Tang Shi – 300 Tang poems

O Master, how did the world repay
Your life of long solicitude? –
The Lords of Zou have misprized your land,
And your home has been used as the palace of Lu....
You foretold that when phoenixes vanished, your fortunes too would end,
You knew that the captured unicorn would be a sign of the dose of your teaching....
Can this sacrifice I watch, here between two temple pillars,
Be the selfsame omen of death you dreamed of long ago?

Bynner 90

The moon, grown full now over the sea,
Brightening the whole of heaven,
Brings to separated hearts
The long thoughtfulness of night....
It is no darker though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer though I put on my coat.
So I leave my message with the moon
And turn to my bed, hoping for dreams.

Bynner 91

By this wall that surrounds the three Qin districts,
Through a mist that makes five rivers one,
We bid each other a sad farewell,
We two officials going opposite ways....
And yet, while China holds our friendship,
And heaven remains our neighbourhood,
Why should you linger at the fork of the road,
Wiping your eyes like a heart-broken child?

Bynner 92

While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner's heart....
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still? - -
Who listens any more to me?

Bynner 93

En prison,
le poète entend chanter la cigale1

La voix de la cigale a résonné, du côté de la route occidentale2 ;
Elle jette dans une rêverie profonde l'hôte qui porte un bonnet du midi3.

Comment supporterais-je patiemment la vue de ce frêle insecte,
Qui vient, tout près de ma tête blanche, répéter son chant douloureux4 !

La rosée, trop lourde pour ses ailes, appesantit sa marche, et l'empêche de prendre son vol5 ;
Le vent, qui souffle avec violence, emporte ses cris étouffés.

Les hommes ne veulent pas croire à ce qu'il y a de pur et d'élevé (dans le secret de son existence)6.
Puis-je espérer qu'il s'en trouve un, pour faire connaître à tous ce que renferme mon cœur ?

1. Si j'ai choisi pour la traduire cette pièce d'une conception bizarre, où des comparaisons forcées sont rendues dans un style recherché, c'est qu'en même temps qu'elle donne précisément une idée de l'affectation habituelle à Lo-pin-ouang, elle offre aussi le spécimen du genre de pièces fugitives appelées lu-chi, très à la mode sous les Thang. J'en ai fait connaître au commencement les exigences assez compliquées qui sont fidèlement observées ici.

Les quatre périodes voulues se montrent nettement dessinées, chacune ayant, suivant la règle, un sens complet dans son distique isolé.

La première (ki), l'exorde, qui doit réfléchir le titre de la pièce.

La seconde (king), la perspective, où doit poindre la pensée de l'auteur.

La troisième (tsing), le sentiment, où cette pensée se développe.

La quatrième enfin (kie), le nœud, qui renferme la conclusion.

Ajoutons que les conditions exigées pour la rime sont, de leur côté, très exactement remplies.

2. La route occidentale, c'est la route que parcourt le soleil en automne, dit le commentaire ; on voit par là que le poète a composé sa pièce dans cette saison.

3. Le commentaire nous apprend que l'on appelle bonnet du midi la coiffure imposée aux prisonniers ; mais il n'explique point l'origine de cette expression.

4. Le chant de la cigale, en automne, est triste et plaintif, dit le commentaire chinois.

5. « Dans la pensée de Lo-pin-ouang qui se compare à la cigale, cette rosée si lourde représente le malheur des temps qui a pesé sur lui ; le vent qui étouffe les cris du frêle insecte, ce sont les calomnies, soufflées contre lui par ses ennemis et qui empêchent sa voix de parvenir jusqu'à l'oreille du maître. » (Commentaire chinois.)

6. « La cigale se tient dans les arbres les plus élevés ; elle boit le plus pur de la rosée, dont elle forme son unique nourriture. C'est un fait que beaucoup de gens refusent néanmoins de croire. » (Commentaire chinois.)

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Hervey 54

Only to wanderers can come
Ever new the shock of beauty,
Of white cloud and red cloud dawning from the sea,
Of spring in the wild-plum and river-willow....
I watch a yellow oriole dart in the warm air,
And a green water- plant reflected by the sun.
Suddenly an old song fills
My heart with home, my eyes with tears.

