e as imagens taoístas da sua poesia, ao mesmo tempo em que pelo seu grande amor à bebida. Assim como Du Fu, Li Bai passou grande parte da sua vida viajando, situação que se pôde permitir graças à sua relaxada situação econômica. Diz-se que morreu afogado no rio Yangzi, tendo caído do seu bote ao tentar abraçar o reflexo da lua, estando sob os efeitos do álcool.

———————————

Após as 18 horas eu publico aqui a listagem dos participantes da Terceira Edição da Blogagem Coletiva Abre Aspas Terceira Edição – conforme forem acontecendo as confirmações de postagem…

Aqueles que só souberam da blogagem hoje, fiquem a vontade para a participar, basta postar o poema escolhido e uma pequena biografia do autor do mesmo.

Grata pela participação de todos

Translated from original blog post at http://www.LiYeSen.com

“九月九日憶山東兄弟” jiǔ yuè jiǔ rì yì shān dōng xiōng dì

by 王維 wáng wéi

獨在異鄉為異客， dú zài yì xiāng wéi yì kè

每逢佳節倍思親。 měi féng jiā jié bèi sī qīn

遙知兄弟登高處， yáo zhī xiōng dì dēng gāo chù

遍插茱萸少一人。 biàn chā zhū yú shǎo yī rén

“Double Ninth, Missing My Shandong Brothers” — Wang Wei (Tang Dynasty)

Translated into English version poem:

As a lonely stranger in the strange land,

Every holiday the homesickness amplifies.

Knowing that my brothers have reached the peak,

All but one is present at the planting of zhuyu.

Double Ninth Festival

This Monday, with date of 26th of October 2009 on the  calendar, was also the ninth day of the ninth lunar month of lunisolar calendar. This was the Chung Yeung Festival “重阳节”, or also known as the Double Ninth Festival, Festival for Elderly “老人节”,  or Ascend Festival “登高节”. My earliest understanding of this poem, “Double Ninth, Missing My Shandong Brothers” by Wang Wei, is from my primary school’s text-book.

Chinese culture has been around for years. Each poems, each sentences, each phrases, even each words bare and carry with human cultures, scientific and technological knowledge. Let us learn from this poem about Chinese cultures… The ninth day of the ninth lunar month of every year is the Chung Yeung Festival, Double Ninth Festival or also known as “Festival for the Elderly”.

The name –  Chung Yeung “重阳” originated from the book of I-Ching. In I-Ching, the number “six” is a Yin Number, i.e. even number. While the number “nine” is a Yang Number, i.e., odd number. For ninth day of ninth lunar month, both day and month are Yang numbers, having double “nine”. Thus, it is called Chung Yeung, “duplicate Yang” “重阳” and also “duplicate nine” “重九”. This showed that Chinese people had always emphasized on Yang Numbers, Yang Qi.

In the history of China, Double Ninth Festival had been around since the Warring States Period. But only until Tang dynasty, then this festival became folks festival. This festival has been pass down for few dynasties until now modern days. In folk concepts, two ‘nine’ is double Yang. The pronunciation of  ”nine” 九 in Mandarin is Jiu which same as “long” 久. Thus, “nine nine” shows the meaning of long life, and healthy longevity.

In China, this day had been marked as “Festival for the Elderly”, as to promote the ethos and morale of respecting, caring, loving and helping the elderly. Therefore, this day, Double Ninth Festival has an additional new meaning. Many companies and communities organize trips, gatherings, performances, concerts and so on, as to celebrate this significant festival.

The first sentence of this poem, let us feel and understand how Chinese people pay attention to family and affection. It has exactly the same meaning as in another poem of a famous  Chinese poet, Li Bai 李白《静夜思》.

“举头望明月，低头思故乡”

“Raising my head, I see the moon so bright; withdrawing my eyes, my nostalgia comes around. I am being homesick.”

There are many customary activities on this day, such as climbing high mountain, enjoy flower (especially chrysanthemum) drinking chrysanthemum wine, and wearing ZhuYu 茱萸 plant, Cornus officinalis. (Both chrysanthemum and ZhuYu are considered to have cleansing qualities and are used on other occasions to air out houses and cure illnesses.) Ascending a mountain is one of the most important activities of Double Ninth Festival, also known as Ascend Festival. According to historic records, climbing a mountain is a consuetude of this festival since the Han Dynasty. Nowadays, this has been a great healthy lifestyle for relaxing,  regulating mood and exercising.

The poem has also recorded about ZhuYu 茱萸 plant, a type of Chinese herbs. It has a nickname of “Master of exorcising evil spirits”, according to FengTu Ji《风土记》:

“九月九日折茱萸以插头上，辟除恶气而御初寒。”

“By wearing a ZhuYu plant on head on ninth day of ninth month, it can help to cleanse and exorcise evils, cum keep out coldness”

This practice of wearing ZhuYu plant was very popular during Tang Dynasty. People believed that wearing a ZhuYu plant on this day, can help to avoid and evacuate disaster. It can be worn on arm, or carried along in a sachet (named as ZhuYu sachet). The characteristics and the functions of ZhuYu plant are clearly recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica《本草纲目》<<Bencao GangMu>> .

A special day of festival… A special day for festival… Randomly thinking about Double Ninth Festival…

Zu den Höhepunkten der alten chinesischen Schriftkultur zählt vor allem die Lyrik, die erst in der Moderne nach dem Untergang des Kaiserreichs (1911) ihren hohen Rang an die Erzählkunst abtreten musste und in jüngster Zeit ein Randdasein führt. Sie wurde jedoch seit dem Mittelalter (220 bis 907) von einer Essayistik begleitet, die aufgrund ihres poetischen und philosophischen Charakters durchaus einen Vergleich aushalten konnte. Die Essays kommen allerdings in der etwas unglücklich mit Von Kaiser zu Kaiser betitelten Anthologie der klassischen Lyrik und Kunstprosa etwas zu kurz.

Die Herausgeber haben sich hier auf die klassische Periode beschränkt: von der Han-Zeit bis zur Song-Zeit (insgesamt 206 vor Christus bis 1279 nach Christus). Das Buch der Lieder (circa 700 vor Christus) wurde der Sammlung Das alte China. Die Anfänge der chinesischen Literatur und Philosophie zugeschlagen, und Die Lieder des Südens, schamanistische Gesänge (circa 300 vor Christus), wiewohl im Vorwort erwähnt, fehlen ganz. Warum endet aber diese Anthologie schon mit Jiang Kui (1155 bis 1221)? Hat es nach diesem Sänger keine große Lyrik und Kunstprosa in China mehr gegeben?

Es ist eine Tatsache, dass sich bedeutende Übersetzer wie Günther Debon, der wohl weltweit am besten chinesische Lyrik übertragen hat, auf die klassische Periode im engeren Sinne, vor allem auf die Maßstäbe setzende Tang-Dynastie (618 bis 907), beschränkt haben. Und es ist auch eine Tatsache, dass die Essayistik in der ausgehenden Kaiserzeit die Dichtkunst an sprachlicher Schönheit wie gedanklicher Tiefe zu übertreffen beginnt. Dichtern wie Li Bai (701 bis 762) oder Du Fu (712 bis 770), die auch die deutsche Literatur sehr stark beeinflusst haben, war bereits hundert Jahre nach ihrem Tod lyrisch nicht mehr sehr nahezukommen. / Wolfgang Kubin, Die Zeit 42

Eine Sammlung chinesischer Klassiker. Herausgegeben von Eva Schestag und Daniel Ibáñez Gómez:

Das alte China. Die Anfänge der chinesischen Literatur  und Philosophie; hrsg. von Eva Schestag; 360 S., 25,– €

Von Kaiser zu Kaiser. Die klassische chinesische Lyrik  und Kunstprosa; hrsg. von Eva Schestag und Olga Barrio Jiménez; 360 S., 25,– €

Die goldene Truhe. Chinesische Novellen; hrsg. und  übersetzt von Wolfgang Bauer und Herbert Franke; 448 S., 25,– €

Der Aufstand der Zauberer. Ein Roman aus der Ming-Zeit;  hrsg. und aus dem Chinesischen von Manfred Porkert; 672 S., 28,– €

Drei-Zeichen-Klassiker. Ein Lehrgedicht für Schüler;  übersetzt und eingeleitet von Eva Schestag; mit Kommentaren von  Daniel Ibáñez Gómez und Kalligrafien von Wang Ning (Beigabe zum Schuber)  Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2009; Schuber, zus. 1840 S., 89,– €

In China ist er längst ein Klassiker: Sein spontaner Individualismus, seine Gefühlsbetontheit, seine Begeisterung für Frauen und Wein werden ebenso gerühmt wie getadelt, sein Genie, das sich vor allem in Vierzeilern mit wenigen Zeichen äußerte, ist aber unbestritten. Und da erwartet man doch, dass es mehrere Ausgaben auch auf Deutsch gibt. Weit gefehlt: Eine einzige über 300 Euro teure uralte Übertragung ist lieferbar – und jetzt eine neue. Schön wäre es aber gewesen, man hätte Li Tai-bos Gedichte auch gleich neu übersetzt, denn die vorliegende, ausführlich kommentierte Ausgabe ist von 1962, und in diesen 47 Jahren hat sich die Sprache erheblich geändert. Auch der Reim, den der Übersetzer in Anlehnung an das Original beibehält, hat heute einen anderen Stellenwert als damals und klingt veraltet.

Aber nicht nur daran merkt man das Alter der Übertragung. Worte wie „selbander“, Formulierungen wie „Wem des Hofes Eunuchen gewogen, hat Goldes die Fülle“ oder „des Ruhm die Welt wie Windeswehn durchhallt“ sind nun wirklich hoffnungslos verstaubt. Die „holden Mädchen“ wurden seit Hermann Hesse glücklicherweise nicht mehr gesehen, einen „Zelter“ kennt der ältere Leser vielleicht noch, aber bei „tausend Ewen alt“ und „in grüner Schratte“ muss man dann schon im Lexikon nachsehen. Schade über die vertane Chance. / Georg Patzer, literaturkritik.de

Li Tai-bo: Gedichte. 
Herausgegeben von Günther Debon.
Übersetzt aus dem Chinesischen von Günther Debon. 
Reclam Verlag, Stuttgart 2009. 
144 Seiten, 4,40 EUR.
ISBN-13: 9783150186756

Übrigens ist sein richtiger Name Li Bai (oder wie Arthur Waley schrieb, Li Po). Chinesen wundern sich über die westliche Namensgebung oder verstehen manchmal gar nicht, wer gemeint ist, wie es mir neulich wieder mit zwei chinesischen Studentinnen passierte, die erst auf meine Erklärung “Li Bai” nickten. Tai-Bai oder Tai-bo war sein Beiname und bedeutet Morgen- oder Abendstern.

Die Übersetzung chinesischer Gedichte, namentlich auch der Klassiker, brauchte wohl in der Tat mehr Wagemut und Neugier, als unser Literaturbetrieb (Institutionen plus Leser) aufbringt. Rainer Kirsch hat vor Jahrzehnten ein radikales Experiment vorgeschlagen – meines Wissens wurde es nicht aufgegriffen.

Hier einige deutsche und englische Übersetzungen eines der berühmtesten Gedichte Li Bais,  “Nachtgedanken”. (Als Namen verwende ich jeweils die Schreibweise der Quelle):

Li-Tai-Po

In stiller Nacht

Vor meinem Bette heller Mondenglanz,
Als überdeckte Reif den Boden ganz.

Das Haupt erheb’ ich, seh’ zum hellen Mond,
Senk’ es und denke meines Heimatlands.

(Otto Hauser, 1911)

Li-tai-pe

Wanderer erwacht in der Herberge

Ich erwache leicht geblendet, ungewohnt
Eines fremden Lagers. Ist es Reif, der über Nacht den Boden weiß befiel?
Hebe das Haupt – blick in den strahlenden Mond,
Neige das Haupt – denk an mein Wanderziel…

(Klabund, 1915)

Li-Tai-Po

In der Fremde

In fremdem Lande lag ich. Weissen Glanz
Malte der Mond vor meine Lagerstätte.
Ich hob das Haupt – ich meinte erst, es sei
Der Reif der Frühe, was ich schimmern sah,
Dann aber wusste ich: der Mond, der Mond…
Und neigte das Gesicht zur Erde hin,
Und meine Heimat winkte mir von fern.

(Hans Bethge, 1920)

Li Tai Po

In der Herberge

Vor meinem Lager weißer Schein–
Deckt Frühreif so den Boden zu?
Auf seh ich, seh in Mond hinein,
Seh niederwärts––o Heimat du!

(Hans Böhm, 1929)

Li-Tai-Po

Nachtstille

Mondlicht sah ich vor meinem Lager,
Mich wundernd, obs nicht reif am Boden sei.
Ich hob mein Haupt, sah draußen den Bergmond;
Ich senkt mein Haupt, gedenk meiner fernen Heimat.

(Hans Schiebelhuth, 1948)

Li Bo (Li Tai-pe)

Nachtgedanken

Vor meinem Bett das Mondlicht ist so weiß,
Daß ich vermeinte, es sei Reif gefallen.
Das Haupt erhoben schau ich auf zum Monde,
Das Haupt geneigt denk ich des Heimatdorfs.

