Borges' Library

Mountains Laughing in Spring

 

春山淡治而如笑

夏山蒼翠而如滴

秋山明浄而如粧

冬山惨淡而如眠

Mountains in spring

--calm and smiling 

Mountains in summer

-- luxurious and dripping blue green blue

Mountains in autumn

--bright and clean, adorned in color

Mountains in winter

--somber, as if asleep

 

++++

My first attempt below followed by brilliant friends' suggestions below.

Mountains smile in spring

Mountains drip blue-green in summer

Mountains are clear, adorned in color in autumn

Mountains in winter grow quiet, as if asleep

 

 

++

笑= laughing, smiling, blossoming

Jan Walls:

Mountains in spring, calm and peaceful,
seem to be smiling.
Mountains in summer, lush and green,
seem to be dripping.
Mountains in autumn, bright and clean,
seem to be adorned.
Mountains in winter, pitiful and bland,
seem to be asleep.

I love how he retains the form七言絶句 

 

Gary Gach:

This mountain, in spring
xxxx xxxx
This mountain, in summer
xxxx xxxx
Etc.
( I break up the line and use hung indents – having worked with CH Kwock for a couple decades )
Also – to catch the poem's voice I wonder who wrote it / when / why etc

 

Samel Peralta:

I agree with Gary's idea and ear. I would use "These mountains" to work between his and your thoughts.

And:

Ah I see! What about using "verdigris" - it connotes wetness because it is an artist color. But "blue-green" is good too, if you prefer it... if it were me, I might suggest a dripping: "Mountains drip blue green blue"

But that's just me!

Jim Hill:

Structure is pretty different, but maybe something like:

The Spring Mountain rises to laugh.

The Summer Mountain stands green.

The Autumn Mountain drops multicolor.

The Winter Mountain lay quiet, resting.

 

There's got to be a prettier sounding version of the color than "green"... "Cerulean" sounds nice, but it's not the right color.

I wasn't really satisfied with "stand," but I was kind of going for a cycle with the verbs: rise, stand, drop, lay

I'm pretty far from being a poet.

Eric Selland:

Avoid repeating the word “mountain” in every line. “Mountains smile in spring / In summer lush and green” etc. etc.

Robin: I have been tortured by English forcing that choice for decades but cannot help you. I would like to ask a literate chinese person which they would english this one as.
two easy choices:
13 春さむし富士と筑波と睨みくら互ひに笑ひ吹き出だす風　手柄岡持（E10-3）
In the still cold Spring, Fuji and Tsukuba stare each other down,
when suddenly we hear peals of laughter all around: the wind!
14富士のねも筑波の山も武蔵野のはらを抱えて笑ふ春の日　宿屋飯盛1809沢辺霞丸dr
As Fuji-san & Tsukuba’s warming arms embrace the broad girth
of Musashi Plain this fine Spring day laughter comes to earth.
1818 kamigata kyouka also easy
門松の松ひき抜けば各山も笑わぬ先にゑくぼ見えけり
Where gate-pines were dug out of each hill, how funny to see
before Spring comes and mountains ‘smile’, just the dimples!
1820 also smile
笑いかゝる春の山のハ顕には見せぬ霞の袖に覆いて　庵道
Spring hills, as they smile with blossom lips and leaf-shine teeth,
feel shy to be so patent and raise sleeves of haze between us.
But, 上方狂歌「風の手にこそぐり立つる山の腰くつ／＼笑う春は来にけりIn the Land of the Rising Sun where the Wind has hands like you & me
the mountain buttes get tickled in the Spring: see them laughing heartily.
Got zillions more but one last C+V
江戸下作の天才京伝（1816没）の「山々の一度に笑ふ雪解にそこハけた／＼ここハくつ／＼」も、★1819以前の江戸狂歌の寿米留の「見渡せば春の笑ひのへへ／＼とへの字重なる四方の山／＼E11-1」も、英訳せんとすれば、敬愚も笑い物になるが
All the mountains break into smiles or laugh as the snow melts
some are ice-cracking cacklers, some make a mushy chuckle . . .
When we scan the horizon what we see is Spring laughing hey, hey, hey!
in Japanese letters, such へへへs

 

Mountains smiling in early spring" --Borrowed like so many things from China, it was made famous by the Northern Song painter Guo Xi, whose poem about mountains smiling and laughing appeared in an poetry anthology in Japanese known as 漢詩集 「臥遊録」 Chinese Poetry Anthology Dream Journey Jottings: 春山淡治而如笑 夏山蒼翠而如滴 秋山明浄而如粧 冬山惨淡而如眠 “Mountains smiling in early spring” was an image much appreciated in Japan. Imagine after what must have felt like an almost unendingly long period of cold and depressing "mountains sleeping," the mountains in March would seem to almost "spring" to life again.