Bynner 94

Against the City of the Yellow Dragon
Our troops were sent long years ago,
And girls here watch the same melancholy moon
That lights our Chinese warriors –
And young wives dream a dream of spring,
That last night their heroic husbands,
In a great attack, with flags and drums,
Captured the City of the Yellow Dragon.

Bynner 95

They say that wildgeese, flying southward,
Here turn back, this very month....
Shall my own southward journey
Ever be retraced, I wonder?
...The river is pausing at ebb-tide,
And the woods are thick with clinging mist –
But tomorrow morning, over the mountain,
Dawn will be white with the plum-trees of home.

Bynner 96

Under blue mountains we wound our way,
My boat and 1, along green water;
Until the banks at low tide widened,
With no wind stirring my lone sail.
...Night now yields to a sea of sun,
And the old year melts in freshets.
At last I can send my messengers –
Wildgeese, homing to Loyang.

Bynner 97

In the pure morning, near the old temple,
Where early sunlight points the tree-tops,
My path has wound, through a sheltered hollow
Of boughs and flowers, to a Buddhist retreat.
Here birds are alive with mountain-light,
And the mind of man touches peace in a pool,
And a thousand sounds are quieted
By the breathing of a temple-bell.

Bynner 98

Le lever du soleil
au couvent du mont Po-chan1

La lumière pure d'une belle matinée pénètre déjà dans le vieux couvent ;
Déjà la cime éclairée des grands arbres annonce le retour du soleil.
C'est par de mystérieux sentiers qu'on arrive à ce lieu solitaire2,
Où s'abrite la cellule du bonze, au milieu de la verdure et des fleurs.

Dès que la montagne s'illumine, les oiseaux, tout à la nature, se réveillent joyeux ;
L'œil contemple des eaux limpides et profondes, comme les pensées de l'homme dont le cœur s'est épuré3.
Les dix mille bruits du monde ne troublent jamais cette calme retraite ;
La voix harmonieuse des pierres sonores est la seule qui s'élève ici4.

1. Le mont Po-chan est situé dans le Kiang-nân, non loin de Sou-tcheou-fou.

2. Le texte dit littéralement : par des sentiers tortueux. J'ai cru devoir écarter ce mot de la traduction, parce qu'il peut se prendre en français dans un sens fâcheux, ce qui n'a pas lieu en chinois, où l'expression employée par Tchang-kien indique seulement un sentier qui fait, en serpentant, de nombreux détours ; de telle sorte qu'il faut le bien connaître pour savoir où il mène, et pour le suivre sans se tromper.

3. Mot à mot : de l'homme dont le cœur est vide. Voici comment ce passage est commenté par un lettré chinois : « Les oiseaux pénètrent aussi les secrets du ciel, et ils sont joyeux, comprenant leur propre nature. Les eaux profondes du lac (qui est au bas de la montagne) sont immobiles. Elles sont pures et ne contiennent rien ; voilà pourquoi elles sont transparentes et pénétrables au regard. Le cœur de l'homme, dégagé de tout attachement pour les choses matérielles, est également pur et tranquille ; il ne contient point de désirs. En quoi diffère-t-il de cela ? »

4. Il a déjà été question (p. 135, n. 2) des pierres sonores avec lesquelles les Chinois font des instruments de musique. Ces mêmes pierres, taillées sur de grandes proportions, tiennent lieu de cloches dans certains couvents.

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Hervey 69

Together we officials climbed vermilion steps,
To be parted by the purple walls....
Our procession, which entered the palace at dawn,
Leaves fragrant now at dusk with imperial incense.
...Grey heads may grieve for a fallen flower,
Or blue clouds envy a lilting bird;
But this reign is of heaven, nothing goes wrong,
There have been almost no petitions.

Bynner 99

Master, I hail you from my heart,
And your fame arisen to the skies....
Renouncing in ruddy youth the importance of hat and chariot,
You chose pine-trees and clouds; and now, whitehaired,
Drunk with the moon, a sage of dreams,
Flower- bewitched, you are deaf to the Emperor....
High mountain, how I long to reach you,
Breathing your sweetness even here!