(Günter Eich, 1952)

Li Bai

Nachsinnen in der stillen Nacht

Vor der Schlafstatt leuchtet hell der Mond.
Ich frage mich, ob Reif den Boden bedeckt.
Das Haupt hebend – blicke ich in den strahlenden Mond.
Das Haupt neigend – denke ich an meine Heimat.

(Li Show Lai, “Taiwan im Dezember” [Jahreszahl fehlt leider in dieser Ausgabe])

Li Bai

Night Thoughts

I wake and moonbeams play around my bed
Glittering like hoarfroast to my wondering eyes
Upwards the glorious moon I raise my head
Then lay me down and thoughts of home arise

(Herbert A. Giles, 1898)

Thoughts in a Tranquil Night

Athwart the bed
I watch the moonbeams cast a trail
So Bright, so cold, so frail,
That for a space it gleams
Like hoar-frost on the margin of my dreams.
I raise my head, –
The splendid moon I see:
The droop my head,
And to dreams of thee –
My Fatherland, of thee!

(L. Cranmer-Byng)

A Tranquil Night

Before my bed a frost of light
Is it hoarfrost upon the ground Eyes raised,
I see the moon so bright
Head bent, in homesickness I’m drowned

(Xu Yuanzhang)

Die 3 englischen Versionen von China, the beautiful (dort kann man es auch im Original anhören).

Das Original kommt mit 4×5 Silben = Wörtern aus. In Wort-für-Wort-Übersetzung:

Bett vor hell Mond Glanz
gleichwie sein Erde auf Reif
heben Haupt aufblicken hell Mond
senken Haupt denken alt Glanz

weitere Nachdichtungen der “Nachtgedanken”

Klabunds Nachdichtungen bei gutenberg.de

]]> http://almamundo.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/li-tai-po/ Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:40:04 +0000 guidea http://almamundo.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/li-tai-po/ http://orlandoworld.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/top-10-epcot-attractions/ Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:53:06 +0000 TheWiseman http://orlandoworld.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/top-10-epcot-attractions/

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10. Reflections of China - Hosted by ancient Chinese poet, Li Bai, this magnificent 360° presentation takes you on a whirlwind journeyacross China, including Beijing, Shanghai, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Hunan province and more.

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春江花月夜 “Moonlight on the Spring River”

Li Po (Li Bai)

I love Chinese characters. There is so much implicit meaning. Not long ago I was looking for characters for the concept “hope.” I discovered the character “wang4.” The number after the word is the tone, thus wang is pronounced with the fourth tone, even.

月 is “Yue4″ moon. This is the radical in wang4: 望. From the definitions, I infer a meaning of “to gaze in the distance at the full moon, with hope.” I love the idea of hope. For me, hope gives the world a certain solidity. Anything is possible.

Ha! An old gypsy saying goes, “You are never too old to get married, or jump off of a bridge.” Hope!

I love the moon and night, as certainly evidenced by the name of this blog. Tea by moonlight is an elegant concept, and both the Chinese and the Japanese drink tea whilst viewing the full moon. I recall stories of a famous Chinese poet, was it Li Po, who upon seeing the full moon leaped to his feet and wrote a poem on the ridgepole of the tea house? The next day, a carpenter carved the characters into the beam to immortalize them.

And legend says Li Po, in a drunken attempt to embrace the reflection of the moon, fell into the Yangtze river and drowned.

Cole Porter wrote: “In the still of the night, as I gaze out my window, at the moon in its flight, my thoughts all turn to you…” What thoughts the moon has inspired.

The famous Chinese poet, Zhang Ruoxu (c. 660-c.720) wrote:

Spring, River, and Flowers on a Moonlit Night

The tide in the Spring river meets the flat ocean.
On the sea a bright moon is born with the tide
And shimmers along the waves for thousands of miles.
Nowhere on the Spring river is without bright moon.

The river meanders through fragrant fields
And in the flowering woods moon makes everything snow,
Until even frost flowing in space is invisible
And on the shores white sands disappear in light.

River and sky merge in one dustless color.
Bright, bright sky, with only the moon’s wheel.
Who first saw the moon on this riverbank?
What year did this river moon first shine on men?

Generations keep passing without end,
But the river moon looks the same year after year.
I don’t know who the river moon is waiting for;
I only see the long river seeing off the flowing water.

One scarf of white cloud fades into distance,
Leaving unbearable sorrow in the estuary’s green maples.
Whose husband is drifting away in a flat boat tonight?
Who is missing her lover in a moonlit tower?

What a pity, the moon wandering through the tower;
It should light the mirror-stand of the traveler.
She cannot roll it up in the jade door’s blinds;
Or wipe it from the rock where she beats clothes clean.

At this moment, they see the same moon, but cannot hear each other,
She wishes she could flow with the moonlight onto him.
The wild goose flying off cannot escape this light,
When fish and dragons leap and dive I read patterns in the waves.

Last night she dreamed of fallen petals in a still pool.
What sorrow: with spring half over, the man hasn’t returned.
The current has almost washed the Spring away,
And the setting moon tilts west again in the river pool.

The slanting moon sinks deep, deep into the sea fog.
Between the Brown Rock and the Xiang River is a long way
And I don’t know how many people ride the moonlight home.
The setting moon fills the river trees with shivering emotion.

(Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping)

“…I gaze out my window at the moon in its flight…”

A most famous Chinese musical piece, “Moonlight on the Spring River”

花間一壺酒。 A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
獨酌無相親。 I drink alone, for no friend is near.
舉杯邀明月。 Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
對影成三人。 For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

月既不解飲。 The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
影徒隨我身。 Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
暫伴月將影。 Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
行樂須及春。 I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

我歌月徘徊。 To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
我舞影零亂。 In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
醒時同交歡。 While we were sober, three shared the fun;
醉後各分散。 Now we are drunk, each goes their way.
永結無情遊。 May we long share our eternal friendship,
相期邈雲漢。 And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

*

Bebo sozinho ao luar

Entre as flores há um jarro de vinho.
Sou o único a beber: não tenho aqui nenhum amigo.
Levanto a minha taça, oferecendo-a à lua:
com ela e a minha sombra, já somos três pessoas.
Mas a lua não bebe, e a minha sombra imita o que faço.
A sombra e a lua, companheiras casuais,
divertem-se comigo, na primavera.
Quando canto, a lua vacila.
Quando danço, a minha sombra se agita em redor.
Antes de embriagados, todos se divertem juntos.
Depois, cada um vai para a sua casa.
Mas eu fico ligado a esses companheiros insensíveis:
nossos encontros são na Via Láctea…

(Tradução-pt:Poemas Chineses: Li Po e Tu Fu. [Por: Cecília Meireles]. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1996.)

(imagem:Portraits of Chinese Poets-China Page)

Lo que nos dejan en forma de cuentos, historia(s), leyendas, poemas…

Si no gozamos de la vida, simplemente seremos dignos de la piedad de nuestros descendientes.

Li Bai (Li Po). Porque en 42, os encontraréis cosas así para ilustraros. Y es cultura. ¡Y es gratis! (shhhhh, que no se entere el ministerio… Cultura gratis, ains…)

Li Bai drinking alone by moonlight

花間一壺酒。 A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

獨酌無相親。 I drink alone, for no friend is near.

舉杯邀明月。 Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

對影成三人。 For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

月既不解飲。 The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;

影徒隨我身。 Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.

暫伴月將影。 Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave

行樂須及春。 I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

我歌月徘徊。 To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;

我舞影零亂。 In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.

醒時同交歡。 While we were sober, three shared the fun;

醉後各分散。 Now we are drunk, each goes their way.

永結無情遊。 May we long share our eternal friendship,

相期邈雲漢。 And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

poem Li Bai, translation Arthur Waley

image (cc) 2009 Hilary Farmer

El que vive es un viajero en tránsito,
el que muere es un hombre que vuelve a su morada.
Un breve trayecto entre el cielo y la tierra,
Luego, ay de mi! ya no somos más que el viejo polvo de diez mil siglos.

El viejo polvo - Li Bai (Li Po)

La vida humana se parece a la cera que escurre de los cirios,
cuando la cera se consume, la luz se extingue.

Feliz Encuentro - Li Bai (Li Po)

Poemas para descargar.  Li Bai fue un poeta chino, nacido en el año 701.  Sus poemas fueron traducidos del chino al japonés.  Del japonés al inglés, y de ahí a esto que te presento ahora.  A su vez, el chino ha sufrido muchas variaciones con el tiempo, amén de que los ideogramas pueden tener más de una forma de pronunciarse.   He visto en la red traducciones totalmente distintas entre sí de un mismo poema.  Así que sepa Dios cómo eran en su origen y su traducción real.

También hay que señalar que su obra estuvo influenciada por las enseñanzas de Confucio y el Taoísmo, por lo que a veces las cosas sencillamente tienen un significado bastante hermético para nosotros… bah!  Para mí, seguro!

I think this brings me just about right up to the 350-400 poems I said I would post.

Anyway, it’s close enough. It is getting harder for me to be sure I’m not re-posting ones I’ve already done. So, this’ll be it. Unless I decide to do a few more sometime, which could happen.

Before that happens, though, I’ll be working on putting all the previous postings in this category and making a Word .doc file out of them, all in one place. Not today, though, not today.

Without further ado (always click images for full size):

Meng Jiao

A SONG OF A PURE-HEARTED GIRL

Lakka-trees ripen two by two
And mandarin-ducks die side by side.
If a true-hearted girl will love only her husband,
In a life as faithfully lived as theirs,
What troubling wave can arrive to vex
A spirit like water in a timeless well?

Meng Jiao

A TRAVELLER’S SONG

The thread in the hands of a fond-hearted mother
Makes clothes for the body of her wayward boy;
Carefully she sews and thoroughly she mends,
Dreading the delays that will keep him late from home.
But how much love has the inch-long grass
For three spring months of the light of the sun?

Chen Ziang

ON A GATE-TOWER AT YUZHOU

Where, before me, are the ages that have gone?
And where, behind me, are the coming generations?
I think of heaven and earth, without limit, without end,
And I am all alone and my tears fall down.

Li Qi

AN OLD AIR

There once was a man, sent on military missions,
A wanderer, from youth, on the You and Yan frontiers.
Under the horses’ hoofs he would meet his foes
And, recklessly risking his seven-foot body,
Would slay whoever dared confront
Those moustaches that bristled like porcupinequills.
…There were dark clouds below the hills, there were white clouds above them,
But before a man has served full time, how can he go back?
In eastern Liao a girl was waiting, a girl of fifteen years,
Deft with a guitar, expert in dance and song.
…She seems to be fluting, even now, a reed-song of home,
Filling every soldier’s eyes with homesick tears.

Li Qi

A FAREWELL TO MY FRIEND CHEN ZHANGFU

In the Fourth-month the south wind blows plains of yellow barley,
Date-flowers have not faded yet and lakka-leaves are long.
The green peak that we left at dawn we still can see at evening,
While our horses whinny on the road, eager to turn homeward.
…Chen, my friend, you have always been a great and good man,
With your dragon’s moustache, tiger’s eyebrows and your massive forehead.
In your bosom you have shelved away ten thousand volumes.
You have held your head high, never bowed it in the dust.
…After buying us wine and pledging us, here at the eastern gate,
And taking things as lightly as a wildgoose feather,
Flat you lie, tipsy, forgetting the white sun;
But now and then you open your eyes and gaze at a high lone cloud.
…The tide-head of the lone river joins the darkening sky.
The ferryman beaches his boat. It has grown too late to sail.
And people on their way from Cheng cannot go home,
And people from Loyang sigh with disappointment.
…I have heard about the many friends around your wood land dwelling.
Yesterday you were dismissed. Are they your friends today?

Li Qi

A LUTE SONG

Our host, providing abundant wine to make the night mellow,
Asks his guest from Yangzhou to play for us on the lute.
Toward the moon that whitens the city-wall, black crows are flying,
Frost is on ten thousand trees, and the wind blows through our clothes;
But a copper stove has added its light to that of flowery candles,
And the lute plays The Green Water, and then The Queen of Chu.
Once it has begun to play, there is no other sound:
A spell is on the banquet, while the stars grow thin….
But three hundred miles from here, in Huai, official duties await him,
And so it’s farewell, and the road again, under cloudy mountains.

Li Qi

ON HEARING DONG PLAY THE FLAGEOLET
A POEM TO PALACE-ATTENDANT FANG

When this melody for the flageolet was made by Lady Cai,
When long ago one by one she sang its eighteen stanzas,
Even the Tartars were shedding tears into the border grasses,
And the envoy of China was heart-broken, turning back home with his escort.
…Cold fires now of old battles are grey on ancient forts,
And the wilderness is shadowed with white new-flying snow.
…When the player first brushes the Shang string and the Jue and then the Yu,
Autumn-leaves in all four quarters are shaken with a murmur.
Dong, the master,
Must have been taught in heaven.
Demons come from the deep pine-wood and stealthily listen
To music slow, then quick, following his hand,
Now far away, now near again, according to his heart.
A hundred birds from an empty mountain scatter and return;
Three thousand miles of floating clouds darken and lighten;
A wildgoose fledgling, left behind, cries for its flock,
And a Tartar child for the mother he loves.
Then river waves are calmed
And birds are mute that were singing,
And Wuzu tribes are homesick for their distant land,
And out of the dust of Siberian steppes rises a plaintive sorrow.
…Suddenly the low sound leaps to a freer tune,
Like a long wind swaying a forest, a downpour breaking tiles,
A cascade through the air, flying over tree-tops.
…A wild deer calls to his fellows. He is running among the mansions
In the corner of the capital by the Eastern Palace wall….
Phoenix Lake lies opposite the Gate of Green Jade;
But how can fame and profit concern a man of genius?
Day and night I long for him to bring his lute again.

