孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
寒江吟
Chill River Chant
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冬至日光白 始知阴气凝 寒江波浪冻 千里无平冰 |
Winter solstice, bright sunlight, Heaven's passive energy congeals. Chill river, waves of ice, Three hundred miles frozen and flowing. |
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飞鸟绝高羽 行人皆晏兴 荻洲素浩渺 碕岸澌崚嶒 |
Flying birds, all come to ground. Travelers all fall to silence. Reedy shoals, white in the distance. Towering banks, rough and bare. |
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烟舟忽自阻 风帆不相乘 何况异形体 信任为股肱 |
Suddenly, mists block our progress. Winds fall away, emptying our sail. Suddenly, all is so different, Our confidence becomes our only hope. |
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涉江莫涉凌 得意须得朋 结交非贤良 谁免生爱憎 |
Frozen ford cannot be crossed alone -- One must rely on friends. These friends are not young gentlemen But men who say just what they feel. |
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冻水有再浪 失飞有载腾 一言纵丑词 万响无善应 |
Frozen river again resumes its flow. The grounded birds again take flight. Everyone explodes with curses. Rude echoes return in chorus from high walls. |
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取鉴谅不远 江水千万层 何当春风吹 利涉吾道弘 |
It really doesn't take a genius To see that the river runs deep. How will your spring winds blow If you don't travel the dangerous way? |
-- 孟郊
废话
Meng Jiao is giving us a proto-"Mourning the Gorges" in a poem that may well take place on the Yangzi by the Three Gorges in winter. It's cold enough to freeze the water. But the river breaks up its own ice with its strength. Only a wide ford is shallow enough to stop a boat's progress with its solid ice. In one of his poems, Bai Juyi describes these conditions from a vantage point on the dry and warmer shore. Meng Jiao runs down the icy river with the boatmen. Bai Juyi is filled with compassion for those boatmen. Meng Jiao encourages us to run the river. I'm not really comparing the two poets. I'm just thinking about the differences.