孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

赠文应上人

For Monk Wen Ying


(一作赠高僧)
(Written to send to the head monk)

栖迟青山巅
高静身所便
不践有命草
但饮无声泉

Resting on this green mountaintop,
High peace in a place good for life.
Don't step on the wildflowers.
Just drink at the silent spring.

斋性空转寂
学情深更专
经文开贝叶
衣制垂秋莲

Fast your nature on the silent stillness.
Study love in the meditative depths.
Continue the study of the palm leaf sutras.
Clothe yourself in the drooping lilies of autumn.

厌此俗人群
暂来还却旋

But if here you despise the common herd,
Then come back to the turning of the wheel.

-- 孟郊


废话

I get the sense, in translating this, that Wen Ying ticked Meng Jiao off with his snooty Buddhist spirituality. So Meng Jiao wrote him an exhortation to really be Buddhist with this poem. Which, apparently, Meng Jiao sent, not directly to Wen Ying, but to the head monk. Meng Jiao, so to speak, is narcing on Wen Ying here.

Cao3 (草) is usually translated "grass" but with the poets it is more the grass and the weeds and the wildflowers all together. And so here "wildflowers." When speaking of calligraphy, it is not "grass" but "rough" as in quickly and roughly written. This character is also used in describing "rough drafts" of writing.


Index