孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
溧阳唐兴寺观蔷薇花同诸公饯陈明府
At Liyang's Empty of Desire Temple to view the rose blossoms with all the gentlemen seeing off Prefect Chen Ming
|
忽惊红琉璃 千艳万艳开 佛火不烧物 净香空徘徊 |
Sudden, startling, red porcelain bulbs, A thousand, ten thousand bloom. This fire of Buddha burns no thing, Its pure fragrance lingering in the air. |
|
花下印文字 林间咏觞杯 群官饯宰官 此地车马来 |
Blossoms fall to stamp my poems as In the woods, we chant our farewell toast. Herd of officials seeing off the prefect, Fills this place with carts and horses. |
-- 孟郊
废话
Probably a private poem. We know from the last poem that Meng Jiao does not get along with Prefect Chen. Don't quote me on the "prefect" part. The character 宰 is used in the title of prime minister. But I'm only guessing that it is applied to the title of prefect, "prime minister" of a smaller part of the empire. Anyway, Meng Jiao is probably not sad to see Chen go. And he's not happy to see the temple's blossoming woods full of carts and horses and a flock or herd of officials. This may be due to the herd being predominantly Daoist, in that hypocritical political way that people take to the religion of ephemeral power. (Powerful hypocrites are always praying for somebody or something.) Perhaps the herd came here to make cultured gestures amid the roses, while disparaging the temple itself which symbolizes for them the waning influence of Buddhism.