Tuesday, March 27, 2007

300 Tang dynasty Poems: #22 After Missing the Recluse On The Western Mountain


The Tang Dynasy was a golden age of culture in China. Poetry was especially esteemed. Some of the very best from that era was gathered into a famous anthology, The 300 Tang Dynasty Poems. If you click on the title ofthis post, you'll be directed to an online version. Below is #22. Enjoy.


Five-character-ancient-verse
Qiu Wei
AFTER MISSING THE RECLUSE ON THE WESTERN MOUNTAIN


To your hermitage here on the top of the mountain
I have climbed, without stopping, these ten miles.
I have knocked at your door, and no one answered;
I have peeped into your room, at your seat beside the table.
Perhaps you are out riding in your canopied chair,
Or fishing, more likely, in some autumn pool.

Sorry though I am to be missing you,
You have become my meditation --
The beauty of your grasses, fresh with rain,
And close beside your window the music of your pines.
I take into my being all that I see and hear,
Soothing my senses, quieting my heart;
And though there be neither host nor guest,
Have I not reasoned a visit complete?
...After enough, I have gone down the mountain.
Why should I wait for you any longer?

4 comments:

  1. l love the Tang poem.

    the copper chimes
    oblivious to my appreciation of them
    sing prettily with the wind regardless

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  2. can you tell that the wind is blowing this evening and the copper chimes are singing prettily with it?

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  3. I've got an August 1951 edition of 'The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, Being Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang Dynasty, 618-906' , translated by Witter Bynner, from the texts of Kiang Kang-Hu.

    One of my favorites is Cooler Weather

    Her jade-green alcove curtained thick with silk,
    Her vermillion 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.

    --Han Wu

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  4. Witter Bynner has been critized for not being entirely accurate with his translations, while at the same time being applauded for capturing the feeling the original text would evoke to a native reader. It seems like a reasonable trade to me.

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