Tang Shi – Poèmes de l'Époque des Tang

There seems to be no one on the empty mountain....
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.

Bynner 224

Leaning alone in the close bamboos,
I am playing my lute and humming a song
Too softly for anyone to hear –
Except my comrade, the bright moon.

Bynner 225

Friend, I have watched you down the mountain
Till now in the dark I close my thatch door....
Grasses return again green in the spring,
But O my Prince of Friends, do you?

Bynner 226

When those red berries come in springtime,
Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.

Bynner 227

You who have come from my old country,
Tell me what has happened there ! –
Was the plum, when you passed my silken window,
Opening its first cold blossom?

Bynner 228

Though you think to return to this maze of mountains,
Oh, let them brim your heart with wonder!....
Remember the fisherman from Wuling
Who had only a day in the Peach-Blossom Country.

Bynner 229

See how Zhongnan Mountain soars
With its white top over floating clouds –
And a warm sky opening at the snow-line
While the town in the valley grows colder and colder.

Bynner 230

While my little boat moves on its mooring of mist,
And daylight wanes, old memories begin....
How wide the world was, how close the trees to heaven,
And how clear in the water the nearness of the moon!

Bynner 231

I awake light-hearted this morning of spring,
Everywhere round me the singing of birds –
But now I remember the night, the storm,
And I wonder how many blossoms were broken.

Bynner 232

Pensée dans une nuit tranquille1

Devant mon lit, la lune jette une clarté très vive ;
Je doute un moment si ce n'est point la gelée blanche qui brille sur le sol.
Je lève la tête, je contemple la lune brillante ;
Je baisse la tête et je pense à mon pays.

1. Cette petite pièce appartient au genre que les Chinois nomment vers coupés, c'est-à-dire où, sans préambule, l'on entre tout droit dans le sujet. Peut-être ne sera-t-il pas sans intérêt de voir comment l'analyse un commentateur chinois :

« Li-taï-pé, dit-il, trouve moyen d'être ici tout à la fois d'une concision, d'une clarté et d'un naturel extrêmes, et c'est précisément parce qu'il est naturel, qu'il fait toujours entendre infiniment plus qu'il ne dit. La lune jette une clarté brillante devant son lit ; il doute un moment si ce n'est point de la gelée blanche ; nous jugeons, sans qu'il nous le dise, qu'il dormait, qu'il s'est éveillé et qu'il est d'abord dans ce premier instant du réveil où les idées sont confuses. Il pense aussitôt à la gelée blanche, c'est-à-dire au point du jour, à l'heure où l'on se met en route. N'est-ce pas la première pensée d'un voyageur qui se réveille ?

« Il a levé la tête ; il aperçoit la lune, il la contemple ; puis il baisse la tête et pense à son pays. C'était bien un voyageur ou un exilé. Ce dernier mot ne laisse plus de doute. En voyant cette brillante lumière, il a songé naturellement qu'elle éclairait aussi des lieux qui lui sont chers, il regrette avec amertume de passer une nuit si belle loin de chez lui.

« Le poète nous a fait suivre jusqu'ici la marche de ses pensées par une route si droite que nous n'avons pu nous en écarter. En terminant par ces seuls mots : Je pense à mon pays, il laisse chacun imaginer les pensées tristes qui l'assailleraient lui-même s'il était absent, et après avoir lu sa pièce, chacun se prend à rêver. »

Voir d'autres traductions françaises.

Hervey 13

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed –
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

Bynner 233

How beautiful she looks, opening the pearly casement,
And how quiet she leans, and how troubled her brow is!
You may see the tears now, bright on her cheek,
But not the man she so bitterly loves.

Bynner 234

The Three Kingdoms, divided, have been bound by his greatness.
The Eight-Sided Fortress is founded on his fame;
Beside the changing river, it stands stony as his grief
That he never conquered the Kingdom of Wu.

Bynner 235

Mountains cover the white sun,
And oceans drain the golden river;
But you widen your view three hundred miles
By going up one flight of stairs.