Bynner 100

Sailing far off from Jingmen Ferry,
Soon you will be with people in the south,
Where the mountains end and the plains begin
And the river winds through wilderness....
The moon is lifted like a mirror,
Sea-clouds gleam like palaces,
And the water has brought you a touch of home
To draw your boat three hundred miles.

Bynner 101

With a blue line of mountains north of the wall,
And east of the city a white curve of water,
Here you must leave me and drift away
Like a loosened water-plant hundreds of miles....
I shall think of you in a floating cloud;
So in the sunset think of me.
...We wave our hands to say good-bye,
And my horse is neighing again and again.

Bynner 102

The monk from Shu with his green silk lute-case,
Walking west down Omei Mountain,
Has brought me by one touch of the strings
The breath of pines in a thousand valleys.
I hear him in the cleansing brook,
I hear him in the icy bells;
And I feel no change though the mountain darken
And cloudy autumn heaps the sky.

Bynner 103

This night to the west of the river-brim
There is not one cloud in the whole blue sky,
As I watch from my deck the autumn moon,
Vainly remembering old General Xie....
I have poems; I can read;
He heard others, but not mine.
...Tomorrow I shall hoist my sail,
With fallen maple-leaves behind me.

Bynner 104

Far off in Fuzhou she is watching the moonlight,
Watching it alone from the window of her chamber-
For our boy and girl, poor little babes,
Are too young to know where the Capital is.
Her cloudy hair is sweet with mist,
Her jade-white shoulder is cold in the moon.
...When shall we lie again, with no more tears,
Watching this bright light on our screen?

Bynner 105

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
...After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
...I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.

Bynner 106

Flowers are shadowed, the palace darkens,
Birds twitter by for a place to perch;
Heaven's ten thousand windows are twinkling,
And nine cloud-terraces are gleaming in the moonlight.
...While I wait for the golden lock to turn,
I hear jade pendants tinkling in the wind....
I have a petition to present in the morning,
All night I ask what time it is.

Bynner 107

This is the road by which I fled,
When the rebels had reached the west end of the city;
And terror, ever since, has clutched at my vitals
Lest some of my soul should never return.
...The court has come back now, filling the capital;
But the Emperor sends me away again.
Useless and old, I rein in my horse
For one last look at the thousand gates.

Bynner 108

A wanderer hears drums portending battle.
By the first call of autumn from a wildgoose at the border,
He knows that the dews tonight will be frost.
...How much brighter the moonlight is at home!
O my brothers, lost and scattered,
What is life to me without you?
Yet if missives in time of peace go wrong –
What can I hope for during war?

Bynner 109

A cold wind blows from the far sky....
What are you thinking of, old friend?
The wildgeese never answer me.
Rivers and lakes are flooded with rain.
...A poet should beware of prosperity,
Yet demons can haunt a wanderer.
Ask an unhappy ghost, throw poems to him
Where he drowned himself in the Milo River.

Bynner 110

This is where your comrade must leave you,
Turning at the foot of these purple mountains....
When shall we lift our cups again, I wonder,
As we did last night and walk in the moon?
The region is murmuring farewell
To one who was honoured through three reigns;
And back I go now to my river-village,
Into the final solitude.

Bynner 111

Having to travel back now from this far place,
I dismount beside your lonely tomb.
The ground where I stand is wet with my tears;
The sky is dark with broken clouds....
I who played chess with the great Premier
Am bringing to my lord the dagger he desired.
But I find only petals falling down,
I hear only linnets answering.

Bynner 112

A light wind is rippling at the grassy shore....
Through the night, to my motionless tall mast,
The stars lean down from open space,
And the moon comes running up the river.
...If only my art might bring me fame
And free my sick old age from office! –
Flitting, flitting, what am I like
But a sand-snipe in the wide, wide world!

Bynner 113

I had always heard of Lake Dongting –
And now at last I have climbed to this tower.
With Wu country to the east of me and Chu to the south,
I can see heaven and earth endlessly floating.
...But no word has reached me from kin or friends.
I am old and sick and alone with my boat.
North of this wall there are wars and mountains –
And here by the rail how can I help crying?

