孟郊诗
Poems of Meng Jiao
Index
蚊
Mosquitoes
|
五月中夜息 饥蚊尚营营 但将膏血求 岂觉性命轻 |
Five months, awake at midnight, Starving mosquitoes buzzing everywhere. Their desire is my very flesh and blood. How could they take my life so lightly? |
|
顾己宁自愧 饮人以偷生 愿为天下幮 一使夜景清 |
If they looked at themselves, they'd be ashamed. Drinking people is an ignoble waste of life. I wish that all mosquito nets under Heaven Could give us just one night of peace. |
-- 孟郊
废话
We can take it as a given that this isn't a poem about mosquitoes. But there is no way to know the actual topic. Perhaps as things grew worse and more conservative after the An Lushan rebellion, criticism of Meng Jiao's individualistic poems grew stronger. So he might be complaining about the critics. Or it might be a broader criticism of those drinking the lifeblood of the people or of the empire itself. There's just no way to know.