Li Qi

ON HEARING AN WANSHAN PLAY THE REED-PIPE

Bamboo from the southern hills was used to make this pipe.
And its music, that was introduced from Persia first of all,
Has taken on new magic through later use in China.
And now the Tartar from Liangzhou, blowing it for me,
Drawing a sigh from whosoever hears it,
Is bringing to a wanderer’s eyes homesick tears….
Many like to listen; but few understand.
To and fro at will there’s a long wind flying,
Dry mulberry-trees, old cypresses, trembling in its chill.
There are nine baby phoenixes, outcrying one another;
A dragon and a tiger spring up at the same moment;
Then in a hundred waterfalls ten thousand songs of autumn
Are suddenly changing to The Yuyang Lament;
And when yellow clouds grow thin and the white sun darkens,
They are changing still again to Spring in the Willow Trees.
Like Imperial Garden flowers, brightening the eye with beauty,
Are the high-hall candles we have lighted this cold night,
And with every cup of wine goes another round of music.

Meng Haoran

RETURNING AT NIGHT TO LUMEN MOUNTAIN

A bell in the mountain-temple sounds the coming of night.
I hear people at the fishing-town stumble aboard the ferry,
While others follow the sand-bank to their homes along the river.
…I also take a boat and am bound for Lumen Mountain –
And soon the Lumen moonlight is piercing misty trees.
I have come, before I know it, upon an ancient hermitage,
The thatch door, the piney path, the solitude, the quiet,
Where a hermit lives and moves, never needing a companion.

Li Bai

A SONG OF LU MOUNTAIN TO CENSOR LU XUZHOU

I am the madman of the Chu country
Who sang a mad song disputing Confucius.
…Holding in my hand a staff of green jade,
I have crossed, since morning at the Yellow Crane Terrace,
All five Holy Mountains, without a thought of distance,
According to the one constant habit of my life.
Lu Mountain stands beside the Southern Dipper
In clouds reaching silken like a nine-panelled screen,
With its shadows in a crystal lake deepening the green water.
The Golden Gate opens into two mountain-ranges.
A silver stream is hanging down to three stone bridges
Within sight of the mighty Tripod Falls.
Ledges of cliff and winding trails lead to blue sky
And a flush of cloud in the morning sun,
Whence no flight of birds could be blown into Wu.
…I climb to the top. I survey the whole world.
I see the long river that runs beyond return,
Yellow clouds that winds have driven hundreds of miles
And a snow-peak whitely circled by the swirl of a ninefold stream.
And so I am singing a song of Lu Mountain,
A song that is born of the breath of Lu Mountain.
…Where the Stone Mirror makes the heart’s purity purer
And green moss has buried the footsteps of Xie,
I have eaten the immortal pellet and, rid of the world’s troubles,
Before the lute’s third playing have achieved my element.
Far away I watch the angels riding coloured clouds
Toward heaven’s Jade City, with hibiscus in their hands.
And so, when I have traversed the nine sections of the world,
I will follow Saint Luao up the Great Purity.

Li Bai

TIANMU MOUNTAIN ASCENDED IN A DREAM

A seafaring visitor will talk about Japan,
Which waters and mists conceal beyond approach;
But Yueh people talk about Heavenly Mother Mountain,
Still seen through its varying deeps of cloud.
In a straight line to heaven, its summit enters heaven,
Tops the five Holy Peaks, and casts a shadow through China
With the hundred-mile length of the Heavenly Terrace Range,
Which, just at this point, begins turning southeast.
…My heart and my dreams are in Wu and Yueh
And they cross Mirror Lake all night in the moon.
And the moon lights my shadow
And me to Yan River –
With the hermitage of Xie still there
And the monkeys calling clearly over ripples of green water.
I wear his pegged boots
Up a ladder of blue cloud,
Sunny ocean half-way,
Holy cock-crow in space,
Myriad peaks and more valleys and nowhere a road.
Flowers lure me, rocks ease me. Day suddenly ends.
Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river,
Startle the forest and make the heights tremble.
Clouds darken with darkness of rain,
Streams pale with pallor of mist.
The Gods of Thunder and Lightning
Shatter the whole range.
The stone gate breaks asunder
Venting in the pit of heaven,
An impenetrable shadow.
…But now the sun and moon illumine a gold and silver terrace,
And, clad in rainbow garments, riding on the wind,
Come the queens of all the clouds, descending one by one,
With tigers for their lute-players and phoenixes for dancers.
Row upon row, like fields of hemp, range the fairy figures.
I move, my soul goes flying,
I wake with a long sigh,
My pillow and my matting
Are the lost clouds I was in.
…And this is the way it always is with human joy:
Ten thousand things run for ever like water toward the east.
And so I take my leave of you, not knowing for how long.
…But let me, on my green slope, raise a white deer
And ride to you, great mountain, when I have need of you.
Oh, how can I gravely bow and scrape to men of high rank and men of high office
Who never will suffer being shown an honest-hearted face!

Li Bai

PARTING AT A WINE-SHOP IN NANJING

A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend’s love!

Li Bai

A FAREWELL TO SECRETARY SHUYUN
AT THE XIETIAO VILLA IN XUANZHOU

Since yesterday had to throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wind for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the School of Heaven,
And I am a Lesser Xie growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon.
But since water still flows, though we cut it with our swords,
And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishingboat.

Cen Can

A SONG OF RUNNING-HORSE RIVER IN FAREWELL
TO GENERAL FENG OF THE WESTERN EXPEDITION

Look how swift to the snowy sea races Running-Horse River! –
And sand, up from the desert, flies yellow into heaven.
This Ninth-month night is blowing cold at Wheel Tower,
And valleys, like peck measures, fill with the broken boulders
That downward, headlong, follow the wind.
…In spite of grey grasses, Tartar horses are plump;
West of the Hill of Gold, smoke and dust gather.
O General of the Chinese troops, start your campaign!
Keep your iron armour on all night long,
Send your soldiers forward with a clattering of weapons!
…While the sharp wind’s point cuts the face like a knife,
And snowy sweat steams on the horses’ backs,
Freezing a pattern of five-flower coins,
Your challenge from camp, from an inkstand of ice,
Has chilled the barbarian chieftain’s heart.
You will have no more need of an actual battle! –
We await the news of victory, here at the western pass!

Cen Can

A SONG OF WHEEL TOWER IN FAREWELL TO GENERAL
FENG OF THE WESTERN EXPEDITION

On Wheel Tower parapets night-bugles are blowing,
Though the flag at the northern end hangs limp.
Scouts, in the darkness, are passing Quli,
Where, west of the Hill of Gold, the Tartar chieftain has halted
We can see, from the look-out, the dust and black smoke
Where Chinese troops are camping, north of Wheel Tower.
…Our flags now beckon the General farther west-
With bugles in the dawn he rouses his Grand Army;
Drums like a tempest pound on four sides
And the Yin Mountains shake with the shouts of ten thousand;
Clouds and the war-wind whirl up in a point
Over fields where grass-roots will tighten around white bones;
In the Dagger River mist, through a biting wind,
Horseshoes, at the Sand Mouth line, break on icy boulders.
…Our General endures every pain, every hardship,
Commanded to settle the dust along the border.
We have read, in the Green Books, tales of old days-
But here we behold a living man, mightier than the dead.

Cen Can

A SONG OF WHITE SNOW IN FAREWELL
TO FIELD-CLERK WU GOING HOME

The north wind rolls the white grasses and breaks them;
And the Eighth-month snow across the Tartar sky
Is like a spring gale, come up in the night,
Blowing open the petals of ten thousand peartrees.
It enters the pearl blinds, it wets the silk curtains;
A fur coat feels cold, a cotton mat flimsy;
Bows become rigid, can hardly be drawn
And the metal of armour congeals on the men;
The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice,
And darkness masses its endless clouds;
But we drink to our guest bound home from camp,
And play him barbarian lutes, guitars, harps;
Till at dusk, when the drifts are crushing our tents
And our frozen red flags cannot flutter in the wind,
We watch him through Wheel-Tower Gate going eastward.
Into the snow-mounds of Heaven-Peak Road….
And then he disappears at the turn of the pass,
Leaving behind him only hoof-prints.

Du Fu

A DRAWING OF A HORSE BY GENERAL CAO
AT SECRETARY WEI FENG’S HOUSE

Throughout this dynasty no one had painted horses
Like the master-spirit, Prince Jiangdu –
And then to General Cao through his thirty years of fame
The world’s gaze turned, for royal steeds.
He painted the late Emperor’s luminous white horse.
For ten days the thunder flew over Dragon Lake,
And a pink-agate plate was sent him from the palace-
The talk of the court-ladies, the marvel of all eyes.
The General danced, receiving it in his honoured home
After this rare gift, followed rapidly fine silks
From many of the nobles, requesting that his art
Lend a new lustre to their screens.
…First came the curly-maned horse of Emperor Taizong,
Then, for the Guos, a lion-spotted horse….
But now in this painting I see two horses,
A sobering sight for whosoever knew them.
They are war- horses. Either could face ten thousand.
They make the white silk stretch away into a vast desert.
And the seven others with them are almost as noble
Mist and snow are moving across a cold sky,
And hoofs are cleaving snow-drifts under great trees-
With here a group of officers and there a group of servants.
See how these nine horses all vie with one another-
The high clear glance, the deep firm breath.
…Who understands distinction? Who really cares for art?
You, Wei Feng, have followed Cao; Zhidun preceded him.
…I remember when the late Emperor came toward his Summer Palace,
The procession, in green-feathered rows, swept from the eastern sky –
Thirty thousand horses, prancing, galloping,
Fashioned, every one of them, like the horses in this picture….
But now the Imperial Ghost receives secret jade from the River God,
For the Emperor hunts crocodiles no longer by the streams.
Where you see his Great Gold Tomb, you may hear among the pines
A bird grieving in the wind that the Emperor’s horses are gone.

Du Fu

A SONG OF A PAINTING TO GENERAL CAO

O General, descended from Wei’s Emperor Wu,
You are nobler now than when a noble….
Conquerors and their velour perish,
But masters of beauty live forever.
…With your brush-work learned from Lady Wei
And second only to Wang Xizhi’s,
Faithful to your art, you know no age,
Letting wealth and fame drift by like clouds.
…In the years of Kaiyuan you were much with the Emperor,
Accompanied him often to the Court of the South Wind.
When the spirit left great statesmen, on walls of the Hall of Fame
The point of your brush preserved their living faces.
You crowned all the premiers with coronets of office;
You fitted all commanders with arrows at their girdles;
You made the founders of this dynasty, with every hair alive,
Seem to be just back from the fierceness of a battle.
…The late Emperor had a horse, known as Jade Flower,
Whom artists had copied in various poses.
They led him one day to the red marble stairs
With his eyes toward the palace in the deepening air.
Then, General, commanded to proceed with your work,
You centred all your being on a piece of silk.
And later, when your dragon-horse, born of the sky,
Had banished earthly horses for ten thousand generations,
There was one Jade Flower standing on the dais
And another by the steps, and they marvelled at each other….
The Emperor rewarded you with smiles and with gifts,
While officers and men of the stud hung about and stared.
…Han Gan, your follower, has likewise grown proficient
At representing horses in all their attitudes;
But picturing the flesh, he fails to draw the bone-
So that even the finest are deprived of their spirit.
You, beyond the mere skill, used your art divinely-
And expressed, not only horses, but the life of a good man….
Yet here you are, wandering in a world of disorder
And sketching from time to time some petty passerby
People note your case with the whites of their eyes.
There’s nobody purer, there’s nobody poorer.
…Read in the records, from earliest times,
How hard it is to be a great artist.

Liu Zongyuan

AN OLD FISHERMAN

An old fisherman spent the night here, under the western cliff;
He dipped up water from the pure Hsiang and made a bamboo fire;
And then, at sunrise, he went his way through the cloven mist,
With only the creak of his paddle left, in the greenness of mountain and river.
…I turn and see the waves moving as from heaven,
And clouds above the cliffs coming idly, one by one.