Bynner 114

The mountains are cold and blue now
And the autumn waters have run all day.
By my thatch door, leaning on my staff,
I listen to cicadas in the evening wind.
Sunset lingers at the ferry,
Supper-smoke floats up from the houses.
...Oh, when shall I pledge the great Hermit again
And sing a wild poem at Five Willows?

Bynner 115

After rain the empty mountain
Stands autumnal in the evening,
Moonlight in its groves of pine,
Stones of crystal in its brooks.
Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,
Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat –
And what does it matter that springtime has gone,
While you are here, O Prince of Friends?

Bynner 116

The limpid river, past its bushes
Running slowly as my chariot,
Becomes a fellow voyager
Returning home with the evening birds.
A ruined city-wall overtops an old ferry,
Autumn sunset floods the peaks.
...Far away, beside Mount Song,
I shall close my door and be at peace.

Bynner 117

Its massive height near the City of Heaven
Joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea.
Clouds, when I look back, close behind me,
Mists, when I enter them, are gone.
A central peak divides the wilds
And weather into many valleys.
...Needing a place to spend the night,
I call to a wood-cutter over the river.

Bynner 118

As the years go by, give me but peace,
Freedom from ten thousand matters.
I ask myself and always answer:
What can be better than coming home?
A wind from the pine-trees blows my sash,
And my lute is bright with the mountain moon.
You ask me about good and evil fortune?....
Hark, on the lake there's a fisherman singing!

Bynner 119

Not knowing the way to the Temple of Heaped Fragrance,
Under miles of mountain-cloud I have wandered
Through ancient woods without a human track;
But now on the height I hear a bell.
A rillet sings over winding rocks,
The sun is tempered by green pines....
And at twilight, close to an emptying pool,
Thought can conquer the Passion-Dragon.

Bynner 120

From ten thousand valleys the trees touch heaven;
On a thousand peaks cuckoos are calling;
And, after a night of mountain rain,
From each summit come hundreds of silken cascades.
...If girls are asked in tribute the fibre they weave,
Or farmers quarrel over taro fields,
Preside as wisely as Wenweng did....
Is fame to be only for the ancients?

Bynner 121

With its three southern branches reaching the Chu border,
And its nine streams touching the gateway of Jing,
This river runs beyond heaven and earth,
Where the colour of mountains both is and is not.
The dwellings of men seem floating along
On ripples of the distant sky –
These beautiful days here in Xiangyang
Make drunken my old mountain heart!

Bynner 122

My heart in middle age found the Way.
And I came to dwell at the foot of this mountain.
When the spirit moves, I wander alone
Amid beauty that is all for me....
I will walk till the water checks my path,
Then sit and watch the rising clouds –
And some day meet an old wood-cutter
And talk and laugh and never return.

Bynner 123

Here in the Eighth-month the waters of the lake
Are of a single air with heaven,
And a mist from the Yun and Meng valleys
Has beleaguered the city of Youzhou.
I should like to cross, but I can find no boat.
...How ashamed I am to be idler than you statesmen,
As I sit here and watch a fisherman casting
And emptily envy him his catch.

Bynner 124

While worldly matters take their turn,
Ancient, modern, to and fro,
Rivers and mountains are changeless in their glory
And still to be witnessed from this trail.
Where a fisher-boat dips by a waterfall,
Where the air grows colder, deep in the valley,
The monument of Yang remains;
And we have wept, reading the words.

Bynner 125

In my bed among the woods, grieving that spring must end,
I lifted up the curtain on a pathway of flowers,
And a flashing bluebird bade me come
To the dwelling-place of the Red Pine Genie.
...What a flame for his golden crucible –
Peach-trees magical with buds ! –
And for holding boyhood in his face,
The rosy-flowing wine of clouds!

Bynner 126

I petition no more at the north palace-gate.
...To this tumble-down hut on Zhongnan Mountain
I was banished for my blunders, by a wise ruler.
I have been sick so long I see none of my friends.
My white hairs hasten my decline,
Like pale beams ending the old year.
Therefore I lie awake and ponder
On the pine-shadowed moonlight in my empty window.

Bynner 127

Preparing me chicken and rice, old friend,
You entertain me at your farm.
We watch the green trees that circle your village
And the pale blue of outlying mountains.
We open your window over garden and field,
To talk mulberry and hemp with our cups in our hands.
...Wait till the Mountain Holiday –
I am coming again in chrysanthemum time.

