Chinese 323 Drinking (2)Wang Wei (701-761)
"Farewell to Yuan the Second on his Mission to Anxi"
In Wei City morning rain dampens the light dust.
By the travelers' lodge, green upon green--the willows' color is new.
I offer you to drink up yet another cup of wine:
Beyond the Yang Pass westward, there are no old friends.
Li Bai/Li Po (701-762)
"Drinking Alone Under the Moon: Four Poems"
Poem I.
A jug of wine among flowers
I drink alone, for there's no companion.
I raise the cup and invite the moon,
With my shadow we become three.
Of course the moon does not understand drinking;
The shadow purposelessly traces my body.
But I accompany the moon and the shadow anyway
The pursuit of pleasures must continue until the spring.
The moon wanders as I sing;
The shadow rattles when I dance.
Still sober, we share our joys;
After drunk, each goes its way.
Permanently joined for feelingless journeys--
Perhaps to the remote Milky Way.
"Bring the Wine!"
Have you never seen
the Yellow River waters descending from the sky,
racing restless toward the ocean, never to return?
4Have you never seen
bright mirrors in high halls, the white-haired ones lamenting,
their black silk of morning by evening turned to snow?
If life is to have meaning, seize every joy you can;
do not let the golden cask sit idle in the moonlight!
Heaven gave me talents and meant them to be used;
gold scattered by the thousand comes home to me again.
Boil the mutton, roast the ox--we will be merry,
at one bout no less than three hundred cups.
Master Cen!
Scholar Danqiu!
Bring wine and no delay!
For you I'll sing a song--
be pleased to bend your ears and hear.
Bells and drums, food rare as jade--these aren't worth prizing;
all I ask is to be drunk forever, never to sober up!
Sages and worthies from antiquity--all gone into silence;
only the great drinkers have left a name behind.
The Prince of Chen once feasted in the Hall of Calm Delight;
wine, ten thousand coins a cask, flowed for his revelers' joy.
Why does my host tell me the money has run out?
Buy more wine at once--my friends have cups to be refilled!
My dappled mount,
my furs worth a thousand--
call the boy, have him take them and barter for fine wine!
Together we'll wash away ten thousand years of care.
Li He/Li Ho (791-817)
"Let Wine Be Brought in!"
(Irregular: 2 rhymes)
In opaque, glass goblets
A viscous amber.
From a little vat the wine drips down
True pearls of red.
From boiling dragons and roasting phoenix
Jade fat is weeping,
Gauzy screens, embroidered curtains.
Enclose these perfumed airs.
Blow dragon flutes!
Beat alligator drums!
Dazzling teeth in song,
Slender waists in dance.
Especially now when green, spring days
Are turning to dusk,
With peach-petals falling wildly
Like pink showers.
I beg you now to stay quite drunk
To the end of your days,
For on the earth of Liu Ling's grave
No one pours wine.
Bai Juyi/Po Chü-yi (771-846):
"Singing Drunk"
--For Singing Girl Shang Linglong
Stop the Hu-zither! Cover the Qin-lute!
Linglong is bowing again for she finished her song.
Who says I do not understand music?
Listen as I sing about the yellow rooster and the white sun.
The yellow rooster crows in the dark to rush the dawn;
The white sun sets before dusk to rush the years.
The red sash does not fasten securely around my waist,
The vermilion face has long been lost in the mirror.
Oh, Linglong, Linglong! What can I do about getting old?
When my song is over, it's your turn to sing another.
"Better Come Drink Wine with Me"
(one from a series of 14 poems entitled "Recommending Wine.")
Don't go climbing up to the blue clouds
the blue clouds are rife with passion and hate,
everyone a wise man, bragging of knowledge and vision,
flattening each other in the scramble for merit and power.
Fish get chowdered because they swallow the bait;
moths burn up when they bumble into the lamp.
Better come drink wine with me;
let yourself go, get roaring, roaring drunk.
(Burton Watson, ed., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, p. 257)
Du Mu/Tu Mu (803-852)
"A Tower at Riverside"
I've poured myself sweet spring wine,
And I am already tipsy as I climb the tower.
Who startles the line of geese
Into dashing to split the cloud that crosses the river?
Su Shi/Su Shih (1036-1101)
To the Tune of Shuidiao getou (Overture to Water Tune)
--On the day of the autumn festival in the year of bingchen (1076), I drank happily until dawn. I was absolutely drunk when I wrote this. I also remembered [my brother] Ziyou.
The bright moon--from when has it been there?
I ask the blue sky, lifting my wine cup.
I do not know to which year this evening belongs in the Heavenly Palace.
I desire to ride on the wind and return there,
But I fear the jade towers and halls,
So high up, must be unbearably cold.
I rise and dance, dallying with my clear shadows--
How can it be like being among the mortals?
It revolves around the red pavilion
And shines aslant beneath the resplendent window--
Brightness and no sleep.
Let there be no resentments--What else is always so full at the time of parting?
I have sorrow and joy, parting and meeting;
The moon has cloudy and clear skies, waxing and waning--
There's no perfection in this since long long ago.
Just hope for a long life,
And the beauty be shared, though thousand miles apart.
Lu You/Lu Yu (1125-1210)
"After Getting Drunk, I Scribble Songs and Poems in Grass Script-- Written as a Joke"
Head poking from a vermilion tower, all eight directions cramped;
one dip of green wine and I go on for a hundred cups,
washing away the humps and hills, cliffs and crags of my heart,
cleansing myself so I can shape verses passionate, windy and free.
Ink at first spurts out like the ire of demons and gods;
characters all at once grow lean, formed like fallen dragons;
now a rare sword, drawn from its sheath, flashes a snowy blade;
now a great ship, cleaving the waves, speeds its gusty mast.
Paper gone, I fling down the brush with a lightening-and-thunder crash;
womenfolk flee in astonishment, little boys run and hide.
Once I drafted a proclamation to chide the western realm;
whirr, whirr, the sound of my brush stirred in the hall of state.
Then one day I turned my steps from court and suddenly ten years passed;
west I skimmed over the Three Ba, to the far end of Yelang.
Mountains and rivers remote and wild, their customs strange;
luckily there's fine wine, the kind to put me in a trance.
In the midst of drunkenness I pull the cap from my head;
I permit no trace of frost to invade this green-black hair.
Gains and losses of a man's life--truly a piddling matter;
who says old age is so full of sorrow and woe?
(Burton Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, pp. 317-8.)