白居易诗
Poems of Bai Juyi
Index
放言五首
Speaking Freely
元九在江陵时有放言七句诗五首韵高而体律意古而词新予每咏之甚觉有味虽前辈深于诗者未有此作唯李颀有云济水至清河自浊周公大圣接舆狂斯句近之矣予出佐浔阳未届所任舟中多暇江上独吟因缀五篇以续其意耳
Speaking Freely was written when Yuan Zhen was in Jiangling, a formal poem with a high rhyme-scheme, five verses, seven-character lines. Its ideas are original. Its schemes are new. Every time I chant it, it delights me. Older generations of poets, they could not have written it this way. But the poet Li Qi wrote: "The muddy Yellow River merges with Clear River. The wise Duke of Zhou met with the madman of Chu." This is how I see this poem. I am on my way to Xunyang but have not yet taken up my position. I have leisure to spare on this boat and I chant this poem upon the river. The five verses weave together and impress their meanings on my ear.
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朝真暮伪何人辨 古往今来底事无 但爱臧生能诈圣 可知宁子解佯愚 草萤有耀终非火 荷露虽团岂是珠 不取燔柴兼照乘 可怜光彩亦何殊 |
Who can distinguish true morning from false dawn? Ancient times until now, our efforts amount to nothing. But we love that Old Zang could cheat the wise. All he had to do was pretend to be stupid. Fireflies glow with no fire inside them. No one mistakes the round dew on the lotus for pearls. Sacrifices to Heaven and treasures don't mix. Too bad. But what difference does splendor make? |
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世途倚伏都无定 尘网牵缠卒未休 祸福回还车轮毂 荣枯反覆手藏钩 龟灵未免刳肠患 马失应无折足忧 不信请看弈棋者 输赢须待局终头 |
Life's experiences vary, nothing is ordained. The world's net binds us all. We die without relief. Fortune and disaster, turn and turn again. Bloom and fade, repeat, repeat. No explanation given. A sacred turtle can't avoid his intestines' bloody fate. Horses that shake their riders still risk a broken leg. If you doubt my judgment, please observe in this chessgame How win and loss must calmly wait the logic of events. |
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赠君一法决狐疑 不用钻龟与祝蓍 试玉要烧三日满 辨材须待七年期 周公恐惧流言日 王莽谦恭未篡时 向使当初身便死 一生真伪复谁知 |
If I gave you a solution, you would be right to doubt. No need for turtle's intestines or yarrow stalks cast down. Testing jade requires a full three days of heat. Judging timber, one must wait for seven years to pass. The Duke of Zhou feared even to appear to do the wrong. Wang Mang was polite and modest, until he usurped the throne. If from the beginning, life is on the verge of death, Who, in a brief lifetime, can sift the false from true? |
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谁家宅第成还破 何处亲宾哭复歌 昨日屋头堪炙手 今朝门外好张罗 北邙未省留闲地 东海何曾有顶波 莫笑贱贫夸富贵 共成枯骨两何如 |
Who lives in a mansion once it's been destroyed? Where do favored guests answer tears with song? Last night our homes endured disaster. Today, outside our gates, life still goes on. Ancient kings are unaware they sleep on barren land. Whenever did the narrowest sea have the highest waves? Don't laugh when the undeserving boast of wealth and fame. We all end up as corpses, good and bad the same. |
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泰山不要欺毫末 颜子无心羡老彭 松树千年终是朽 槿花一日自为荣 何须恋世常忧死 亦莫嫌身漫厌生 生去死来都是幻 幻人哀乐系何情 |
Mount Tai is unwilling to be smaller than a hair. And poor Yan Hui never envied ancient Peng. Pine trees rot only after a thousand years. Hibiscus blooms and withers in a day. No need for life's lovers to fret over death. No need to curse the body for being full of life. Life goes. Death comes. And both are as a dream. Joy and sorrow are only felt by those who are awake. |
-- 白居易
废话
This poem is one of those which make me feel my ignorance. Yanzi (颜子) is Yan Hui, Kongzi's favorite disciple who died young, at 29. And Peng (彭) is Peng Zu, the Chinese Methuselah. Those weren't too hard. But I have a problem still with this line: 马失应无折足忧. We have [horse][to miss or lose][ought or should][without or nothing][break][foot][worry]. So we get: "Horses losing should nothing break foot worry." That reads nicely.
The problem is 应无 or ying1wu2. I went searching for yingwus. Thinking it might be an ancient name or other reference, I searched against ctext.org which is full of classical texts. A fluent reader of classical Chinese would need a kalpa or two to sift the results. So I tried other searches. One page was a translation with something like: "You can break your foot dismounting from a horse." Quite a stretch. Too stretchy even for me. But better than a popular online translation engine had to offer. I let the two of them keep each other company and looked for something better.
I tried pretty hard for an hour or more to find something helpful. The only interesting result was a page with this very poem which also included the pinyin but no English. The page had "yingmo" not "yingwu." Mo2 is an alternative for wu2 when used in some names or transliterations. It occurs in the mu of the Chinese version of "namu amidha butsu." So all I could (speciously) nail down was that yingwu was (probably) a name pronounced "yingmo." Let's pretend it's the name of a rider who was thrown from some (possibly) famous horse in some ancient Chinese anecdote. Problem "solved."