孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
退居
Withdrawal
（一作退老）
(Written for an old retiree)
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退身何所食 败力不能闲 种稻耕白水 负薪斫青山 |
Withdraw from the body and how will you eat? A defeated strength cannot relax in idleness. To plant rice, you plow clear water. To gather firewood, you chop green hills. |
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众听喜巴唱 独醒愁楚颜 日暮静归时 幽幽扣松关 |
The crowd hears its happy, hopeful singing. You wake alone to your own face of sorrow. Evening is a time of peaceful return, A time to bow at the distant gate of pines. |
-- 孟郊
废话
I think Meng Jiao is in his thirties here. But by now, his humanity has matured beyond that of some older men. We know that he associated with poets wherever he went. He kept up a kind of social, cultured life. But he also knows what it is to plow a flooded field of rice, to gather firewood, to hear a village singing. I imagine that one of his friends, an older man, is moving toward a solitary ideal of retirement. And Meng Jiao is old enough to know that such an isolation is merely a preparation for death. He would rather his friend chose life.