孟郊诗

Poems of Meng Jiao


Index

择友

Choosing Friends


兽中有人性
形异遭人隔
人中有兽心
几人能真识

Among animals there is humanity.
Only accidents of fate set us apart.
Among men are hearts of beasts.
Even ordinary people can recognize this.

古人形似兽
皆有大圣德
今人表似人
兽心安可测

The ancients appeared as beasts
But had great spirituality.
Moderns are human only on the surface.
Their beastly hearts are easily discerned.

虽笑未必和
虽哭未必戚
面结口头交
肚里生荆棘

Smiling, they may not be harmonious.
Crying, they may not even be sad.
Their faces and words do not match.
In their bellies, they give birth to thorns.

好人常直道
不顺世间逆
恶人巧谄多
非义苟且得

Good men keep to the Way
And do not disobey the world.
Evil men are full of clever flattery,
Lacking justice, careless in their ways.

若是效真人
坚心如铁石
不谄亦不欺
不奢复不溺

If you wish to imitate true man,
Let your heart be firm as iron and stone.
Do not flatter. Do not bully.
Do not exaggerate or be self-indulgent.

面无吝色容
心无诈忧惕
君子大道人
朝夕恒的的

Have a face without the coloring of stinginess,
A heart without swindling, anxieties, and fear.
Gentlemen express virtue and justice,
morning and evening, truly constant.

-- 孟郊


废话

This poem of Meng Jiao's is full of practical perspicacity: the apprehension of humanity, or true goodness, in animals; the ability of all men to perceive evil in others; the carelessness of the greedy; the faces expressing the heart. Its basis, like many of his other poems, is the Dao, the Great Way. This was, for many, a practical pursuit and not a religion. And this is expressed in the extraordinary line: [Good men] do not disobey the world. Religion is a kind of obedience to the next world. Daoism, as religion, like Buddhism and Christianity, focused on the next world -- and on adherents paying their tithes in this one. The Daoist religion was the first in a long line which, like Mormonism today, expects big pay-ins and reciprocates with helpful pay-outs in times of need. But for those upon the Way itself there was only the one world, a world of virtue and justice, which must be obeyed.


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