Painting of Early Spring by Song: Guo Xi's 

To the Tune of Wuling Spring –Li Qingzhao

武陵春 【宋】李清照

風住塵香花已盡，日晚倦梳頭。物是人非事事休，欲語淚先流。
聞說雙溪春尚好，也擬泛輕舟。只恐雙溪舴艋舟，載不動許多愁。

To the Tune of Spring in Wuling  –Li Qingzhao

The wind subsided, the dust has settled
Scattered flowers perfume the ground
Though it's late in the day 
I am too weary to do my hair
Things are the same, though he is gone
So all is lost 
Trying to say something-- only tears flow

They say spring is lovely in Shaungxi
I would sail in a bamboo boat
But I fear the fragile vessel
would not hold my endless grief

++

Art by Daniel Kelly

The Sages

 

1. Tao Yuanming and a poem to cross a desert with (採菊東籬下)

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 (牡丹訳）

A poem to cross a desert with?

He said, the poem is only interesting because the poet had passed the examination system (科挙) and had lived the life of a scholar--but only then, after achieving a high level of accomplishment and cultivation in the world had left it to live in seclusion. That is, it would not have been as interesting if the poet had been born and never left that hut--for this poem is infused with the journey that came before it. It reminded me of something the Japanese monk Yoshida Kenko had written-- that the goal of Zen is to swim out into deep waters with the only real purpose to be finding oneself back up in the shallows again. Back in the shallows but with new vision.

Scattering blossoms, fallen leaves 飛花落葉-- life is change but this idea of gaining new vision is something universally embraced in many cultures as part of the hero's journey, I think. Everything being a matter of the heart　→ 心持次第.

When I was a sollege students in Berkeley, I scribbled a poem by Osip Mandelstam on a purple piece of handmade Nepali paper and thought, "this is a poem to cross a desert with."

Depriving me of sea, of a space to run and a space to fly,
And giving my footsteps the brace of a forced land,
What have you gained? The calculation dazzles
But you cannot seize the movements of my lips, their silent sound.
--Osip Mandelstam 1935

I have carried it with me ever since. Whenever I look at it now, I cannot help but wonder what in the world drew me to it when I was still so young and free-spirited...but in fact this poem, and others by the Mandelstams have sustained me in recent years.-- as a testament to the great strength that our inner lives have to sustain us...

Fast forward twenty-five years, when a forty-five year old woman scrawls one line from another poem on the back of that same mauve-color piece of mulberry paper. This time it was the famous line from Tao Yuanming's poem, Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence:

採菊東籬下

A world away in spirit from Mandelstam's poem perhaps. As the poem sums up perfectly the serenity achieved by a life of cultivation –at the end of the hero's journey.

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）

That line has become a perfect touchstone for the next part of my life; another poem to cross a desert with.

 

2. Li Qingzhao

I am re-reading Wei Djao's book about Li Qingzhao, A Blossom like No Other. One of China's greatest poets, I am a huge fan of Lady Li--and not surprisingly, Lady Li took her sobriquet (号:易安) from another line by Tao Yuanming → 倚南窗以寄傲， 审容膝之易安　(Leaning on the southern window, I surrender my pride to nature and in this room scarely big enough to contain my knees, I am easily contented). The line, which is very famous, was taken from an essay by Tao Yuanming (also known as, Tao Qian 陶潛) called "Homecoming" (歸去來兮辭). The essay, written in 404 CE is about the poet's leaving officialdom to "return home" and devote the rest of his life to self-cultivation and the simple life. The essay inspired countless philosophers and poets in China and Japan to turn inward and to never forget that "less is more." Lady Li and her husband Zhao Mingcheng named their own country home, The Return Home Hall 歸來堂 to signify their commitment to living a simple life in harmony with nature.

She also signed her works thus: 易安 "easily contented" and "the inhabitant who is easily contented" 易安居士.

I can really see why some women would want a tattoo. I guess for me, scribbling things on slips of paper that I carry around in my otherwise empty wallet serve the same function. I think the next twenty years, my poem to cross a desert with will be these lines about the simple life by good ol' Tao Yuanming.

Poems: To the Tune of the Proud Fisherman and To the Tune of Wuling Spring

 

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 (牡丹訳）

A poem to cross a desert with?

He said, the poem is only interesting because the poet had passed the examination system (科挙) and had lived the life of a scholar--but only then, after achieving a high level of accomplishment and cultivation in the world had left it to live in seclusion. That is, it would not have been as interesting if the poet had been born and never left that hut--for this poem is infused with the journey that came before it. It reminded me of something the Japanese monk Yoshida Kenko had written-- that the goal of Zen is to swim out into deep waters with the only real purpose to be finding oneself back up in the shallows again. Back in the shallows but with new vision.

Scattering blossoms, fallen leaves 飛花落葉-- life is change but this idea of gaining new vision is something universally embraced in many cultures as part of the hero's journey, I think. Everything being a matter of the heart　→ 心持次第.

When I was a sollege students in Berkeley, I scribbled a poem by Osip Mandelstam on a purple piece of handmade Nepali paper and thought, "this is a poem to cross a desert with."

Depriving me of sea, of a space to run and a space to fly,
And giving my footsteps the brace of a forced land,
What have you gained? The calculation dazzles
But you cannot seize the movements of my lips, their silent sound.
--Osip Mandelstam 1935

I have carried it with me ever since. Whenever I look at it now, I cannot help but wonder what in the world drew me to it when I was still so young and free-spirited...but in fact this poem, and others by the Mandelstams have sustained me in recent years.-- as a testament to the great strength that our inner lives have to sustain us...

