孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
送黄构擢第后归江南
Escorting Huang Gou back to Jiangnan after he was chosen for a position there
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澹澹沧海气 结成黄香才 幼龄思奋飞 弱冠游灵台 |
Gentle ripples of the deep blue sea Join with Huang's pervasive talent. His youthful thoughts spread their wings, Rising weakly towards his heart's desire. |
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一鹗顾乔木 众禽不敢猜 一骥骋长衢 众兽不敢陪 |
Osprey gazes from its high tree; Other birds don't dare to even think. Fine horse gallops down the boulevard; Other beasts don't dare to join him. |
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遂得会风雨 感通如云雷 至矣小宗伯 确乎心不回 |
Successful in spite of hardships One feels as if emerging from a thunderstorm. Now appointed as monastic abbot Can your heart truly not return? |
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能令幽静人 声实喧九垓 却忆江南道 祖筵花里开 |
You will be able to command secluded men -- Let a true voice ring in all directions. But remember Jiangnan's ways, so that, At ancestral feasts, the local flowers bloom. |
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春风不能别 别罢空徘徊 |
You cannot let your good influence depart. If it does, all will fall into empty idleness. |
-- 孟郊
废话
This poem comes at a time in the Tang when Daoism has become ascendant at court and the persecution of Buddhism has begun. Eventually, Buddhism will be stripped of power and possessions (as Henry V wished to strip the Catholic Church in England.) But that is some years and emperors in the future. At this time, Huang Gou seems to have been given charge of a Theraveda monastery after having passed the get-a-job exam. This speaks to how the empire feels now about Buddhism when it appoints a young man to be the "abbot" of a monastery. It also seems that Meng Jiao knows this man to have been a better man in the past. Huang has no doubt become an idelogical hardliner as men do when their paychecks depend upon it. And Meng Jiao is trying to call him back to his true humanity.