孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
初于洛中选
After the Get-a-Job Exam, I First Work in Luoyang
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尘土日易没 驱驰力无馀 青云不我与 白首方选书 |
Dust. And the sun will soon be down. Hard ride. Horse almost worn out. Good job? Not for me. My white head in some library. |
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宦途事非远 拙者取自疏 终然恋皇邑 誓以结吾庐 |
Official way? I won't get far. I'm awkward. But I don't want much. I really do love this royal town. I swear I'll settle for a hut. |
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帝城富高门 京路绕胜居 碧水走龙蛇 蜿蜒绕庭除 |
Emperor's city. Rich, tall gates. Royal roads winding among mansions. Jade river. Full of good and evil. It slithers past my front yard. |
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寻常异方客 过此亦踟蹰 |
I often seek out foreign guests who, ill-at-ease, will pass through here. |
-- 孟郊
废话
This poem shows, I think, that Meng Jiao first worked in Luoyang before he became Wei in Liyang. Like Bai Juyi, they started him out as a librarian of some sort, among the scrolls. So far his poems have revealed that he left home early and married either just before or just after leaving home. His first wife dies while he is away working somewhere. He continues to be a literate-itinerant worker. Sometimes he chooses to work and live among rural people or to be off on his own. But I think he survives by finding literate work here and there. He goes to Chang'an for his exams, camping outside the city to save on rent in the summers and sharing hovels with other poor scholars in the winters. Because all he does is work on his poetry, it takes him six years to pass the normal exam and another four to pass the one which guarantees a job. And so, here he is in his first job in the old capital of Luoyang.