Bynner 128

Visite à un ami
dans sa maison de campagne1

Un ancien ami m'offre une poule et du riz ;
Il m'invite à venir le voir dans sa maison des champs.
Des arbres vigoureux entourent le village qu'il habite d'une verte ceinture ;
On a pour horizon des montagnes bleues, dont les pics se découpent sur un ciel lumineux.

Le couvert est mis dans une salle ouverte, d'où l'œil parcourt le jardin de mon hôte ;
Nous nous versons à boire ; nous causons du chanvre et des mûriers.
Attendons maintenant l'automne2, attendons que fleurissent les chrysanthèmes,
Et je viendrai vous voir encore, pour les contempler avec vous.

1. Cet ami était Ouang-oey, à qui j'ai fait plus haut quelques emprunts, et dont la maison de campagne jouissait d'une grande célébrité, ainsi que l'atteste une note du roman des Deux jeunes filles lettrées, traduit par M. Stanislas Julien (t. I, p. 175). On voit du reste, par la pièce de Mong-kao-jèn, avec quelle simplicité on y vivait.

2. Littéralement : attendons l'époque (appelée) Tchong-yang. C'est le neuvième jour du neuvième mois, époque où l'on célèbre la fête de l'automne. (Voir la note ci-dessus, p. 230.)

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Hervey 65

How gladly I would seek a mountain
If I had enough means to live as a recluse!
For I turn at last from serving the State
To the Eastern Woods Temple and to you, my master.
...Like ashes of gold in a cinnamon-flame,
My youthful desires have been burnt with the years-
And tonight in the chilling sunset-wind
A cicada, singing, weighs on my heart.

Bynner 129

With monkeys whimpering on the shadowy mountain,
And the river rushing through the night,
And a wind in the leaves along both banks,
And the moon athwart my solitary sail,
I, a stranger in this inland district,
Homesick for my Yangzhou friends,
Send eastward two long streams of tears
To find the nearest touch of the sea.

Bynner 130

Slow and reluctant, I have waited
Day after day, till now I must go.
How sweet the road-side flowers might be
If they did not mean good-bye, old friend.
The Lords of the Realm are harsh to us
And men of affairs are not our kind.
I will turn back home, I will say no more,
I will close the gate of my old garden.

Bynner 131

South go the wildgesse, for leaves are now falling,
And the water is cold with a wind from the north.
I remember my home; but the Xiang River's curves
Are walled by the clouds of this southern country.
I go forward. I weep till my tears are spent.
I see a sail in the far sky.
Where is the ferry? Will somebody tell me?
It's growing rough. It's growing dark.

Bynner 132

So autumn breaks my homesick heart....
Few pilgrims venture climbing to a temple so wild,
Up from the lake, in the mountain clouds.
...Sunset clings in the old defences,
A stone gong shivers through the empty woods.
...Of the Southern Dynasty, what remains?
Nothing but the great River.

Bynner 133

Sad wanderer, once you conquered the South,
Commanding a hundred thousand men;
Today, dismissed and dispossessed,
In your old age you remember glory.
Once, when you stood, three borders were still;
Your dagger was the scale of life.
Now, watching the great rivers, the Jiang and the Han,
On their ways in the evening, where do you go?

Bynner 134

Toward a mist upon the water
Still I wave my hand and sob,
For the flying bird is lost in space
Beyond a desolate green mountain....
But now the long river, the far lone sail,
five lakes, gleam like spring in the sunset;
And down an island white with duckweed
Comes the quiet of communion.

Bynner 135

Walking along a little path,
I find a footprint on the moss,
A while cloud low on the quiet lake,
Grasses that sweeten an idle door,
A pine grown greener with the rain,
A brook that comes from a mountain source –
And, mingling with Truth among the flowers,
I have forgotten what to say.

Bynner 136

New Year's only deepens my longing,
Adds to the lonely tears of an exile
Who, growing old and still in harness,
Is left here by the homing spring....
Monkeys come down from the mountains to haunt me.
I bend like a willow, when it rains on the river.
I think of Jia Yi, who taught here and died here-
And I wonder what my term shall be.

