孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

尧歌

Yao's Song


(一作舜歌赏郑氏庄客去妇)
(As if Shun were singing, by the house where he had left Yao's daughters.)

尔室何不安
尔孝无与齐
一言应对姑
一度为出妻

Your rooms, here there is no peace.
Your piety, it was beyond compare.
Here I spoke with your wife.
And here, I left my wives behind.

往辙才晚钟
还辙及晨鸡
往还迹徒新
很戾竟独迷

I come here as the evening bells are ringing
And leave as cocks begin to crow.
Coming, going, leaving a disciple's footprints,
In my guilt, bewildered and alone.

娥女无礼数
污家如粪泥
父母吞声哭
禽鸟亦为啼

I was not honorable toward your daughters.
I defiled our house as if with excrement.
Father, mother, choke back your sobs.
Even the birds are wailing.

如何天与恶
不得和鸣栖

Why is it Heaven and Hell
Cannot join me in these cries?

山色挽心肝
将归尽日看
村肩篮舆子
野坐白发官

The mountain colors touch my heartstrings.
I will go back after I have seen this day.
My sedan chair waits beside the village.
I came here rough in my old age.

莺弄方短短
花明碎攒攒
琉璃堆可掬
琴瑟饶多欢

The warbler sings for but a moment.
Bright flowers fall to pieces in the end.
Like shining colors, that one could almost grasp,
My wives and I were full of joy.

翠韵仙窈窕
岚漪出无端
养馆洞庭秋
响答虚吹弹

A kingfisher sings in this immortal bower.
Mists rise and swirl and spread.
In the pavillion, by the lake, in autumn,
Arise the echoes of my futile strings.

-- 孟郊


废话

Emperor Yao had nine useless sons. So he groomed and tested Shun and then gave him the empire and his two daughters for wives. Shun passed the empire to Yu and then wandered off in search of the immortals, leaving his wives heartbroken when he never returned. At least that's one version. Another version has him traveling through his empire in old age and dying by a mountain. Wives are heartbroken in that version too.

About that "Heaven and Hell." It is actually, "Heaven and Evil" which would be "Heaven and its opposite" which in English is "Heaven and Hell." Which is not a justification for this choice of words. As Walter Benjamin remarked, "bread" is "brot" in German and "pain" in French and when the French and Germans say "bread" they mean completely different things.


Index