孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

游韦七洞庭别业

Travelling with Wei Seven to his Dongting Lake villa


洞庭如潇湘
叠翠荡浮碧
松桂无赤日
风物饶清激

Dongting is like Xiaoxiang --
Green ripples, boating idly upon jade.
Pines, laurels, no scorching sun,
A setting that indulges freedom.

逍遥展幽韵
参差逗良觌
道胜不知疲
冥搜自无斁

This freedom unfolds reclusion's delight
And its wildness arouses good companionship.
Walking here was nothing but invigorating.
Searching on, in the dark, I'm unwearied.

旷然青霞抱
永矣白云适
崆峒非凡乡
蓬瀛在仙籍

Carefree, we embrace the cloudlit dawn.
I have always dreamed of such a place.
Kongtong is no ordinary place,
A magical realm of the immortals.

无言从远尚
还思君子识
波涛漱古岸
铿锵辨奇石

Speechless, at such great distance,
I miss the signs of gentlemen --
Their waves wash ancient shores,
Their sonorities expose strange stones.

灵响非外求
殊音自中积
人皆走烦浊
君能致虚寂

Magic echoes, I can ask for nothing more.
These strange sounds fill me up inside.
Men all go where confusion reigns.
But you can find an empty silence.

何以祛扰扰
叩调清淅淅
既惧豪华损
誓从诗书益

How can chaos be dispelled?
Bow down before pure driving rain.
If you fear the loss of luxury,
Take your oaths from the Book of Songs.

一举独往姿
再摇飞遁迹
山深有变异
意惬无惊惕

At once, turn away from appearances.
Shake yourself. Fly from outward forms.
Deep in the mountains, changes come.
Let mind be comfortable, unmoving.

采翠夺日月
照耀迷昼夕
松斋何用扫
萝院自然涤

Gather kingfisher feathers. Seize the day.
Dispell confusion in dawn and dusk.
Relax your study. What need for sweeping
When this leafy temple is naturally clean?

业峻谢烦芜
文高追古昔
暂遥朱门恋
终立青史绩

Stern effort withers the wild grasses.
Higher culture pursues the ancient ways.
Now we are far from love of luxury.
Finally, we stand in history.

物表易淹留
人间重离析
难随洞庭酌
且醉横塘席

The form of things will long endure.
In the world of men things fall apart.
In Dongting, it's hard to keep drinking when
You're drunk on its turbulent shores.

-- 孟郊


废话

In this poem, Meng Jiao seems drawn into the past from the present. Given the title, he probably is by Lake Dongting, between Hubei and Hunan. But somehow Mt. Kongtong appears. This is a Daoist holy site in Gansu, which in Meng Jiao's time was in the far west, bordering the barbarians. And the poem also seems to draw him out of his self-proclaimed Buddhism back into Daoism. Most of his prescriptions sound like Daoist ones, at least to me. And the past -- we're talking Spring and Autumn and Warring States -- is more Daoist than Buddhist.

But here, Meng Jiao seems more concerned with arriving somehow in pure history. 青史 in line 36 was an ancient historian (not the Qing dynasty one who wrote the History of Love). But I can't date him. So Meng Jiao may just mean "Nature's history" in some sense (not our modern, post-Wordsworth sense of "nature"). 青 usually means "color of nature" rather than "nature." The line is more literally, "Finally we stand in the merit of unadulterated history" or similar. He is still striving for a 古文 beyond 古文.


Index