Chinese 323 On Human Sufferings (1)
Yuefu Songs
"Song of a Sick Lady"
After having been sick year after year
The wife fetches her husband.
There is a word that she must say.
She has yet to open her mouth,
But why the unstoppable tears.
"I am leaving the burden of these three lonely boys to you.
Don't let my children suffer for hunger and cold.
Even when they're at fault, spare the rod and stick.
Feeble as they are, they may die early.
Please remember that."
(Last round of music)
No coat to wear,
No pads in the short jackets.
Leaving the children behind
Closed doors and shut gate
Father goes alone to the marketplace.
On the way, he meets a friend.
Collapsed in tears he begs
Get some cakes for my children for me.
Faced with the friend,
His sobbing and tears know no stop.
"I try to curb my sorrow, but I can't help."
He hands some money to the friend.
Father enters the gate, only to see
Children crying for mother to hold.
Father lingers in the empty room.
"They will share the fate of their mother,
Let's just not talk about them."
Ruan Ji/Juan Chi (210-263)
"Poems of my Heart"
Day and night
Revolve,
While my face wrinkles
And my spirit wanes,
But the sight of injustice still pains me.
One change induces another
That cannot be dealt with by tact or wit.
The cycle goes on forever.
I only fear that in a moment
Life will disperse in the wind.
I have always trodden on thin ice.
Yet no one knows!
Wang Wei (701-761)
"Kulapati Hu Lay Ill in Bed, so I Sent Some Grain and Presented This Poem to Him"
Once we clearly observe the four great causes,
What can our original nature possess?
If false calculations are not allowed to arise,
This body will have neither good luck nor ill fortune.
How can we call sound and appearance guests?
Who preserves the skandhas and the dhatu? (note)
If we only speak of the Buddha's lotus eye,
How can we resent the tumor at our elbow?
Once satiated with fragrant spiritual food,
We will not get tipsy from sravaka wine.
Being and nonbeing, we cease to see as before;
Life and death--we receive them all as a dream.
Falling ill you approach your true form,
Follow emptiness, and calm violent motion.
There is no single dharma that is real;
There is no single dharma that is impure.
You, Kulapati, have understood all things clearly:
At every chance you perfect your discipline.
You sleep upon a bed without a rug;
Is there any gruel within your pot?
While fasting, you do not beg for food--
I am certain that you merely rinse your mouth.
For now, take these several pecks of rice:
Accept them to save your floating life.
Du Fu/Tu Fu (712-770)
"In the second year of Zhide (757), I left the capital by the Gate of Golden Light and made my way secretly to the court at Fengxiang. At the beginning of Qianyuan (758), I was transferred from the post of Remembrance in the Imperial Chancellery to that of a subordinate official in the prefectural government of Huazhou. In order to take leave of friends and relations, I left the city by this same gate, a circumstance which brought back sad memories of past events."
By this road I made my way to grace last year
When the western outskirts were full of barbarians.
To this day my nerves remain shattered,
Some of my souls must still be in need of recall.
I returned to the capital in the entourage of the Emperor,
How can my present removal have anything to do with his Sacred Majesty?
Lacking in talent, growing increasingly old and weak,
I reign in my horse and gaze at the Thousand Gates.
Han Yü (768-824)
"Poem On Losing One's Teeth"
Last year I lost an
incisor and this year a molar
and now half a dozen
more drop out at once--
and that's not the end of it
either. The rest are all loose
and there won't be an end
till they're all gone.
The first one
I thought what a shame, what
an obscene gap! Two or three--
I was falling apart--almost
you might say, at death's door.
Before
when one loosened I'd quake
and hope wildly it "wouldn't."
The gap made it hard to
chew and a loose tooth I'd
rinse my mouth gingerly.
Then when at last
it would fall out it felt
like a mountain collapsing.
By now I've got used to it
nothing earthshaking.
I've still twenty
left though I know one by one
they'll all go.
But at one tooth per year
It will take them two decades
and gone will it matter
they went one by one and not
as a single disaster?
Folks say
when your teeth go, the end's
near. But I think
all life has its limits--
you die when you die
whether with or without teeth.
They also say gaps
scare the people who see you.
Well, two views to everything
as Chuang-tzu noted.
A blasted
tree nee not always be cut down
though geese that don't hiss
be slaughtered. For the toothless
who mumble, silence
can be an advantage and those
who can't chew may discover
that soft food is tastier.
This is a poem I chanted
and wrote down to startle my
wife and children.
(Kenneth O. Hansen, Growing Old Alive: Poems by Han Yü, pp. 38-9.)
Yuan Zhen/Yüan Chen(779-831)
"Three Dreams at Chiang-ling: Three Poems"
I.
When one dreams of another,
Are both aware of it?
We're apart as darkness is from light,
My dream soul exists only for you
True nothing can be gained from dreams,
But without them how would I see you?
Tonight and how many nights
Have they chanced us a meeting!
Shadowy, the clothes you wore before,
Dimmed, but still your former visage;
You never mention what keeps us apart,
You only say you have to go.
Your sewing's still strewn about,
the curtains yet are folded;
You often ask after the child,
Countless the tears you've shed.
You said: "We have only this daughter,
And sighed to have no son;
I rember her then, so naughty and cute,
I can't bear to think of her hungry or cold!
You showed no interest in the family,
You took a post, left things behind!
No need to mention the bonds of official duties,
How could you have paid heed to private affairs?
Others have caused us to be alienated;
We were often decieved by our servants-
So long as you're around ther'll be someone to trust,
But if you should leave, who's to care for the child?"
Her speech ended, tears choked her throat,
I, too, wept a fountain of tears-
Grieved and strartled; I am suddenly awake,
Sitting or sleeping it's as if I were mad;
The shadow of the moon has blackened half of the bed,
The sounds of insects drift accross the gloom of the grass;
My sences come back to me slowly,
Though awakened I am still distraught;
Alone as I picture your face
Tears come and never seem to end!
Life's final parting is already ours,
How could a single dream bring so many sorrows?
Sorrow for our daughter you spoiled,
Whom I've left behind, unable to follow me here; (note)
Chang'an is more distanct than the sun,
Mountains, rivers, and clouds seperate us! (note)
Even if I could sprout wings,
The net of wordly affairs binds me hand and foot!
Tonight my tears drop down,
Half for the pattings I've endured in life!
They stir me toward your soul down there,
They move my thoughts nearer the stream;
I can't even cross a single river,
And the Styx, it has no shores!
This longing; how can it end?
This dream; how to pursue it?
I sit here watching the sky about to light,
The river humming in the trees.
(Sunflower Splendor, p. 217.)
Li Shangyin/Li Shang-yin (813?-858?)
"Lament for Liu Fen"
The Heavenly Emperor's palace is deeply enclosed within nine gates;
The Great Shaman does not descend to inquire about your wrongs.
Since we parted at Huang-ling, spring waves have kept us apart;
Now a letter comes from the bank of the P'en as the autumn rain falls.
Only Anren could have written a fit funeral ovation;
Who says Sung Yü knew how to summon the soul?
A lifelong teacher and friend--this you were to me:
I dare not mourn you outside the door of the inner chamber.
"Lament for Registrar Liu Fen"
Living apart, we watched the stars and years change;
All hope gone, we are separated by life and death.
The cinnamon lees gather in the wine jar;
The old rue leaves lies cold on the book labels.
The river wind blows hard on the wild geese;
The mountain trees, sheltering cicadas, stand in the setting sun.
A single cry, a thousand times turning back the head--
But heaven is high and does not hear!