Bynner 137

You were foreordained to find the source.
Now, tracing your way as in a dream
There where the sea floats up the sky,
You wane from the world in your fragile boat....
The water and the moon are as calm as your faith,
Fishes and dragons follow your chanting,
And the eye still watches beyond the horizon
The holy light of your single lantern.

Bynner 138

At a little grass-hut in the valley of the river,
Where a cloud seems born from a viney wall,
You will love the bamboos new with rain,
And mountains tender in the sunset.
Cranes drift early here to rest
And autumn flowers are slow to fade....
I have bidden my pupil to sweep the grassy path
For the coming of my friend.

Bynner 139

We used to be companions on the Jiang and the Han,
And as often as we met, we were likely to be tipsy.
Since we left one another, floating apart like clouds,
Ten years have run like water-till at last we join again.
And we talk again and laugh again just as in earlier days,
Except that the hair on our heads is tinged now with grey.
Why not come along, then, all of us together,
And face the autumn mountains and sail along the Huai?

Bynner 140

Is it raining on the river all the way to Chu? – -
The evening bell comes to us from Nanjing.
Your wet sail drags and is loath to be going
And shadowy birds are flying slow.
We cannot see the deep ocean-gate –
Only the boughs at Pukou, newly dripping.
Likewise, because of our great love,
There are threads of water on our faces.

Bynner 141

While a cold wind is creeping under my mat,
And the city's naked wall grows pale with the autumn moon,
I see a lone wild-goose crossing the River of Stars,
And I hear, on stone in the night, thousands of washing mallets....
But, instead of wishing the season, as it goes,
To bear me also far away,
I have found your poem so beautiful
That I forget the homing birds.

Bynner 142

On a road outreaching the white clouds,
By a spring outrunning the bluest river,
Petals come drifting on the wind
And the brook is sweet with them all the way.
My quiet gate is a mountain-trail,
And the willow-trees about my cottage
Sift on my sleeve, through the shadowy noon,
Distillations of the sun.

Bynner 143

While the autumn moon is pouring full
On a thousand night-levels among towns and villages,
There meet by chance, south of the river,
Dreaming doubters of a dream....
In the trees a wind has startled the birds,
And insects cower from cold in the grass;
But wayfarers at least have wine
And nothing to fear – till the morning bell.

Bynner 144

By my old gate, among yellow grasses,
Still we linger, sick at heart.
The way you must follow through cold clouds
Will lead you this evening into snow.
Your father died; you left home young;
Nobody knew of your misfortunes.
We cry, we say nothing. What can I wish you,
In this blowing wintry world?

Bynner 145

After these ten torn wearisome years
We have met again. We were both so changed
That hearing first your surname, I thought you a stranger –
Then hearing your given name, I remembered your young face....
All that has happened with the tides
We have told and told till the evening bell....
Tomorrow you journey to Youzhou,
Leaving autumn between us, peak after peak.

Bynner 146

Long divided by river and sea,
For years we two have failed to meet –
And suddenly to find you seems like a dream....
With a catch in the throat, we ask how old we are.
...Our single lamp shines, through cold and wet,
On a bamboo- thicket sheathed in rain;
But forgetting the sadness that will come with tomorrow,
Let us share the comfort of this farewell wine.

Bynner 147

With no other neighbour but the quiet night,
Here I live in the same old cottage;
And as raindrops brighten yellow leaves,
The lamp illumines my white head....
Out of the world these many years,
I am ashamed to receive you here.
But you cannot come too often,
More than brother, lifelong friend.

Bynner 148

In dangerous times we two came south;
Now you go north in safety, without me.
But remember my head growing white among strangers,
When you look on the blue of the mountains of home.
...The moon goes down behind a ruined fort,
Leaving star-clusters above an old gate....
There are shivering birds and withering grasses,
Whichever way I turn my face.

Bynner 149

Even in this world the spirit of a hero
Lives and reigns for thousands of years.
You were the firmest of the pot's three legs;
It was you who maintained the honour of the currency;
You chose a great premier to magnify your kingdom....
And yet you had a son so little like his father
That girls of your country were taken captive
To dance in the palace of the King of Wei.