Bai Juyi

A SONG OF UNENDING SORROW

China’s Emperor, craving beauty that might shake an empire,
Was on the throne for many years, searching, never finding,
Till a little child of the Yang clan, hardly even grown,
Bred in an inner chamber, with no one knowing her,
But with graces granted by heaven and not to be concealed,
At last one day was chosen for the imperial household.
If she but turned her head and smiled, there were cast a hundred spells,
And the powder and paint of the Six Palaces faded into nothing.
…It was early spring. They bathed her in the FlowerPure Pool,
Which warmed and smoothed the creamy-tinted crystal of her skin,
And, because of her languor, a maid was lifting her
When first the Emperor noticed her and chose her for his bride.
The cloud of her hair, petal of her cheek, gold ripples of her crown when she moved,
Were sheltered on spring evenings by warm hibiscus curtains;
But nights of spring were short and the sun arose too soon,
And the Emperor, from that time forth, forsook his early hearings
And lavished all his time on her with feasts and revelry,
His mistress of the spring, his despot of the night.
There were other ladies in his court, three thousand of rare beauty,
But his favours to three thousand were concentered in one body.
By the time she was dressed in her Golden Chamber, it would be almost evening;
And when tables were cleared in the Tower of Jade, she would loiter, slow with wine.
Her sisters and her brothers all were given titles;
And, because she so illumined and glorified her clan,
She brought to every father, every mother through the empire,
Happiness when a girl was born rather than a boy.
…High rose Li Palace, entering blue clouds,
And far and wide the breezes carried magical notes
Of soft song and slow dance, of string and bamboo music.
The Emperor’s eyes could never gaze on her enough-
Till war-drums, booming from Yuyang, shocked the whole earth
And broke the tunes of The Rainbow Skirt and the Feathered Coat.
The Forbidden City, the nine-tiered palace, loomed in the dust
From thousands of horses and chariots headed southwest.
The imperial flag opened the way, now moving and now pausing- -
But thirty miles from the capital, beyond the western gate,
The men of the army stopped, not one of them would stir
Till under their horses’ hoofs they might trample those moth- eyebrows….
Flowery hairpins fell to the ground, no one picked them up,
And a green and white jade hair-tassel and a yellowgold hair- bird.
The Emperor could not save her, he could only cover his face.
And later when he turned to look, the place of blood and tears
Was hidden in a yellow dust blown by a cold wind.
… At the cleft of the Dagger-Tower Trail they crisscrossed through a cloud-line
Under Omei Mountain. The last few came.
Flags and banners lost their colour in the fading sunlight….
But as waters of Shu are always green and its mountains always blue,
So changeless was His Majesty’s love and deeper than the days.
He stared at the desolate moon from his temporary palace.
He heard bell-notes in the evening rain, cutting at his breast.
And when heaven and earth resumed their round and the dragon car faced home,
The Emperor clung to the spot and would not turn away
From the soil along the Mawei slope, under which was buried
That memory, that anguish. Where was her jade-white face?
Ruler and lords, when eyes would meet, wept upon their coats
As they rode, with loose rein, slowly eastward, back to the capital.
…The pools, the gardens, the palace, all were just as before,
The Lake Taiye hibiscus, the Weiyang Palace willows;
But a petal was like her face and a willow-leaf her eyebrow –
And what could he do but cry whenever he looked at them?
…Peach-trees and plum-trees blossomed, in the winds of spring;
Wutong-foliage fell to the ground, after autumn rains;
The Western and Southern Palaces were littered with late grasses,
And the steps were mounded with red leaves that no one swept away.
Her Pear-Garden Players became white-haired
And the eunuchs thin-eyebrowed in her Court of PepperTrees;
Over the throne flew fire-flies, while he brooded in the twilight.
He would lengthen the lamp-wick to its end and still could never sleep.
Bell and drum would slowly toll the dragging nighthours
And the River of Stars grow sharp in the sky, just before dawn,
And the porcelain mandarin-ducks on the roof grow thick with morning frost
And his covers of kingfisher-blue feel lonelier and colder
With the distance between life and death year after year;
And yet no beloved spirit ever visited his dreams.
…At Lingqiong lived a Taoist priest who was a guest of heaven,
Able to summon spirits by his concentrated mind.
And people were so moved by the Emperor’s constant brooding
That they besought the Taoist priest to see if he could find her.
He opened his way in space and clove the ether like lightning,
Up to heaven, under the earth, looking everywhere.
Above, he searched the Green Void, below, the Yellow Spring;
But he failed, in either place, to find the one he looked for.
And then he heard accounts of an enchanted isle at sea,
A part of the intangible and incorporeal world,
With pavilions and fine towers in the five-coloured air,
And of exquisite immortals moving to and fro,
And of one among them-whom they called The Ever True-
With a face of snow and flowers resembling hers he sought.
So he went to the West Hall’s gate of gold and knocked at the jasper door
And asked a girl, called Morsel-of-Jade, to tell The Doubly- Perfect.
And the lady, at news of an envoy from the Emperor of China,
Was startled out of dreams in her nine-flowered, canopy.
She pushed aside her pillow, dressed, shook away sleep,
And opened the pearly shade and then the silver screen.
Her cloudy hair-dress hung on one side because of her great haste,
And her flower-cap was loose when she came along the terrace,
While a light wind filled her cloak and fluttered with her motion
As though she danced The Rainbow Skirt and the Feathered Coat.
And the tear-drops drifting down her sad white face
Were like a rain in spring on the blossom of the pear.
But love glowed deep within her eyes when she bade him thank her liege,
Whose form and voice had been strange to her ever since their parting –
Since happiness had ended at the Court of the Bright Sun,
And moons and dawns had become long in Fairy-Mountain Palace.
But when she turned her face and looked down toward the earth
And tried to see the capital, there were only fog and dust.
So she took out, with emotion, the pledges he had given
And, through his envoy, sent him back a shell box and gold hairpin,
But kept one branch of the hairpin and one side of the box,
Breaking the gold of the hairpin, breaking the shell of the box;
“Our souls belong together,” she said, ” like this gold and this shell –
Somewhere, sometime, on earth or in heaven, we shall surely
And she sent him, by his messenger, a sentence reminding him
Of vows which had been known only to their two hearts:
“On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.”
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever.

Bai Chuyi

THE SONG OF A GUITAR

In the tenth year of Yuanhe I was banished and demoted to be assistant official in Jiujiang. In the summer of the next year I was seeing a friend leave Penpu and heard in the midnight from a neighbouring boat a guitar played in the manner of the capital. Upon inquiry, I found that the player had formerly been a dancing-girl there and in her maturity had been married to a merchant. I invited her to my boat to have her play for us. She told me her story, heyday and then unhappiness. Since my departure from the capital I had not felt sad; but that night, after I left her, I began to realize my banishment. And I wrote this long poem — six hundred and twelve characters.

I was bidding a guest farewell, at night on the Xunyang River,
Where maple-leaves and full-grown rushes rustled in the autumn.
I, the host, had dismounted, my guest had boarded his boat,
And we raised our cups and wished to drink-but, alas, there was no music.
For all we had drunk we felt no joy and were parting from each other,
When the river widened mysteriously toward the full moon –
We had heard a sudden sound, a guitar across the water.
Host forgot to turn back home, and guest to go his way.
We followed where the melody led and asked the player’s name.
The sound broke off…then reluctantly she answered.
We moved our boat near hers, invited her to join us,
Summoned more wine and lanterns to recommence our banquet.
Yet we called and urged a thousand times before she started toward us,
Still hiding half her face from us behind her guitar.
…She turned the tuning-pegs and tested several strings;
We could feel what she was feeling, even before she played:
Each string a meditation, each note a deep thought,
As if she were telling us the ache of her whole life.
She knit her brows, flexed her fingers, then began her music,
Little by little letting her heart share everything with ours.
She brushed the strings, twisted them slow, swept them, plucked them –
First the air of The Rainbow Skirt, then The Six Little Ones.
The large strings hummed like rain,
The small strings whispered like a secret,
Hummed, whispered-and then were intermingled
Like a pouring of large and small pearls into a plate of jade.
We heard an oriole, liquid, hidden among flowers.
We heard a brook bitterly sob along a bank of sand…
By the checking of its cold touch, the very string seemed broken
As though it could not pass; and the notes, dying away
Into a depth of sorrow and concealment of lament,
Told even more in silence than they had told in sound….
A silver vase abruptly broke with a gush of water,
And out leapt armored horses and weapons that clashed and smote –
And, before she laid her pick down, she ended with one stroke,
And all four strings made one sound, as of rending silk
There was quiet in the east boat and quiet in the west,
And we saw the white autumnal moon enter the river’s heart.
…When she had slowly placed the pick back among the strings,
She rose and smoothed her clothing and, formal, courteous,
Told us how she had spent her girlhood at the capital,
Living in her parents’ house under the Mount of Toads,
And had mastered the guitar at the age of thirteen,
With her name recorded first in the class-roll of musicians,
Her art the admiration even of experts,
Her beauty the envy of all the leading dancers,
How noble youths of Wuling had lavishly competed
And numberless red rolls of silk been given for one song,
And silver combs with shell inlay been snapped by her rhythms,
And skirts the colour of blood been spoiled with stains of wine….
Season after season, joy had followed joy,
Autumn moons and spring winds had passed without her heeding,
Till first her brother left for the war, and then her aunt died,
And evenings went and evenings came, and her beauty faded –
With ever fewer chariots and horses at her door;
So that finally she gave herself as wife to a merchant
Who, prizing money first, careless how he left her,
Had gone, a month before, to Fuliang to buy tea.
And she had been tending an empty boat at the river’s mouth,
No company but the bright moon and the cold water.
And sometimes in the deep of night she would dream of her triumphs
And be wakened from her dreams by the scalding of her tears.
Her very first guitar-note had started me sighing;
Now, having heard her story, I was sadder still.
“We are both unhappy — to the sky’s end.
We meet. We understand. What does acquaintance matter?
I came, a year ago, away from the capital
And am now a sick exile here in Jiujiang –
And so remote is Jiujiang that I have heard no music,
Neither string nor bamboo, for a whole year.
My quarters, near the River Town, are low and damp,
With bitter reeds and yellowed rushes all about the house.
And what is to be heard here, morning and evening? –
The bleeding cry of cuckoos, the whimpering of apes.
On flowery spring mornings and moonlit autumn nights
I have often taken wine up and drunk it all alone,
Of course there are the mountain songs and the village pipes,
But they are crude and-strident, and grate on my ears.
And tonight, when I heard you playing your guitar,
I felt as if my hearing were bright with fairymusic.
Do not leave us. Come, sit down. Play for us again.
And I will write a long song concerning a guitar.”
…Moved by what I said, she stood there for a moment,
Then sat again to her strings-and they sounded even sadder,
Although the tunes were different from those she had played before….
The feasters, all listening, covered their faces.
But who of them all was crying the most?
This Jiujiang official. My blue sleeve was wet.

Li Shangyin

THE HAN MONUMENT

The Son of Heaven in Yuanhe times was martial as a god
And might be likened only to the Emperors Xuan and Xi.
He took an oath to reassert the glory of the empire,
And tribute was brought to his palace from all four quarters.
Western Huai for fifty years had been a bandit country,
Wolves becoming lynxes, lynxes becoming bears.
They assailed the mountains and rivers, rising from the plains,
With their long spears and sharp lances aimed at the Sun.
But the Emperor had a wise premier, by the name of Du,
Who, guarded by spirits against assassination,
Hong at his girdle the seal of state, and accepted chief command,
While these savage winds were harrying the flags of the Ruler of Heaven.
Generals Suo, Wu, Gu, and Tong became his paws and claws;
Civil and military experts brought their writingbrushes,
And his recording adviser was wise and resolute.
A hundred and forty thousand soldiers, fighting like lions and tigers,
Captured the bandit chieftains for the Imperial Temple.
So complete a victory was a supreme event;
And the Emperor said: “To you, Du, should go the highest honour,
And your secretary, Yu, should write a record of it.”
When Yu had bowed his head, he leapt and danced, saying:
“Historical writings on stone and metal are my especial art;
And, since I know the finest brush-work of the old masters,
My duty in this instance is more than merely official,
And I should be at fault if I modestly declined.”
The Emperor, on hearing this, nodded many times.
And Yu retired and fasted and, in a narrow workroom,
His great brush thick with ink as with drops of rain,
Chose characters like those in the Canons of Yao and Xun,
And a style as in the ancient poems Qingmiao and Shengmin.
And soon the description was ready, on a sheet of paper.
In the morning he laid it, with a bow, on the purple stairs.
He memorialized the throne: “I, unworthy,
Have dared to record this exploit, for a monument.”
The tablet was thirty feet high, the characters large as dippers;
It was set on a sacred tortoise, its columns flanked with ragons….
The phrases were strange with deep words that few could understand;
And jealousy entered and malice and reached the Emperor –
So that a rope a hundred feet long pulled the tablet down
And coarse sand and small stones ground away its face.
But literature endures, like the universal spirit,
And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.
The Tang plate, the Confucian tripod, are eternal things,
Not because of their forms, but because of their inscriptions….
Sagacious is our sovereign and wise his minister,
And high their successes and prosperous their reign;
But unless it be recorded by a writing such as this,
How may they hope to rival the three and five good rulers?
I wish I could write ten thousand copies to read ten thousand times,
Till spittle ran from my lips and calluses hardened my fingers,
And still could hand them down, through seventy-two generations,
As corner-stones for Rooms of Great Deeds on the Sacred Mountains.

