孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
投所知
Refuge in What I Know
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苦心知苦节 不容一毛发 炼金索坚贞 洗玉求明洁 |
Suffering hearts know the price of integrity And tolerate not a hair of taint. Refined gold requires steady faithfulness As pure jade is defined by clarity and light. |
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自惭所业微 功用如鸠拙 何殊嫫母颜 对彼寒塘月 |
I am ashamed to employ subtleties, of skill Used as if by dull and simple pigeons. How different is one's mother's homely face From those like moons reflected in cold pools. |
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君存古人心 道出古人辙 尽美固可扬 片善亦不遏 |
You preserve the ancients' hearts by Expressing the Way as the ancients did. The most beuty is found through integrity Unhindered by other qualities and motives. |
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朝向公卿说 暮向公卿说 谁谓黄钟管 化为君子舌 |
Mornings we attend the high officials' speech. Evening we attend the high officials' speech. Who could say the ancient music of bells and flutes Could ever be mistaken for these noble tongues? |
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一说清嶰竹 二说变嶰谷 三说四说时 寒花拆寒木 |
The first speaks of pure mountain valleys of bamboo. The second of changing those mountain valleys. By the time three or four have spoken We have only chilled flowers from cold trees. |
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晔晔家道路 灿灿我衣服 岂直辉友朋 亦用慰骨肉 |
Prosperous is my home upon the Way And radiant are my garments. How could the honesty of shining friends Not supply the comfort of a family? |
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一暖荷匹素 一饱荷升粟 而况大恩恩 此身报得足 |
All is cheerful in the burden of the plow. And satisfying is the burden of the lifted grain. It is even a greater blessing to realize That this life and this body are enough. |
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且将食檗劳 酬之作金刀 |
And it will be the solace and redemption of this toil To hold the golden blade that you have forged. |
-- 孟郊
废话
Kenneth Clark called our art "the children of our ideals." Where there is no art, as there now is little, there is an absence of ideals. No one today could speak of friendship as the Tang poets regularly did. No friendship today is legendary as was that of Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi in their own time. In the shameful blight of modern China, the only radiance is the lingering glow of now-ancient ideals, which only find expression in popular novels and historical films. Much of the rest of the world is dark. And what light there is most resembles the red glow associated with ill-chosen rebirth. If you look into your heart and find nothing there but your own dark reflection, you are yourself producing this darkness. Ideals are the only source of light.