Bynner 150

Last year you went with your troops to Tibet;
And when your men had vanished beyond the citywall,
News was cut off between the two worlds
As between the living and the dead.
No one has come upon a faithful horse guarding
A crumpled tent or torn flag, or any trace of you.
If only I knew, I might serve you in the temple,
Instead of these tears toward the far sky.

Bynner 151

Boundless grasses over the plain
Come and go with every season;
Wildfire never quite consumes them –
They are tall once more in the spring wind.
Sweet they press on the old high- road
And reach the crumbling city-gate....
O Prince of Friends, you are gone again....
I hear them sighing after you.

Bynner 152

L'herbe

Fraîche et jolie, voilà l'herbe nouvelle qui croît partout dans la campagne ;
Chaque année la voit disparaître, chaque année la voit revenir.
Le feu la dévore à l'automne1, sans épuiser en elle le germe de la vie ;
Que le souffle du printemps renaisse, elle renaît bientôt avec lui.

Sa verdure vigoureuse envahit peu à peu le vieux chemin,
Ondulant par un beau soleil, jusqu'aux murs de la ville en ruines.
L'herbe s'est flétrie, l'herbe a repoussé, depuis que mon seigneur est parti2 ;
Hélas ! en la voyant si verte, j'ai le cœur assailli de bien cruels souvenirs.

1. Quand on la brûle dans les champs, avant de labourer.

2. Littéralement « encore une fois (elle est verte depuis que l') on a reconduit Ouang-tsun, qui s'en allait. Cette verdure remplit (mon cœur) des sentiments de la séparation ».

L'expression Ouang-tsun, que j'ai rendue par monseigneur, et qui désigne ici l'époux d'une jeune femme affligée de son absence, tire cette acception d'un passage du Li-sao, le plus ancien recueil poétique de la Chine après le Chi-king, où il est dit :

Ouang-tsun est en voyage, hélas ! et ne revient pas ;

Et voici les jolies herbes qui poussent, hélas ! elles sont bien vertes.

Or, ce Ouang-tsun était un personnage qui avait quitté son pays au printemps alors que l'herbe poussait partout dans les champs ; bien des jours s'étaient écoulés depuis son départ, et l'aspect de la campagne, de nouveau verdoyante, rappelait douloureusement à sa femme l'époque où elle avait reçu ses adieux.

La pièce de Pé-kiu-y, et surtout les deux vers qui la terminent seraient absolument inintelligibles, si l'on n'avait présent à l'esprit le passage du Li-sao auquel il est fait allusion ; mais dès qu'on se le rappelle, on saisit tout un ensemble d'idées que le poète n'aurait pu renfermer en deux vers, et cette confiance dans l'érudition du lecteur est toujours un mérite aux yeux des Chinois.

Voir d'autres traductions françaises.

Hervey 77

Solitary at the tavern,
I am shut in with loneliness and grief.
Under the cold lamp, I brood on the past;
I am kept awake by a lost wildgoose.
...Roused at dawn from a misty dream,
I read, a year late, news from home –
And I remember the moon like smoke on the river
And a fisher-boat moored there, under my door.

Bynner 153

Red leaves are fluttering down the twilight
Past this arbour where I take my wine;
Cloud-rifts are blowing toward Great Flower Mountain,
And a shower is crossing the Middle Ridge.
I can see trees colouring a distant wall.
I can hear the river seeking the sea,
As I the Imperial City tomorrow –
But I dream of woodsmen and fishermen.

Bynner 154

There's a harp in the midnight playing clear,
While the west wind rustles a green vine;
There's a low cloud touching the jade-white dew
And an early wildgoose in the River of Stars....
Night in the tall trees clings to dawn;
Light makes folds in the distant hills;
And here on the Huai, by one falling leaf,
I can feel a storm on Lake Dongting.

Bynner 155

Pure of heart and therefore hungry,
All night long you have sung in vain –
Oh, this final broken indrawn breath
Among the green indifferent trees!
Yes, I have gone like a piece of driftwood,
I have let my garden fill with weeds....
I bless you for your true advice
To live as pure a life as yours.