Gao Shi

A SONG OF THE YAN COUNTRY

In the sixth year of Kaiyuan, a friend returned from the border and showed me the Yan Song. Moved by what he told me of the expedition, I have written this poem to the same rhymes.

The northeastern border of China was dark with smoke and dust.
To repel the savage invaders, our generals, leaving their families,
Strode forth together, looking as heroes should look;
And having received from the Emperor his most gracious favour,
They marched to the beat of gong and drum through the Elm Pass.
They circled the Stone Tablet with a line of waving flags,
Till their captains over the Sea of Sand were twanging feathered orders.
The Tartar chieftain’s hunting-fires glimmered along Wolf Mountain,
And heights and rivers were cold and bleak there at the outer border;
But soon the barbarians’ horses were plunging through wind and rain.
Half of our men at the front were killed, but the other half are living,
And still at the camp beautiful girls dance for them and sing.
…As autumn ends in the grey sand, with the grasses all withered,
The few surviving watchers by the lonely wall at sunset,
Serving in a good cause, hold life and the foeman lightly.
And yet, for all that they have done, Elm Pass is still unsafe.
Still at the front, iron armour is worn and battered thin,
And here at home food-sticks are made of jade tears.
Still in this southern city young wives’ hearts are breaking,
While soldiers at the northern border vainly look toward home.
The fury of the wind cuts our men’s advance
In a place of death and blue void, with nothingness ahead.
Three times a day a cloud of slaughter rises over the camp;
And all night long the hour-drums shake their chilly booming,
Until white swords can be seen again, spattered with red blood.
…When death becomes a duty, who stops to think of fame?
Yet in speaking of the rigours of warfare on the desert
We name to this day Li, the great General, who lived long ago.

Li Qi

AN OLD WAR-SONG

Through the bright day up the mountain, we scan the sky for a war-torch;
At yellow dusk we water our horses in the boundaryriver;
And when the throb of watch-drums hangs in the sandy wind,
We hear the guitar of the Chinese Princess telling her endless woe….
Three thousand miles without a town, nothing but camps,
Till the heavy sky joins the wide desert in snow.
With their plaintive calls, barbarian wildgeese fly from night to night,
And children of the Tartars have many tears to shed;
But we hear that the Jade Pass is still under siege,
And soon we stake our lives upon our light warchariots.
Each year we bury in the desert bones unnumbered,
Yet we only watch for grape-vines coming into China.

Wang Wei

A SONG OF A GIRL FROM LOYANG

There’s a girl from Loyang in the door across the street,
She looks fifteen, she may be a little older.
…While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle,
Her handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate.
On her painted pavilions, facing red towers,
Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom and with willow,
Canopies of silk awn her seven-scented chair,
And rare fans shade her, home to her nine-flowered curtains.
Her lord, with rank and wealth and in the bud of life,
Exceeds in munificence the richest men of old.
He favours this girl of lowly birth, he has her taught to dance;
And he gives away his coral-trees to almost anyone.
The wind of dawn just stirs when his nine soft lights go out,
Those nine soft lights like petals in a flying chain of flowers.
Between dances she has barely time for singing over the songs;
No sooner is she dressed again than incense burns before her.
Those she knows in town are only the rich and the lavish,
And day and night she is visiting the hosts of the gayest mansions.
…Who notices the girl from Yue with a face of white jade,
Humble, poor, alone, by the river, washing silk?

Wang Wei

SONG OF AN OLD GENERAL

When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
…Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven’s thunder
And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron,
General Wei Qing’s victory was only a thing of chance.
And General Li Guang’s thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault.
Since this man’s retirement he is looking old and worn:
Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs.
Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird,
Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier.
He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden,
He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage.
His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove,
His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains
But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men
And never would he wanton his cause away with wine.
…War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range;
Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages;
In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men –
And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general.
So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow-
Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel.
He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain –
That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor.
…There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away,
Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke.

Wang Wei

A SONG OF PEACH-BLOSSOM RIVER

A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains,
And the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source.
Watching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance
Till he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly- strange men!
It’s a cave-with a mouth so narrow that he has to crawl through;
But then it opens wide again on a broad and level path –
And far beyond he faces clouds crowning a reach of trees,
And thousands of houses shadowed round with flowers and bamboos….
Woodsmen tell him their names in the ancient speech of Han;
And clothes of the Qin Dynasty are worn by all these people
Living on the uplands, above the Wuling River,
On farms and in gardens that are like a world apart,
Their dwellings at peace under pines in the clear moon,
Until sunrise fills the low sky with crowing and barking.
…At news of a stranger the people all assemble,
And each of them invites him home and asks him where he was born.
Alleys and paths are cleared for him of petals in the morning,
And fishermen and farmers bring him their loads at dusk….
They had left the world long ago, they had come here seeking refuge;
They have lived like angels ever since, blessedly far away,
No one in the cave knowing anything outside,
Outsiders viewing only empty mountains and thick clouds.
…The fisherman, unaware of his great good fortune,
Begins to think of country, of home, of worldly ties,
Finds his way out of the cave again, past mountains and past rivers,
Intending some time to return, when he has told his kin.
He studies every step he takes, fixes it well in mind,
And forgets that cliffs and peaks may vary their appearance.
…It is certain that to enter through the deepness of the mountain,
A green river leads you, into a misty wood.
But now, with spring-floods everywhere and floating peachpetals –
Which is the way to go, to find that hidden source?

Meng Haoran

A MESSAGE FROM LAKE DONGTIN
TO PREMIER ZHANG

Here in the Eighth-month the waters of the lake
Are of a single air with heaven,
And a mist from the Yun and Meng valleys
Has beleaguered the city of Youzhou.
I should like to cross, but I can find no boat.
…How ashamed I am to be idler than you statesmen,
As I sit here and watch a fisherman casting
And emptily envy him his catch.

Meng Haoran

ON CLIMBING YAN MOUNTAIN WITH FRIENDS

While worldly matters take their turn,
Ancient, modern, to and fro,
Rivers and mountains are changeless in their glory
And still to be witnessed from this trail.
Where a fisher-boat dips by a waterfall,
Where the air grows colder, deep in the valley,
The monument of Yang remains;
And we have wept, reading the words.

Meng Haoran

AT A BANQUET IN THE HOUSE
OF THE TAOIST PRIEST MEI

In my bed among the woods, grieving that spring must end,
I lifted up the curtain on a pathway of flowers,
And a flashing bluebird bade me come
To the dwelling-place of the Red Pine Genie.
…What a flame for his golden crucible –
Peach-trees magical with buds ! –
And for holding boyhood in his face,
The rosy-flowing wine of clouds!

Meng Haoran

ON RETURNING AT THE YEAR’S END TO
ZHONGNAN MOUNTAIN

I petition no more at the north palace-gate.
…To this tumble-down hut on Zhongnan Mountain
I was banished for my blunders, by a wise ruler.
I have been sick so long I see none of my friends.
My white hairs hasten my decline,
Like pale beams ending the old year.
Therefore I lie awake and ponder
On the pine-shadowed moonlight in my empty window.

Meng Haoran

STOPPING AT A FRIEND’S FARM-HOUSE

Preparing me chicken and rice, old friend,
You entertain me at your farm.
We watch the green trees that circle your village
And the pale blue of outlying mountains.
We open your window over garden and field,
To talk mulberry and hemp with our cups in our hands.
…Wait till the Mountain Holiday –
I am coming again in chrysanthemum time.

Meng Haoran

FROM QIN COUNTRY TO THE BUDDHIST PRIEST YUAN

How gladly I would seek a mountain
If I had enough means to live as a recluse!
For I turn at last from serving the State
To the Eastern Woods Temple and to you, my master.
…Like ashes of gold in a cinnamon-flame,
My youthful desires have been burnt with the years-
And tonight in the chilling sunset-wind
A cicada, singing, weighs on my heart.

Meng Haoran

FROM A MOORING ON THE TONGLU
TO A FRIEND IN YANGZHOU

With monkeys whimpering on the shadowy mountain,
And the river rushing through the night,
And a wind in the leaves along both banks,
And the moon athwart my solitary sail,
I, a stranger in this inland district,
Homesick for my Yangzhou friends,
Send eastward two long streams of tears
To find the nearest touch of the sea.

Meng Haoran

TAKING LEAVE OF WANG WEI

Slow and reluctant, I have waited
Day after day, till now I must go.
How sweet the road-side flowers might be
If they did not mean good-bye, old friend.
The Lords of the Realm are harsh to us
And men of affairs are not our kind.
I will turn back home, I will say no more,
I will close the gate of my old garden.

Meng Haoran

MEMORIES IN EARLY WINTER

South go the wildgesse, for leaves are now falling,
And the water is cold with a wind from the north.
I remember my home; but the Xiang River’s curves
Are walled by the clouds of this southern country.
I go forward. I weep till my tears are spent.
I see a sail in the far sky.
Where is the ferry? Will somebody tell me?
It’s growing rough. It’s growing dark.

Liu Changqing

CLIMBING IN AUTUMN FOR A VIEW FROM THE TEMPLE
ON THE TERRACE OF GENERAL WU

So autumn breaks my homesick heart….
Few pilgrims venture climbing to a temple so wild,
Up from the lake, in the mountain clouds.
…Sunset clings in the old defences,
A stone gong shivers through the empty woods.
…Of the Southern Dynasty, what remains?
Nothing but the great River.

Li Shangyin

TO THE MOON GODDESS

Now that a candle-shadow stands on the screen of carven marble
And the River of Heaven slants and the morning stars are low,
Are you sorry for having stolen the potion that has set you
Over purple seas and blue skies, to brood through the long nights?

Li Shangyin

JIASHENG

When the Emperor sought guidance from wise men, from exiles,
He found no calmer wisdom than that of young Jia
And assigned him the foremost council-seat at midnight,
Yet asked him about gods, instead of about people.

Wen Tingyun

SHE SIGHS ON HER JADE LUTE

A cool-matted silvery bed; but no dreams….
An evening sky as green as water, shadowed with tender clouds;
But far off over the southern rivers the calling of a wildgoose,
And here a twelve-story building, lonely under the moon.

Zheng Tian

ON MAWEI SLOPE

When the Emperor came back from his ride they had murdered Lady Yang –
That passion unforgettable through all the suns and moons
They had led him to forsake her by reminding him
Of an emperor slain with his lady once, in a well at Jingyang Palace.

Han Wu

COOLER WEATHER

Her jade-green alcove curtained thick with silk,
Her vermilion screen with its pattern of flowers,
Her eight- foot dragon-beard mat and her quilt brocaded in squares
Are ready now for nights that are neither warm nor cold.

Seven-character-quatrain

Wei Zhuang

A NANJING LANDSCAPE

Though a shower bends the river-grass, a bird is singing,
While ghosts of the Six Dynasties pass like a dream
Around the Forbidden City, under weeping willows
Which loom still for three miles along the misty moat.

Chen Tao

TURKESTAN

Thinking only of their vow that they would crush the Tartars- -
On the desert, clad in sable and silk, five thousand of them fell….
But arisen from their crumbling bones on the banks of the river at the border,
Dreams of them enter, like men alive, into rooms where their loves lie sleeping.

Zhang Bi

A MESSAGE

I go in a dream to the house of Xie
Through a zigzag porch with arching rails
To a court where the spring moon lights for ever
Phantom flowers and a single figure.

Wumingshi

THE DAY OF NO FIRE

As the holiday approaches, and grasses are bright after rain,
And the causeway gleams with willows, and wheatfields wave in the wind,
We are thinking of our kinsfolk, far away from us.
O cuckoo, why do you follow us, why do you call us home?

Wang Wei

A SONG AT WEICHENG

A morning-rain has settled the dust in Weicheng;
Willows are green again in the tavern dooryard….
Wait till we empty one more cup –
West of Yang Gate there’ll be no old friends.

Wang Wei

A SONG OF AN AUTUMN NIGHT

Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew
Has chilled the robe she will not change –
And she touches a silver lute all night,
Afraid to go back to her empty room.

Wang Changling

A SIGH IN THE COURT OF PERPETUAL FAITH

She brings a broom at dawn to the Golden Palace doorway
And dusts the hall from end to end with her round fan,
And, for all her jade-whiteness, she envies a crow
Whose cold wings are kindled in the Court of the Bright Sun.

Wang Changling

OVER THE BORDER

The moon goes back to the time of Qin, the wall to the time of Han,
And the road our troops are travelling goes back three hundred miles….
Oh, for the Winged General at the Dragon City –
That never a Tartar horseman might cross the Yin Mountains!

Wang Zhihuan

BEYOND THE BORDER

Where a yellow river climbs to the white clouds,
Near the one city-wall among ten-thousand-foot mountains,
A Tartar under the willows is lamenting on his flute
That spring never blows to him through the Jade Pass

Li Bai

A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS I

Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower;
Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew,
Is either the tip of earth’s Jade Mountain
Or a moon- edged roof of paradise.

Li Bai

A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS II

There’s a perfume stealing moist from a shaft of red blossom,
And a mist, through the heart, from the magical Hill of Wu- -
The palaces of China have never known such beauty-
Not even Flying Swallow with all her glittering garments.

