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.