a poem to cross a desert with (採菊東籬下)

David Hinton, in his wonderful book Hunger Mountain talks about what great teachers mountains can be; how they were believed to dramatically manifest the vast forces and generative powers of the cosmos. Hence, they were perfect places for sages to dwell. Thatch Hut was particularly renown. Now a world heritage site, I did a translation about Zhangjiajie National Park about ten years ago for a Japanese documentary. Of course, it featured the famous poem, written by one of the legendary sages of Thatch Mountain: Tao Yuanming (also known as, Tao Qian 陶潛).

I fell so in love with that poem.

Especially the famous line  採菊東籬下-- Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence. It is a popular subject for the seals of gentlemen retiring as the phrase alone, I think, sums up perfectly the serenity achieved by a life of cultivation and at the end of the hero's journey. Here is my translation below:

 

飲酒詩　　　　　陶淵明
結盧在人境　而無車馬喧
問君何能爾　心遠地自偏
採菊東籬下　悠然見南山
山氣日夕佳　飛鳥相與還
此還有真意　欲辨已忘言

Drinking Wine (#5)–Tao Yuanming
I’ve built my house where others dwell
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses
You ask me how this is possible– (And so I say):
When the heart is far, one is transported
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern fence
And serenely I gaze at the southern mountains
At dusk, the mountain air is good
Flocks of flying birds are returning home
In this, there is a great truth
But wanting to explain it, I forget the words (my trans）

 

But now look at Hinton's:

Drinking Wine

 

I live here in this busy village without

all that racket horses and carts stir up

 

and you wonder how that could ever be.

Wherever the mind dwells apart is itself

 

a distant place. Picking chrysanthemums

at my eastern fence, I see South Mountain

 

far off: air lovely at dusk, birds in flight

Going home. All this means something.

 

Something absolute: whenever I start

to explain it, I forget words altogether

 

Okay, I much prefer mine--though I think my southern mountains is a mistranslation probably. Also it is fantastic the way he retained those symmetrical stanzas.

Regarding the second stanza, the forth line in mine, Hinton says this:

"To understand Thatch Hut Mountain is to take on the nature of the mountain, to live outside the human realm of words and concepts, like those in these chapters, outside even the self to which the name refers. This was a spiritual practice for the ancients, a practice that was ideally cultivated whereever one happened to be, including noisy towns and cities--as in the poem. 

 

++

Looking back at this old blog post, I re-read this poem which someone there shared--feels so long ago:

. . .The wild twister pulls me out
How to return to that mid-field
It should be south, but then north
Saying east, but no, west
Drifting drifting, where should I land
... Quick death and again living
Flutter-float around Eight swamps
In succession passing Five Mountains
Flowing, turning, no constant place:
Who knows my hurt?
The wish to be mid forest grass
Autumn: by wild-fires burned
Annihilation: is there no pain?
The wish for root connection"

from Alas by Ts'ao Chih
trans. Eric Sackheim