Li Bai

A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS III

Lovely now together, his lady and his flowers
Lighten for ever the Emperor’s eye,
As he listens to the sighing of the far spring wind
Where she leans on a railing in the Aloe Pavilion.

Du Qiuniang

THE GOLD-THREADED ROBE

Covet not a gold-threaded robe,
Cherish only your young days!
If a bud open, gather it –
Lest you but wait for an empty bough.

Li Shangyin

TO ONE UNNAMED V

There are many curtains in your care-free house,
Where rapture lasts the whole night long.
…What are the lives of angels but dreams
If they take no lovers into their rooms?
…Storms are ravishing the nut-horns,
Moon- dew sweetening cinnamon-leaves
I know well enough naught can come of this union,
Yet how it serves to ease my heart!

Wen Tingyun

NEAR THE LIZHOU FERRY

The sun has set in the water’s clear void,
And little blue islands are one with the sky.
On the bank a horse neighs. A boat goes by.
People gather at a willow- clump and wait for the ferry.
Down by the sand-bushes sea-gulls are circling,
Over the wide river-lands flies an egret.
…Can you guess why I sail, like an ancient wise lover,
Through the misty Five Lakes, forgetting words?

Wen Tingyun

THE TEMPLE OF SU WU

Though our envoy, Su Wu, is gone, body and soul,
This temple survives, these trees endure….
Wildgeese through the clouds are still calling to the moon there
And hill-sheep unshepherded graze along the border.
…Returning, he found his country changed
Since with youthful cap and sword he had left it.
His bitter adventures had won him no title….
Autumn-waves endlessly sob in the river.

Xue Feng

A PALACE POEM

In twelve chambers the ladies, decked for the day,
Peer afar for their lord from their Fairy-View Lodge;
The golden toad guards the lock on the door-chain,
And the bronze-dragon water-clock drips through the morning
Till one of them, tilting a mirror, combs her cloud of hair
And chooses new scent and a change of silk raiment;
For she sees, between screen-panels, deep in the palace,
Eunuchs in court-dress preparing a bed.

Qin Taoyu

A POOR GIRL

Living under a thatch roof, never wearing fragrant silk,
She longs to arrange a marriage, but how could she dare?
Who would know her simple face the loveliest of them all
When we choose for worldliness, not for worth?
Her fingers embroider beyond compare,
But she cannot vie with painted brows;
And year after year she has sewn gold thread
On bridal robes for other girls.

Shen Quanqi

BEYOND SEEING

A girl of the Lu clan who lives in Golden-Wood Hall,
Where swallows perch in pairs on beams of tortoiseshell,
Hears the washing-mallets’ cold beat shake the leaves down.
…The Liaoyang expedition will be gone ten years,
And messages are lost in the White Wolf River.
…Here in the City of the Red Phoenix autumn nights are long,
Where one who is heart-sick to see beyond seeing,
Sees only moonlight on the yellow-silk wave of her loom.

Wang Wei

DEER-PARK HERMITAGE

There seems to be no one on the empty mountain….
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.

Wang Wei

IN A RETREAT AMONG BAMBOOS

Leaning alone in the close bamboos,
I am playing my lute and humming a song
Too softly for anyone to hear –
Except my comrade, the bright moon.

Wang Wei

A PARTING

Friend, I have watched you down the mountain
Till now in the dark I close my thatch door….
Grasses return again green in the spring,
But O my Prince of Friends, do you?

Wang Wei

ONE-HEARTED

When those red berries come in springtime,
Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.

He Zhizhang

COMING HOME

I left home young. I return old;
Speaking as then, but with hair grown thin;
And my children, meeting me, do not know me.
They smile and say: “Stranger, where do you come from?”

Zhang Xu

PEACH-BLOSSOM RIVER

A bridge flies away through a wild mist,
Yet here are the rocks and the fisherman’s boat.
Oh, if only this river of floating peach-petals
Might lead me at last to the mythical cave!

Wang Wei

ON THE MOUNTAIN HOLIDAY
THINKING OF MY BROTHERS IN SHANDONG

All alone in a foreign land,
I am twice as homesick on this day
When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain,
Each of them a branch-and my branch missing.

Wang Changling

AT HIBISCUS INN
PARTING WITH XIN JIAN

With this cold night-rain hiding the river, you have come into Wu.
In the level dawn, all alone, you will be starting for the mountains of Chu.
Answer, if they ask of me at Loyang:
“One-hearted as ice in a crystal vase.”

Wang Changling

IN HER QUIET WINDOW

Too young to have learned what sorrow means,
Attired for spring, she climbs to her high chamber….
The new green of the street-willows is wounding her heart –
Just for a title she sent him to war.

Wang Changling

A SONG OF THE SPRING PALACE

Last night, while a gust blew peach-petals open
And the moon shone high on the Palace Beyond Time,
The Emperor gave Pingyang, for her dancing,
Brocades against the cold spring-wind.

Wang Han

A SONG OF LIANGZHOU

They sing, they drain their cups of jade,
They strum on horseback their guitars.
…Why laugh when they fall asleep drunk on the sand ? –
How many soldiers ever come home?

Li Bai

A FAREWELL TO MENG HAORAN
ON HIS WAY TO YANGZHOU

You have left me behind, old friend, at the Yellow Crane Terrace,
On your way to visit Yangzhou in the misty month of flowers;
Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky,
Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven.

Li Bai

THROUGH THE YANGZI GORGES

From the walls of Baidi high in the coloured dawn
To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles,
Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me
To my boat these ten thousand mountains away.

Cen Can

ON MEETING A MESSENGER TO THE CAPITAL

It’s a long way home, a long way east.
I am old and my sleeve is wet with tears.
We meet on horseback. I have no means of writing.
Tell them three words: “He is safe.”

Du Fu

ON MEETING LI GUINIAN DOWN THE RIVER

I met you often when you were visiting princes
And when you were playing in noblemen’s halls.
…Spring passes…. Far down the river now,
I find you alone under falling petals.

Wei Yingwu

AT CHUZHOU ON THE WESTERN STREAM

Where tender grasses rim the stream
And deep boughs trill with mango-birds,
On the spring flood of last night’s rain
The ferry-boat moves as though someone were poling.

Zhang Ji

A NIGHT-MOORING NEAR MAPLE BRIDGE

While I watch the moon go down, a crow caws through the frost;
Under the shadows of maple-trees a fisherman moves with his torch;
And I hear, from beyond Suzhou, from the temple on Cold Mountain,
Ringing for me, here in my boat, the midnight bell.

Han Hong

AFTER THE DAY OF NO FIRE

Petals of spring fly all through the city
From the wind in the willows of the Imperial River.
And at dusk, from the palace, candles are given out
To light first the mansions of the Five Great Lords.

Liu Fangping

A MOONLIGHT NIGHT

When the moon has coloured half the house,
With the North Star at its height and the South Star setting,
I can fed the first motions of the warm air of spring
In the singing of an insect at my green-silk window.

Liu Fangping

SPRING HEART-BREAK

With twilight passing her silken window,
She weeps alone in her chamber of gold
For spring is departing from a desolate garden,
And a drift of pear-petals is closing a door.

Liu Zhongyong

A TROOPER’S BURDEN

For years, to guard the Jade Pass and the River of Gold,
With our hands on our horse-whips and our swordhilts,
We have watched the green graves change to snow
And the Yellow Stream ring the Black Mountain forever.

Gu Kuang

A PALACE POEM

High above, from a jade chamber, songs float half-way to heaven,
The palace-girls’ gay voices are mingled with the wind –
But now they are still, and you hear a water-clock drip in the Court of the Moon….
They have opened the curtain wide, they are facing the River of Stars.

Li Yi

ON HEARING A FLUTE AT NIGHT
FROM THE WALL OF SHOUXIANG

The sand below the border-mountain lies like snow,
And the moon like frost beyond the city-wall,
And someone somewhere, playing a flute,
Has made the soldiers homesick all night long.

Liu Yuxi

BLACKTAIL ROW

Grass has run wild now by the Bridge of Red-Birds;
And swallows’ wings, at sunset, in Blacktail Row
Where once they visited great homes,
Dip among doorways of the poor.

Liu Yuxi

A SPRING SONG

In gala robes she comes down from her chamber
Into her courtyard, enclosure of spring….
When she tries from the centre to count the flowers,
On her hairpin of jade a dragon-fly poises.

Bai Juyi

A SONG OF THE PALACE

Her tears are spent, but no dreams come.
She can hear the others singing through the night.
She has lost his love. Alone with her beauty,
She leans till dawn on her incense-pillow.

Zhang Hu

OF ONE IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY

When the moonlight, reaching a tree by the gate,
Shows her a quiet bird on its nest,
She removes her jade hairpins and sits in the shadow
And puts out a flame where a moth was flying.

Traducerile lui Pound, pe filieră fenollosiană, nu respectă ad litteram (here und here) textul chinez. Prin inexactitate, Pound introduce în occident una dintre cele mai ciudate, delicat-violente şi aluzive modalităţi textuale: ze chinese poetry.

Un amic îmi tropăie la urechelniţă que declamată in lingua confucianis, questa poem are o rezonanţă foarte clasică. Canonul riguros aplicat limbajului. Pound, prin chiar inexactitatea trădătoare faţă de textul-mutter, trosneşte cu ciocanul în scăfârlia metrului clasic, lăsând să transpară în modernitatea uoccidentală doar regretul, seducţia şi iubirea patetică.

Seducţia (şi gelozia – zeii erau geloşi, fără să iubească) este păgână, spre deosebire de iubirea creştină. A iubi pe cineva înseamnă a.l anula, a.l izola de lume, a.i şterge urmele. Totul se joacă într.o exorbitantă exigenţă de exclusivitate asupra unei fiinţe umane. Seducţia şi efectul ei, fick-fick.ul, este partea liberală, democrată şi ironică a acestui proces. Femelele confundă de cele mai multe ori, din lipsa conceptului şi a uzanţei gândului, pasiunea, seducţia, gelozia şi futaiul aferent cu iubirea. Seducţia este enigmatică, inexplicabilă, iubirea este misterioasă, dar evidentă şi explicabilă.

Incapabilă să.şi ofere sens şi semnificaţie propriului orizont, incapabilă să.şi construiască sau distrugă destinul, femela seduce şi se lasă sedusă. Îşi oferă sexul cu voracitatea unui ascet. Aflată în prezenţa iubirii evidente, femela preferă să.şi gestioneze meticulos cantitatea de seducţie primită sau oferită, cu imaginaţia unui contabil melancolic.

Soţia neguţătorului îi trimite o scrisoare; de confirmare/infirmare a cantităţii de seducţie rămasă. Unele femei nu reuşesc să trimită această scrisoare niciodată.

THE RIVER MERCHANT’S WIFE: A LETTER

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
Played I about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early in autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

by Li Bai (701 – 762).

Drinking Alone by Moonlight

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

I drink alone, for no friend is near.

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;                                           5

Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.

Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave

I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;

In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.            10

While we were sober, three shared the fun;

Now we are drunk, each goes their way.

May we long share our eternal friendship,

And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

(Transl. by Arthur Waley)

Notes:

http://www.legacy1.net/lee_ba.html

http://web.whittier.edu/academic/english/Chinese/Libai.htm

ARIETTA

Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Todt! – Hans Bethge

“After great pain a formal feeling comes”
After the Uranus fly-by the Sun shrank to a point in the black sky
I listened to the last movement of the last sonata…
After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

That girl had it right, back on Earth, in western Massachusetts
Where it is now spring, a spring they don’t have up here
Where is no up nor down.

But the Arietta is beyond regret. I volunteered for this detail,
And I am responsible for this, the last detail.

Know now, no, here and now, what the Ape knew
In my end is my beginning.

That candle won’t go out there is no wind in space.

And I read Li Po too: sorrow comes sorrow goes
There is no gravity here. Chasing the moon, he became
Immortal. Chasing the stars, I become
You.

Edward G. Nilges 15 April 2009

I’m losing track of how many of these I’ve done. I just know that these are not included in the previous posts.

Li Bai
HARD ROADS IN SHU

Oh, but it is high and very dangerous!
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.
…Until two rulers of this region
Pushed their way through in the misty ages,
Forty-eight thousand years had passed
With nobody arriving across the Qin border.
And the Great White Mountain, westward, still has only a bird’s path
Up to the summit of Emei Peak –
Which was broken once by an earthquake and there were brave men lost,
Just finishing the stone rungs of their ladder toward heaven.
…High, as on a tall flag, six dragons drive the sun,
While the river, far below, lashes its twisted course.
Such height would be hard going for even a yellow crane,
So pity the poor monkeys who have only paws to use.
The Mountain of Green Clay is formed of many circles-
Each hundred steps, we have to turn nine turns among its mound –
Panting, we brush Orion and pass the Well Star,
Then, holding our chests with our hands and sinking to the ground with a groan,
We wonder if this westward trail will never have an end.
The formidable path ahead grows darker, darker still,
With nothing heard but the call of birds hemmed in by the ancient forest,
Male birds smoothly wheeling, following the females;
And there come to us the melancholy voices of the cuckoos
Out on the empty mountain, under the lonely moon….
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.
Even to hear of it turns the cheek pale,
With the highest crag barely a foot below heaven.
Dry pines hang, head down, from the face of the cliffs,
And a thousand plunging cataracts outroar one another
And send through ten thousand valleys a thunder of spinning stones.
With all this danger upon danger,
Why do people come here who live at a safe distance?
…Though Dagger-Tower Pass be firm and grim,
And while one man guards it
Ten thousand cannot force it,
What if he be not loyal,
But a wolf toward his fellows?
…There are ravenous tigers to fear in the day
And venomous reptiles in the night
With their teeth and their fangs ready
To cut people down like hemp.
Though the City of Silk be delectable, I would rather turn home quickly.
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky….
But I still face westward with a dreary moan.