Bynner 236

From the temple, deep in its tender bamboos,
Comes the low sound of an evening bell,
While the hat of a pilgrim carries the sunset
Farther and farther down the green mountain.

Bynner 237

Your seven strings are like the voice
Of a cold wind in the pines,
Singing old beloved songs
Which no one cares for any more.

Bynner 238

Can drifting clouds and white storks
Be tenants in this world of ours? –
Or you still live on Wuzhou Mountain,
Now that people are coming here?

Bynner 239

As I walk in the cool of the autumn night,
Thinking of you, singing my poem,
I hear a mountain pine-cone fall....
You also seem to be awake.

Bynner 240

Her hands of white jade by a window of snow
Are glimmering on a golden-fretted harp –
And to draw the quick eye of Chou Yu,
She touches a wrong note now and then.

Bynner 241

On the third day, taking my place to cook,
Washing my hands to make the bridal soup,
I decide that not my mother-in-law
But my husband's young sister shall have the fiat taste.

Bynner 242

Last night my girdle came undone,
And this morning a luck-beetle flew over my bed.
So here are my paints and here are my powders –
And a welcome for my yoke again.

Bynner 243

A hundred mountains and no bird,
A thousand paths without a footprint;
A little boat, a bamboo cloak,
An old man fishing in the cold river-snow.

Bynner 244

In the faded old imperial palace,
Peonies are red, but no one comes to see them....
The ladies-in-waiting have grown white-haired
Debating the pomps of Emperor Xuanzong.

Bynner 245

There's a gleam of green in an old bottle,
There's a stir of red in the quiet stove,
There's a feeling of snow in the dusk outside –
What about a cup of wine inside?

Bynner 246

A lady of the palace these twenty years,
She has lived here a thousand miles from her home-
Yet ask her for this song and, with the first few words of it,
See how she tries to hold back her tears.

Bynner 247

With twilight shadows in my heart
I have driven up among the Leyou Tombs
To see the sun, for all his glory,
Buried by the coming night.

Bynner 248

When I questioned your pupil, under a pine-tree,
"My teacher," he answered, " went for herbs,
But toward which corner of the mountain,
How can I tell, through all these clouds ?"

Bynner 249

Away from home, I was longing for news
Winter after winter, spring after spring.
Now, nearing my village, meeting people,
I dare not ask a single question.

Bynner 250

Drive the orioles away,
All their music from the trees....
When she dreamed that she went to Liaoxi Camp
To join him there, they wakened her

Bynner 251

This constellation, with its seven high stars,
Is Ge Shu lifting his sword in the night:
And no more barbarians, nor their horses, nor cattle,
Dare ford the river boundary.

Bynner 252

"Tell me, where do you live? –
Near here, by the fishing-pool?
Let's hold our boats together, let's see
If we belong in the same town."

Bynner 253

"Yes, I live here, by the river;
I have sailed on it many and many a time.
Both of us born in Changgan, you and I!
Why haven't we always known each other?"

Bynner 254

Her jade-white staircase is cold with dew;
Her silk soles are wet, she lingered there so long....
Behind her closed casement, why is she still waiting,
Watching through its crystal pane the glow of the autumn moon?

Bynner 255

His golden arrow is tipped with hawk's feathers,
His embroidered silk flag has a tail like a swallow.
One man, arising, gives a new order
To the answering shout of a thousand tents.

Bynner 256

The woods are black and a wind assails the grasses,
Yet the general tries night archery –
And next morning he finds his white-plumed arrow
Pointed deep in the hard rock.

Bynner 257

High in the faint moonlight, wildgeese are soaring.
Tartar chieftains are fleeing through the dark –
And we chase them, with horses lightly burdened
And a burden of snow on our bows and our swords.

Bynner 258

Let feasting begin in the wild camp!
Let bugles cry our victory!
Let us drink, let us dance in our golden armour!
Let us thunder on rivers and hills with our drums!

Bynner 259

Since I married the merchant of Qutang
He has failed each day to keep his word....
Had I thought how regular the tide is,
I might rather have chosen a river-boy.

Bynner 260