孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
饥雪吟
Starving in the Snow
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饥乌夜相啄 疮声互悲鸣 冰肠一直刀 天杀无曲情 |
Starving birds peck together in the night, Their wounded voices combining in sad song. Freezing is like a constant knife and Heaven kills without emotion. |
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大雪压梧桐 折柴堕峥嵘 安知鸾凤巢 不与枭鸢倾 |
Heavy snow crushes the parasol trees, As I gather firewood on the ruined heights. How will you know the phoenix's nest, If you don't crush the birds of prey? |
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下有幸灾儿 拾遗多新争 但求彼失所 但夸此经营 |
No one takes delight in this calamity. But They fight over what the dead leave behind And prey they won't be among the dying And brag of how well they've done so far. |
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君子亦拾遗 拾遗非拾名 将补鸾凤巢 免与枭鸢并 |
The nobility also take what the dead leave behind Though this does nothing for their name. If you would rebuild the phoenix's nest, Avoid associating with the bird of prey. |
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因为饥雪吟 至晓竟不平 |
I sing of starving in the snow because Dawn brings no justice to the borderlands. |
-- 孟郊
废话
To understand Meng Jiao here, you must begin by realizing this poem is not about birds in any way. It is a poetic petition to the emperor, symbolized by the male phoenix. And the phoenix nest is the empire idealized. They birds of prey are 枭鸢, owls (symbol of evil men) and kites (symbols of murderous men). Then consider that it isn't even necessarily snowing, or winter, anymore than it needed to be winter in the last poem, which was about the winter of man. Here it is the winter of empire, with its decline of nobility and the suffering of its people. Some people don't feel the fall of empire until the capital is sacked. Some feel it when it happens and then sadly watch the consequences work themselves out, consequences which the unfeeling could prevent, if they would feel.