Bynner 156

I ponder on the poem of The Precious Dagger.
My road has wound through many years.
...Now yellow leaves are shaken with a gale;
Yet piping and fiddling keep the Blue Houses merry.
On the surface, I seem to be glad of new people;
But doomed to leave old friends behind me,
I cry out from my heart for Xinfeng wine
To melt away my thousand woes.

Bynner 157

Gone is the guest from the Chamber of Rank,
And petals, confused in my little garden,
Zigzagging down my crooked path,
Escort like dancers the setting sun.
Oh, how can I bear to sweep them away?
To a sad-eyed watcher they never return.
Heart's fragrance is spent with the ending of spring
And nothing left but a tear-stained robe.

Bynner 158

You are gone. The river is high at my door.
Cicadas are mute on dew-laden boughs.
This is a moment when thoughts enter deep.
I stand alone for a long while.
...The North Star is nearer to me now than spring,
And couriers from your southland never arrive –
Yet I doubt my dream on the far horizon
That you have found another friend.

Bynner 159

Where the sun has entered the western hills,
I look for a monk in his little straw hut;
But only the fallen leaves are at home,
And I turn through chilling levels of cloud
I hear a stone gong in the dusk,
I lean full-weight on my slender staff
How within this world, within this grain of dust,
Can there be any room for the passions of men?

Bynner 160

The old fort brims with yellow leaves....
You insist upon forsaking this place where you have lived.
A high wind blows at Hanyang Ferry
And sunrise lights the summit of Yingmen....
Who will be left for me along the upper Yangzi
After your solitary skiff has entered the end of the sky?
I ask you over and over when we shall meet again,
While we soften with winecups this ache of farewell.

Bynner 161

After the shower at Bashang,
I see an evening line of wildgeese,
The limp-hanging leaves of a foreign tree,
A lantern's cold gleam, lonely in the night,
An empty garden, white with dew,
The ruined wall of a neighbouring monastery.
...I have taken my ease here long enough.
What am I waiting for, I wonder.

Bynner 162

A cold light shines on the gathering dew,
As sunset fades beyond the southern mountains;
Trees echo with monkeys on the banks of Lake Dongting,
Where somebody is moving in an orchid-wood boat.
Marsh-lands are swollen wide with the moon,
While torrents are bent to the mountains' will;
And the vanished Queens of the Clouds leave me
Sad with autumn all night long.

Bynner 163

Though a bugle breaks the crystal air of autumn,
Soldiers, in the look-out, watch at ease today
The spring wind blowing across green graves
And the pale sun setting beyond Liangzhou.
For now, on grey plains done with war,
The border is open to travel again;
And Tartars can no more choose than rivers:
They are running, all of them, toward the south.

Bynner 164

Farther and farther from the three Ba Roads,
I have come three thousand miles, anxious and watchful,
Through pale snow-patches in the jagged nightmountains –
A stranger with a lonely lantern shaken in the wind.
...Separation from my kin
Binds me closer to my servants –
Yet how I dread, so far adrift,
New Year's Day, tomorrow morning!

Bynner 165

Line after line has flown back over the border.
Where are you headed all by yourself?
In the evening rain you call to them –
And slowly you alight on an icy pond.
The low wet clouds move faster than you
Along the wall toward the cold moon.
...If they caught you in a net or with a shot,
Would it be worse than flying alone?

Bynner 166

Knowing beauty my misfortune,
I face my mirror with a sigh.
To please a fastidious emperor,
How shall I array myself?....
Birds flock and sing when the wind is warm,
Flower-shadows climb when the sun is high –
And year after year girls in the south
Are picking hibiscus, dreaming of love!

Bynner 167

Far through the night a harp is sighing
With a sadness of wind and rain in the strings....
There's a solitary lantern, a bugle-call –
And beyond Terrace Tower down goes the moon.
...Fragrant grasses have changed and faded
While still I have been hoping that my old friend would come....
There are no more messengers I can send him,
Now that the wildgeese have turned south.

Bynner 168

To find you, moved beyond the city,
A wide path led me, by mulberry and hemp,
To a new-set hedge of chrysanthemums –
Not yet blooming although autumn had come.
...I knocked; no answer, not even a dog.
I waited to ask your western neighbour;
But he told me that daily you climb the mountain,
Never returning until sunset.

Bynner 169