A Song of Valediction:
Dreaming I Roamed on TianMu Mountain
by Li
Bai (701-762)
Back in 2001
I got the notion of trying my hand at poetry translation. I tackled
one of Li Bai's poems, Meng You TianMu Yin LiuBie--"A Song of
Valediction: Dreaming I Roamed on TianMu Mountain." The result, which
was not altogether satisfactory, can be inspected
here.
Here is a
reading of the poem in modern Chinese by a Chinese actor, Sun DaoLin.
I have taken it from a CD titled Tang Shi Song Ci Jing Dian YinSong--"A
Classical Recital of Tang Shi and Song Ci." (Tang and
Song are the names of two medieval dynasties. Shi and Ci
are styles of poetry.)
Li Bai is one of the
"three greats" of Tang poetry, the other two being
Du Fu and
Wang Wei. The
commonplace, and not entirely facile, thumbnail sketch of these three tags
each with one of the main strands of Chinese life-philosophy: Du Fu
with Confucianism, Wang Wei with Buddhism, Li Bai with Taoism. This
poem was written in 742, when the poet was 40 or 41 years old.
For some
general remarks of mine about Tang poetry, see
here.
For my review of Simon Elegant's fictionalized life of Li Bai, see
here.
(Listen to the reading)
海客谈瀛洲，烟涛微茫信难求。
越人语天姥，云霓明灭或可睹。
天姥连天向天横，势拔五岳掩赤城。
天台四万八千丈，对此欲倒东南倾。
我欲因之梦吴越，一夜飞度镜湖月。
湖月照我影，送我至剡溪。
谢公宿处今尚在，绿水荡漾清猿啼，脚著谢公屐，身登青云梯。
半壁见海日，空中闻天鸡。
千岩万转路不定，迷花倚石忽已暝。
熊咆龙吟殷岩泉，深林兮惊层巅。
云青青兮欲雨，水澹澹兮生烟。
列缺霹雳，丘峦崩摧。
洞天石扇，訇然中开。
青冥浩荡不见底，日月照耀金银台。
霓为衣兮风为马，云之君兮纷纷而来下。
虎鼓瑟兮鸾回车，仙之人兮列如麻。
忽魂悸以魄动，恍惊起而长嗟。
惟觉时之枕席，失向来之烟霞。
世间行乐亦如此，古来万事东流水。
别君去兮何时还？且放白鹿青崖间，须行即骑访名山。
安能摧眉折腰事权贵，使我不得开心颜！
Witter Bynner's translation:
A
seafaring visitor will talk about Japan,
Which
waters and mists conceal beyond approach;
But Yueh
people talk about Heavenly Mother Mountain,
Still seen
through its varying deeps of cloud.
In a
straight line to heaven, its summit enters heaven,
Tops the
five Holy Peaks, and casts a shadow through China
With the
hundred-mile length of the Heavenly Terrace Range,
Which,
just at this point, begins turning southeast.
...My
heart and my dreams are in Wu and Yueh
And they
cross Mirror Lake all night in the moon.
And the
moon lights my shadow
And me to
Yan River –
With the
hermitage of Xie still there
And the
monkeys calling clearly over ripples of green water.
I wear his
pegged boots
Up a
ladder of blue cloud,
Sunny
ocean half-way,
Holy
cock-crow in space,
Myriad
peaks and more valleys and nowhere a road.
Flowers
lure me, rocks ease me. Day suddenly ends.
Bears,
dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river,
Startle
the forest and make the heights tremble.
Clouds
darken with darkness of rain,
Streams
pale with pallor of mist.
The Gods
of Thunder and Lightning
Shatter
the whole range.
The stone
gate breaks asunder
Venting in
the pit of heaven,
An
impenetrable shadow.
...But now
the sun and moon illumine a gold and silver terrace,
And, clad
in rainbow garments, riding on the wind,
Come the
queens of all the clouds, descending one by one,
With
tigers for their lute-players and phoenixes for dancers.
Row upon
row, like fields of hemp, range the fairy figures.
I move, my
soul goes flying,
I wake
with a long sigh,
My pillow
and my matting
Are the
lost clouds I was in.
...And
this is the way it always is with human joy:
Ten
thousand things run for ever like water toward the east.
And so I
take my leave of you, not knowing for how long.
...But let
me, on my green slope, raise a white deer
And ride
to you, great mountain, when I have need of you.
Oh, how
can I gravely bow and scrape to men of high rank and men of high office
Who never
will suffer being shown an honest-hearted face!
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