Li Bai
ENDLESS YEARNING I

“I am endlessly yearning
To be in Changan.
…Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well;
A thin frost glistens like little mirrors on my cold mat;
The high lantern flickers; and. deeper grows my longing.
I lift the shade and, with many a sigh, gaze upon the moon,
Single as a flower, centred from the clouds.
Above, I see the blueness and deepness of sky.
Below, I see the greenness and the restlessness of water….
Heaven is high, earth wide; bitter between them flies my sorrow.
Can I dream through the gateway, over the mountain?
Endless longing
Breaks my heart.”

Li Bai
ENDLESS YEARNING II

“The sun has set, and a mist is in the flowers;
And the moon grows very white and people sad and sleepless.
A Zhao harp has just been laid mute on its phoenix holder,
And a Shu lute begins to sound its mandarin-duck strings….
Since nobody can bear to you the burden of my song,
Would that it might follow the spring wind to Yanran Mountain.
I think of you far away, beyond the blue sky,
And my eyes that once were sparkling
Are now a well of tears.
…Oh, if ever you should doubt this aching of my heart,
Here in my bright mirror come back and look at me!”

Li Bai
THE HARD ROAD

Pure wine costs, for the golden cup, ten thousand coppers a flagon,
And a jade plate of dainty food calls for a million coins.
I fling aside my food-sticks and cup, I cannot eat nor drink….
I pull out my dagger, I peer four ways in vain.
I would cross the Yellow River, but ice chokes the ferry;
I would climb the Taihang Mountains, but the sky is blind with snow….
I would sit and poise a fishing-pole, lazy by a brook –
But I suddenly dream of riding a boat, sailing for the sun….
Journeying is hard,
Journeying is hard.
There are many turnings –
Which am I to follow?….
I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.

Li Bai
HARD IS THE WAY OF THE WORLD II

The way is broad like the blue sky,
But no way out before my eye.
I am ashamed to follow those who have no guts,
Gambling on fighting cocks and dogs for pears and nuts.
Feng would go homeward way, having no fish to eat;
Zhou did not think to bow to noblemen was meet.
General Han was mocked in the market-place;
The brilliant scholar Jia was banished in disgrace.
Have you not heard of King of Yan in days gone by,
Who venerated talents and built Terrace high
On which he offered gold to gifted men
And stooped low and swept the floor to welcome them?
Grateful, Ju Xin and Yue Yi came then
And served him heart and soul, both full of stratagem.
The King’s bones were now buried,
who would sweep the floor of the Gold Terrace any more?
Hard is the way.
Go back without delay!

Li Bai
HARD IS THE WAY OF THE WORLD III

Don’t wash your ears on hearing something you dislike
Nor die of hunger like famous hermits on the Pike!
Living without a fame among the motley crowd,
Why should one be as lofty as the moon or cloud?
Of ancient talents who failed to retire, there’s none
But came to tragic ending after glory’s won.
The head of General Wu was hung o’er city gate;
In the river was drowned the poet laureate.
The highly talented scholar wished in vain
To preserve his life to hear the cry of the crane.
Minister Li regretted not to have retired
To hunt with falcon gray as he had long desired.
Have you not heard of Zhang Han who resigned, carefree,
To go home to eat his perch with high glee?
Enjoy a cup of wine while you’re alive!
Do not care if your fame will not survive!

Li Bai
BRINGING IN THE WINE

See how the Yellow River’s waters move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean, never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
…Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
…To the old master, Cen,
And the young scholar, Danqiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me be forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
…Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we’ll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we’ll drown away the woes of ten thousand generations!

Du Fu
A SONG OF WAR-CHARIOTS

The war-chariots rattle,
The war-horses whinny.
Each man of you has a bow and a quiver at his belt.
Father, mother, son, wife, stare at you going,
Till dust shall have buried the bridge beyond Changan.
They run with you, crying, they tug at your sleeves,
And the sound of their sorrow goes up to the clouds;
And every time a bystander asks you a question,
You can only say to him that you have to go.
…We remember others at fifteen sent north to guard the river
And at forty sent west to cultivate the campfarms.
The mayor wound their turbans for them when they started out.
With their turbaned hair white now, they are still at the border,
At the border where the blood of men spills like the sea –
And still the heart of Emperor Wu is beating for war.
…Do you know that, east of China’s mountains, in two hundred districts
And in thousands of villages, nothing grows but weeds,
And though strong women have bent to the ploughing,
East and west the furrows all are broken down?
…Men of China are able to face the stiffest battle,
But their officers drive them like chickens and dogs.
Whatever is asked of them,
Dare they complain?
For example, this winter
Held west of the gate,
Challenged for taxes,
How could they pay?
…We have learned that to have a son is bad luck-
It is very much better to have a daughter
Who can marry and live in the house of a neighbour,
While under the sod we bury our boys.
…Go to the Blue Sea, look along the shore
At all the old white bones forsaken –
New ghosts are wailing there now with the old,
Loudest in the dark sky of a stormy day.

Du Fu
A SONG OF FAIR WOMEN

On the third day of the Third-month in the freshening weather
Many beauties take the air by the Changan waterfront,
Receptive, aloof, sweet-mannered, sincere,
With soft fine skin and well-balanced bone.
Their embroidered silk robes in the spring sun are gleaming –
With a mass of golden peacocks and silver unicorns.
And hanging far down from their temples
Are blue leaves of delicate kingfisher feathers.
And following behind them
Is a pearl-laden train, rhythmic with bearers.
Some of them are kindred to the Royal House –
The titled Princesses Guo and Qin.
Red camel-humps are brought them from jade broilers,
And sweet fish is ordered them on crystal trays.
Though their food-sticks of unicorn-horn are lifted languidly
And the finely wrought phoenix carving-knife is very little used,
Fleet horses from the Yellow Gate, stirring no dust,
Bring precious dishes constantly from the imperial kitchen.
…While a solemn sound of flutes and drums invokes gods and spirits,
Guests and courtiers gather, all of high rank;
And finally, riding slow, a dignified horseman
Dismounts at the pavilion on an embroidered rug.
In a snow of flying willow-cotton whitening the duckweed,
Bluebirds find their way with vermilion handkerchiefs –
But power can be as hot as flame and burn people’s fingers.
Be wary of the Premier, watch for his frown.

Du Fu
A SONG OF SOBBING BY THE RIVER

I am only an old woodsman, whispering a sob,
As I steal like a spring-shadow down the Winding River.
…Since the palaces ashore are sealed by a thousand gates –
Fine willows, new rushes, for whom are you so green?
…I remember a cloud of flags that came from the South Garden,
And ten thousand colours, heightening one another,
And the Kingdom’s first Lady, from the Palace of the Bright Sun,
Attendant on the Emperor in his royal chariot,
And the horsemen before them, each with bow and arrows,
And the snowy horses, champing at bits of yellow gold,
And an archer, breast skyward, shooting through the clouds
And felling with one dart a pair of flying birds.
…Where are those perfect eyes, where are those pearly teeth?
A blood-stained spirit has no home, has nowhere to return.
And clear Wei waters running east, through the cleft on Dagger- Tower Trail,
Carry neither there nor here any news of her.
People, compassionate, are wishing with tears
That she were as eternal as the river and the flowers.
…Mounted Tartars, in the yellow twilight, cloud the town with dust.
I am fleeing south, but I linger-gazing northward toward the throne.

Du Fu
A SONG OF A PRINCE DEPOSED

Along the wall of the Capital a white-headed crow
Flies to the Gate where Autumn Enters and screams there in the night,
Then turns again and pecks among the roofs of a tall mansion
Whose lord, a mighty mandarin, has fled before the Tartars,
With his golden whip now broken, his nine war-horses dead
And his own flesh and bone scattered to the winds….
There’s a rare ring of green coral underneath the vest
Of a Prince at a street-corner, bitterly sobbing,
Who has to give a false name to anyone who asks him-
Just a poor fellow, hoping for employment.
A hundred days’ hiding in grasses and thorns
Show on his body from head to foot.
But, since their first Emperor, all with hooknoses,
These Dragons look different from ordinary men.
Wolves are in the palace now and Dragons are lost in the desert –
O Prince, be very careful of your most sacred person!
I dare not address you long, here by the open road,
Nor even to stand beside you for more than these few moments.
Last night with the spring-wind there came a smell of blood;
The old Capital is full of camels from the east.
Our northern warriors are sound enough of body and of hand –
Oh, why so brave in olden times and so craven now?
Our Emperor, we hear, has given his son the throne
And the southern border-chieftains are loyally inclined
And the Huamen and Limian tribes are gathering to avenge us.
But still be careful-keep yourself well hidden from the dagger.
Unhappy Prince, I beg you, be constantly on guard –
Till power blow to your aid from the Five Imperial Tombs.
090
Tang Xunzong
I PASS THROUGH THE LU DUKEDOM
WITH A SIGH AND A SACRIFICE FOR CONFUCIUS

O Master, how did the world repay
Your life of long solicitude? –
The Lords of Zou have misprized your land,
And your home has been used as the palace of Lu….
You foretold that when phoenixes vanished, your fortunes too would end,
You knew that the captured unicorn would be a sign of the dose of your teaching….
Can this sacrifice I watch, here between two temple pillars,
Be the selfsame omen of death you dreamed of long ago?

Zhang Jiuling
LOOKING AT THE MOON
AND THINKING OF ONE FAR AWAY

The moon, grown full now over the sea,
Brightening the whole of heaven,
Brings to separated hearts
The long thoughtfulness of night….
It is no darker though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer though I put on my coat.
So I leave my message with the moon
And turn to my bed, hoping for dreams.

Wang Bo
FAREWELL TO VICE-PREFECT DU
SETTING OUT FOR HIS OFFICIAL POST IN SHU

By this wall that surrounds the three Qin districts,
Through a mist that makes five rivers one,
We bid each other a sad farewell,
We two officials going opposite ways….
And yet, while China holds our friendship,
And heaven remains our neighbourhood,
Why should you linger at the fork of the road,
Wiping your eyes like a heart-broken child?

Lo Bingwang
A POLITICAL PRISONER LISTENING TO A CICADA

While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner’s heart….
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still? – -
Who listens any more to me?

Du Shenyan
ON A WALK IN THE EARLY SPRING
HARMONIZING A POEM BY MY FRIEND LU
STATIONED AT CHANGZHOU

Only to wanderers can come
Ever new the shock of beauty,
Of white cloud and red cloud dawning from the sea,
Of spring in the wild-plum and river-willow….
I watch a yellow oriole dart in the warm air,
And a green water- plant reflected by the sun.
Suddenly an old song fills
My heart with home, my eyes with tears.

Shen Quanqi
LINES

Against the City of the Yellow Dragon
Our troops were sent long years ago,
And girls here watch the same melancholy moon
That lights our Chinese warriors –
And young wives dream a dream of spring,
That last night their heroic husbands,
In a great attack, with flags and drums,
Captured the City of the Yellow Dragon.

Song Zhiwen
INSCRIBED ON THE WALL OF AN INN
NORTH OF DAYU MOUNTAIN

They say that wildgeese, flying southward,
Here turn back, this very month….
Shall my own southward journey
Ever be retraced, I wonder?
…The river is pausing at ebb-tide,
And the woods are thick with clinging mist –
But tomorrow morning, over the mountain,
Dawn will be white with the plum-trees of home.

Wang Wan
A MOORING UNDER NORTH FORT HILL

Under blue mountains we wound our way,
My boat and 1, along green water;
Until the banks at low tide widened,
With no wind stirring my lone sail.
…Night now yields to a sea of sun,
And the old year melts in freshets.
At last I can send my messengers –
Wildgeese, homing to Loyang.

Chang Jian
A BUDDHIST RETREAT BEHIND BROKEN-MOUNTAIN TEMPLE

In the pure morning, near the old temple,
Where early sunlight points the tree-tops,
My path has wound, through a sheltered hollow
Of boughs and flowers, to a Buddhist retreat.
Here birds are alive with mountain-light,
And the mind of man touches peace in a pool,
And a thousand sounds are quieted
By the breathing of a temple-bell.

Cen Can
A MESSAGE TO CENSOR Du Fu
AT HIS OFFICE IN THE LEFT COURT

Together we officials climbed vermilion steps,
To be parted by the purple walls….
Our procession, which entered the palace at dawn,
Leaves fragrant now at dusk with imperial incense.
…Grey heads may grieve for a fallen flower,
Or blue clouds envy a lilting bird;
But this reign is of heaven, nothing goes wrong,
There have been almost no petitions.