Fast forward twenty-five years, when a forty-five year old woman scrawls one line from another poem on the back of that same mauve-color piece of mulberry paper. This time it was the famous line from Tao Yuanming's poem, Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence:

採菊東籬下

A world away in spirit from Mandelstam's poem perhaps. As the poem sums up perfectly the serenity achieved by a life of cultivation –at the end of the hero's journey.

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）

That line has become a perfect touchstone for the next part of my life; another poem to cross a desert with.

 

2. Li Qingzhao

I am re-reading Wei Djao's book about Li Qingzhao, A Blossom like No Other. One of China's greatest poets, I am a huge fan of Lady Li--and not surprisingly, Lady Li took her sobriquet (号:易安) from another line by Tao Yuanming → 倚南窗以寄傲， 审容膝之易安　(Leaning on the southern window, I surrender my pride to nature and in this room scarely big enough to contain my knees, I am easily contented). The line, which is very famous, was taken from an essay by Tao Yuanming (also known as, Tao Qian 陶潛) called "Homecoming" (歸去來兮辭). The essay, written in 404 CE is about the poet's leaving officialdom to "return home" and devote the rest of his life to self-cultivation and the simple life. The essay inspired countless philosophers and poets in China and Japan to turn inward and to never forget that "less is more." Lady Li and her husband Zhao Mingcheng named their own country home, The Return Home Hall 歸來堂 to signify their commitment to living a simple life in harmony with nature.

She also signed her works thus: 易安 "easily contented" and "the inhabitant who is easily contented" 易安居士.

I can really see why some women would want a tattoo. I guess for me, scribbling things on slips of paper that I carry around in my otherwise empty wallet serve the same function. I think the next twenty years, my poem to cross a desert with will be these lines about the simple life by good ol' Tao Yuanming.

Poems: To the Tune of the Proud Fisherman and To the Tune of Wuling Spring

 

To the Tune of the Proud Fisherman, by Li Qingzhao

漁家傲·天接雲濤連曉霧
宋代：李清照

天接雲濤連曉霧。星河欲轉千帆舞。彷彿夢魂歸帝所。聞天語。殷勤問我歸何處。
我報路長嗟日暮。學詩謾有驚人句。九萬里風鵬正舉。風休住。蓬舟吹取三山去。

The sky merges billowing clouds into morning mists

The river of stars rotates, a thousand dancing sails

My dreaming cloud-soul is carried to heaven

And hearing heaven speak:

Honoring me by asking: "Where are you going?" 

I respond that the road is long, the hour late

I’ve learned to astonish with my poetry-- but what use has it been?

A mythical bird is taking flight, raising a vast wind

Oh, wind, don’t stop blowing

Blow this tiny boat to the Isles of the Immortals

 

❤️❤️

Wei Djao writes that Lady Li was following the Song emperor by sea around the time this ci was written. I wanted to preserve the repeated use of "I" in lines 6 and 7, while also trying to retain the allusion to Li Bai about "hearing heaven speak." Thanks to Ronald Egan's translation, I realized something that I never would have noticed. The use of cloud-soul. A multiplicity of souls, she had her cloud-souls (魂) and white-souls (魄). I LOVED Robert Campany's book on the Chinese Dreamscape. He writes so beautifully about dreaming in ancient Chinese and our "dividual, multipartite, and fissiparous" selves.

I loved Wendy Chen's translation--and, of course, Wei Djao. 

Art by Daniel Kelly

Return to The Sages

 

A Translator Gets Translated

In 2012, I was invited to a conference in Shanghai: 

Rethinking City and Identity 反思城市与身份认同 Institute of Arts and Humanities，Shanghai Jiao Tong University 上海交通大学 人文艺术研究院 Shanghai, 16-18 May ( Download Conference Program (1) - Copy)

Various academics and media people presented papers on the spirit of a particular city. I spoke on Tokyo, a city where I lived for ten years, before moving to my beloved Tochigi for another twelve years. 

It was a lot of fun--and I loved meeting new friends and seeing Shanghai. I also realized how daunting and hard it is to give an academic paper at a conference. It was pretty humbling.

The good news was our papers were translated into Chinese and yesterday the book arrived in the mail. What a surprise!

Now, it is being published in a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. It was peer-reviewed, where I received the following surprisingly generous comments. The paper can be downloaded below.

Download Tokyo city of fires and flowersTokyo:

This essay is brilliant. It teaches. It deserves praise for its rigorousness, grounded in a rich historical and philosophical situatedness. It helps newcomers to Tokyo make sense of the city. I would recommend publication after attending to the following suggestions.

This line (page 14?): “And, so because the city never seems to generate anything beyond the sum of its parts, people are both embedded in-- as well as defined by—the neighborhoods.” is troubling because it has an (analytic) metaphysical trap door that will lead to criticism. I’d delete it.

It could use an edit for punctuation and hyphenation (when fitting). The author might want to trim a bit because the paper is too long (only a suggestion that can be dismissed entirely).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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