孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
怨别
Resented Partings
一别一回老 志士白发早 在富易为容 居贫难自好 |
We part and always return too late. It turns us old before our time. It's one thing to accept our fate Another to be poor and feel just fine. |
沉忧损性灵 服药亦枯槁 秋风游子衣 落日行远道 |
Deep worries undermine our free nature And our remedies all lose their strength. Autumn winds, traveler's clothes, A setting sun, a road too long. |
君问去何之 贱身难自保 |
You ask me where I am going When I can hardly preserve myself. |
-- 孟郊
废话
Meng Jiao's partings that we know of are few. He left the home of his father, an official, to lead a different life than he had known at home. He left with his first wife or married her soon after leaving home. He left her behind for work and returned only after she was dead. He met another woman and they were intimate. But when he left her to go somewhere, she didn't care that he was leaving. We don't know the whole story of any of these. But leave-taking had added up to a number of bad memories for Meng Jiao.
This makes the last two lines extraordinary. The final one is literally [body/life][poor/inadequate][hard/difficult][myself][preserve]. For Meng Jiao, his fate is the necessity of travel. But, perhaps in the larger sense, he doesn't even understand what he is or how to preserve a sense of self so hard to grasp.