Li Bai
A MESSAGE TO MENG HAORAN

Master, I hail you from my heart,
And your fame arisen to the skies….
Renouncing in ruddy youth the importance of hat and chariot,
You chose pine-trees and clouds; and now, whitehaired,
Drunk with the moon, a sage of dreams,
Flower- bewitched, you are deaf to the Emperor….
High mountain, how I long to reach you,
Breathing your sweetness even here!

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

I found this poem some time last year hidden deep in the stacks of the library’s top floor. No doubt I was struggling to finish a paper for my Chinese Culture & Literature class that I had pushed out of  my mind for the majority of the weekend. As I flipped through book after book, in attempts to find at least poem that could in some way relate to, this poem by Li Bai jumped out at me, mostly because it had been underlined by a student who’d come before me. But also because its context fits so perfectly into my life. Here’s my personal translation, at least for today.

I long to travel to Thailand;
I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I find people’s reactions quite amusing.
I know that I can’t control my life or my destiny,
but I know Who does.

I learned  a lot from that class, mostly that Chinese professors are incredibly hard to understand, especially at 8 in the morning. But I also learned how to leave Western perceptions of right and wrong in the dust when trying to understand not just the Chinese, but all Asian cultures. I think the best thing I learned from 4 (and a half) years of college is that although society teaches us what is good or bad, blessed or deviant for our culture, those formulas don’t necessarily translate into other cultures. What I strive to do through my travels and my life in general, is look at cultures and people with an open mind. Knowing that although I may not be able to understand their actions or beliefs, it never hurts to try.

Li Bai's moon

This image was created in response to the mood of Li Bai’s famous poem.

床 前 明 月 光

疑 是 地 上 霜

舉 頭 望 明 月

低 頭 思 故 鄉

The moon shines on the bed,

like frost covering the ground.

Looking up, pondering the moon.

Looking down, remembering home.

(English version by Maxime Dallaire)

image (cc) 2008 Hilary Farmer

4th in projected set of 10

This week’s edition, short but sweet,

will be selections from Wei Yingwu and Li Bai.

Wei Yingwu

ENTERTAINING LITERARY MEN IN MY
OFFICIAL RESIDENCE ON A RAINY DAY

Outside are insignia, shown in state;
But here are sweet incense-clouds, quietly ours.
Wind and rain, coming in from sea,
Have cooled this pavilion above the lake
And driven the feverish heat away
From where my eminent guests are gathered.
…Ashamed though I am of my high position
While people lead unhappy lives,
Let us reasonably banish care
And just be friends, enjoying nature.
Though we have to go without fish and meat,
There are fruits and vegetables aplenty.
…We bow, we take our cups of wine,
We give our attention to beautiful poems.
When the mind is exalted, the body is lightened
And feels as if it could float in the wind.
…Suzhou is famed as a centre of letters;
And all you writers, coming here,
Prove that the name of a great land
Is made by better things than wealth.

Wei Yingwu

SETTING SAIL ON THE YANGZI
TO SECRETARY YUAN

Wistful, away from my friends and kin,
Through mist and fog I float and float
With the sail that bears me toward Loyang.
In Yangzhou trees linger bell-notes of evening,
Marking the day and the place of our parting….
When shall we meet again and where?
…Destiny is a boat on the waves,
Borne to and fro, beyond our will.

Wei Yingwu

A POEM TO A TAOIST HERMIT
CHUANJIAO MOUNTAIN

My office has grown cold today;
And I suddenly think of my mountain friend
Gathering firewood down in the valley
Or boiling white stones for potatoes in his hut….
I wish I might take him a cup of wine
To cheer him through the evening storm;
But in fallen leaves that have heaped the bare slopes,
How should I ever find his footprints!

Wei Yingwu

ON MEETING MY FRIEND FENG ZHU
IN THE CAPITAL

Out of the east you visit me,
With the rain of Baling still on your clothes,
I ask you what you have come here for;
You say: “To buy an ax for cutting wood in the mountains”
…Hidden deep in a haze of blossom,
Swallow fledglings chirp at ease
As they did when we parted, a year ago….
How grey our temples have grown since them!

Wei Yingwu

MOORING AT TWILIGHT IN YUYI DISTRICT

Furling my sail near the town of Huai,
I find for harbour a little cove
Where a sudden breeze whips up the waves.
The sun is growing dim now and sinks in the dusk.
People are coming home. The bright mountain-peak darkens.
Wildgeese fly down to an island of white weeds.
…At midnight I think of a northern city-gate,
And I hear a bell tolling between me and sleep.

Wei Yingwu

EAST OF THE TOWN

From office confinement all year long,
I have come out of town to be free this morning
Where willows harmonize the wind
And green hills lighten the cares of the world.
I lean by a tree and rest myself
Or wander up and down a stream.
…Mists have wet the fragrant meadows;
A spring dove calls from some hidden place.
…With quiet surroundings, the mind is at peace,
But beset with affairs, it grows restless again….
Here I shall finally build me a cabin,
As Tao Qian built one long ago.

Wei Yingwu

TO MY DAUGHTER
ON HER MARRIAGE INTO THE YANG FAMILY

My heart has been heavy all day long
Because you have so far to go.
The marriage of a girl, away from her parents,
Is the launching of a little boat on a great river.
…You were very young when your mother died,
Which made me the more tender of you.
Your elder sister has looked out for you,
And now you are both crying and cannot part.
This makes my grief the harder to bear;
Yet it is right that you should go.
…Having had from childhood no mother to guide you,
How will you honour your mother-in-law?
It’s an excellent family; they will be kind to you,
They will forgive you your mistakes –
Although ours has been so pure and poor
That you can take them no great dowry.
Be gentle and respectful, as a woman should be,
Careful of word and look, observant of good example.
…After this morning we separate,
There’s no knowing for how long….
I always try to hide my feelings –
They are suddenly too much for me,
When I turn and see my younger daughter
With the tears running down her cheek.

Li Bai

THE MOON AT THE FORTIFIED PASS

The bright moon lifts from the Mountain of Heaven
In an infinite haze of cloud and sea,
And the wind, that has come a thousand miles,
Beats at the Jade Pass battlements….
China marches its men down Baideng Road
While Tartar troops peer across blue waters of the bay….
And since not one battle famous in history
Sent all its fighters back again,
The soldiers turn round, looking toward the border,
And think of home, with wistful eyes,
And of those tonight in the upper chambers
Who toss and sigh and cannot rest.

Li Bai

BALLADS OF FOUR SEASONS: SPRING

The lovely Lo Fo of the western land
Plucks mulberry leaves by the waterside.
Across the green boughs stretches out her white hand;
In golden sunshine her rosy robe is dyed.
“my silkworms are hungry, I cannot stay.
Tarry not with your five-horse cab, I pray.”

Li Bai

BALLADS OF FOUR SEASONS: SUMMER

On Mirror Lake outspread for miles and miles,
The lotus lilies in full blossom teem.
In fifth moon Xi Shi gathers them with smiles,
Watchers o’erwhelm the bank of Yuoye Stream.
Her boat turns back without waiting moonrise
To yoyal house amid amorous sighs.

Li Bai

A SONG OF AN AUTUMN MIDNIGHT

A slip of the moon hangs over the capital;
Ten thousand washing-mallets are pounding;
And the autumn wind is blowing my heart
For ever and ever toward the Jade Pass….
Oh, when will the Tartar troops be conquered,
And my husband come back from the long campaign!

Li Bai

BALLADS OF FOUR SEASONS: WINTER

The courier will depart next day, she’s told.
She sews a warrior’s gown all night.
Her fingers feel the needle cold.
How can she hold the scissors tight?
The work is done, she sends it far away.
When will it reach the town where warriors stay?

Li Bai

A SONG OF CHANGGAN

My hair had hardly covered my forehead.
I was picking flowers, paying by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch’ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.
…At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.
…Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch’u-t’ang, of rock and whirling water.
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.
…Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

Ein Meisterstück, ein Geniestreich (könnte man sagen; wenn man das nicht über viele Nummern dieser Zeitschrift sagen könnte). Schreibheft Nr. 69 ist fast vollständig dem Dichter Ezra Pound gewidmet, von dem ein polizeiliches Foto vom 26. Mai 1945 aus Pisa den Titel ziert. Es beginnt mit Traumtexten von Roberto Bolaño, in denen Pound  nicht explizit vorkommt, aber Li Po, Baudelaire, Archilochos, Anaïs Nin (“Mir träumte von einem Neunundsechziger mit Anaïs Nin auf einer riesigen Basaltplatte”), Robert Desnos, Roque Dalton und viele andere. Im anschließenden Playboy-Interview gibt Bolaño seine private Hitliste: “Nicanor Parra steht über allen, auch über Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro und Gabriela Mistral. … Wäre Joyce anstelle von Eliot, ich wählte Joyce. Wäre Pound anstelle von Eliot, selbstverständlich Pound.”

Dann ein umfängliches Dossier über Ezra Pound im St. Elizabeths Hospital für kriminelle Geisteskranke mit Gedichten von Lawrence Ferlinghetti, E.E. Cummings, Basil Bunting, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Kornelijus Platelis, Marcel Beyer, Ulf Stolterfoht und Alban Nikolai Herbst (Ezra Pound im Käfig); Briefwechseln mit H.D., Wyndham Lewis, Marshall McLuhan und E.E. Cummings und Prosabeiträgen u.a. von T.S. Eliot, Charles Olson (“Hier spricht Yeats”!), William Carlos Williams, W.H. Auden, George Orwell und Benedikt Ledebur sowie einem Gespräch, das u.a. Pier Paolo Pasolini für das italienische Fernsehen mit Pound führte.

Schließlich visuelle Gedichte des Katalanen Joan Brossa und eine Rezension der Werkausgabe von Rainer M. Gerhardt (dem ersten deutschen Pound-Übersetzer) durch Michael Braun.

Marcel Beyer übersetzt Cummings’ Jugendgedicht “pound pound pound” um es zu untersuchen, da es ihn ratlos gemacht habe wie selten ein Gedicht. Den 13 Zeilen des Gedichts läßt er über vier Seiten Kommentar folgen. “pound pound pound” , die erste Zeile, enthält eine unübersetzbare Mehrdeutigkeit, da es neben dem Namen (Cummings schrieb grundsätzlich alles klein, auch Eigennamen und das große “i”) noch etliche andere Bedeutungen hat, darunter stoßen, stampfen, rammen, hämmern.  Beyer übersetzt: poch, poch, poch. Sein Kommentar dröselt ein weitgespanntes intertextuelles Netz zur englischen Lyriktradition und -moderne auf. Anscheinend ist es eine (“verquaste”, Beyer) Auseinandersetzung des ehrgeizigen jungen Dichters mit Pound und Eliot, die ihn nicht als Gleichen unter Gleichen sehen wollten. Was Cummings so verquast andeute, treffe ihn selber, der zu der Zeit noch nicht frei von “gelegentlichen Trivialitäts- und Kitschattacken” sei. Das Zitat, das Beyer zum Beleg zitiert, verkürzt er allerdings auf beinah unzulässige Weise: “man lese etwa sein eigenes Drehorgelgedicht, ‘at the head of this street a gasping organ is waving”, in dem er sich als ‘queer monkey with a little oldish  doll-like face’ auf den Leierkasten setzt.” Nach “waving” geht es aber weiter: “is waving moth-eaten tunes”. Der Leierkasten schwingt mottenzerfressene Töne. Die muß man wohl in Betracht ziehen oder ins Gehör, nicht? Beyer schließt: “Von pound pound pound – das wird niemand bezweifeln – [tu ich doch auch nicht!] ist es noch ein weiter Weg bis zum selbstgewissen “crazy jay blue” (…), diesem zarten Vogelgruß, den Cummings Ende der fünfziger Jahre dem “demon” und “thief crook cynic”, dem “trickstervillain”, dem “raucous rogue & vivid voltaire” , dem “beautiful anarchist”, dem alten Blauhäher Ezra Pound senden wird.”

Wenn ich an dem spannenden, so lesenswerten wie instruktiven Heft etwas zu mäkeln hätte, es wär: daß den übersetzten Gedichten nicht das Original zugesellt wird. Die paar Seiten müßten doch noch drin sein? Die letzte Strophe von William Carlos Williams’ Gedicht “To my friend Ezra Pound” übersetzt Norbert Hummelt so:

Dein Englisch
ist nicht eigentümlich genug
Als Autor von Gedichten
erweist du dich als untüchtig, um nicht zu sagen
wucherisch.

Williams’ letztes Wort ist natürlich usurious: Pounds Zauberwort “usura”. Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn.

Hier sozusagen zum Ausgleich Cummings’ Gedicht vom blauen Eichelhäher im Wortlaut:

crazy jay blue)
demon laughshriek
ing at me
your scorn of easily
hatred of timid
& loathing for (dull all
regular righteous
comfortable)unworlds
thief crook cynic
(swimfloatdrifting
fragment of heaven)
trickstervillain
raucous rogue &
vivid voltaire
you beautiful anarchist
(i salute thee