孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

送别崔寅亮下第

Seeing off Cui Yinliang, who failed his exams


天地唯一气
用之自偏颇
忧人成苦吟
达士为高歌

Heaven and Earth has a single Spirit
Which uses us in its peculiar way.
Melancholy men write bitter poems and,
Like sages, sing them with gusto.

君子识不浅
桂枝忧更多
岁晏期攀折
时归且婆娑

A gentleman's knowledge is not shallow
And medicating only makes you sadder.
When New Year celebrations break off and
It's time to go, just keep dancing.

素质如削玉
清词若倾河
虬龙未化时
鱼鳖同一波

Your pure essence is like cut jade.
Your pure poems are like rushing rivers.
Young dragons, until they transform,
Have to swim with fish and softshell turtles.

去矣当自适
故乡饶薜萝

You've gone to make your own way home.
When you get there, put on your hermit's clothes.

-- 孟郊


废话

One gets the feeling that Meng Jiao is the mid-Tang's father figure for failers of Imperial exams. He makes them feel it was better to have failed. "Medicating" expresses the use of 桂枝 or "cassia twigs" which, while completely unlike marijuana, served the same purpose. One of the women poets I translated chewed quite a bit of cassia and remarked on its effects in one poem.

I only say "women" to narrow your search. I can't remember which woman -- but it wasn't any of the "men" poets. As far as poets go, poets are poets. Anna Akhmatova is the greatest poet in Western Civilization and had bigger balls than most men have ever had. If her translators had any, they'd stop saying "greatest female poet in Western etc." when they praise her.


Index