July 2021
So high is the Sorceler Mountain
So high is the Sorceler Mountain
And so deep is Huai River,
Difficult to travel through;
Without wings,
Impossible is my return.
After so many efforts to go East
Why this still remains a dream?
I want a crossing
But there is no boat.
And why the current is so fierce
For me to jump?
From the shore when I look afar
My coat becomes wet of tears
Unspeakable feeling
A man on his long journey
June 2021
Journey to the ouest (from the collection of « Yue Fu Songs » first part)
What’s in paradise?
Rows of redwoods
and osmanthus border the trails,
Blue Dragons sit aside ;
the song of a phoenix
guiding nine young birds,
Looking back at the humain world
They find nothing enviable.
A good lady receives guests
with peace and joy.
She bends and kneels down
to greet the guests.
Then she invites them to the northside sitting room
and let them to sit on a woolen carpet,
Pure wine in different pots,
rubbles rise when cups are filled
May 2021
Song of Yue Fu: "The Dew on the grass"
How easily is dried out
the dew on the grass.
It will fall again the next day, but
when will be back the breath that has gone?
Whose land is this chilly place
Where both clever and blind souls are gathered?
How impatient is the god of death
Oh no delay is tolerated
Carnet
Chinese thinkers never tried to build a rounded system, said Zhao Ting Yang, not philosophically nor religiously. They believe in the law of change, and the world appears to them as no more than possibilities.
April 2021
Song of Xun Nu people
Lost is my Yan Zhi mountain
Our women become coulourless
Gone is my Qi Lian mountain
Our animals no longer breed
carnet
The overwhelming belief in the irrational power of the supernatural, rather than in any detailed physical laws that can be discovered and then mastered, altered and manipulated, this tendency might have turned people away from philosophical and scientific inquiries.
March 2021
Yue Fu Songs
Song in the countryside temple
The Sun comes and goes
The sun comes and goes
When will this end?
The world lasts differently
So Spring is not my spring
Summer is not my summer
Autumn is not my autumn
Winter is not my winter
If Time is four oceans
People’s life is a small pond
Observing these
I see the pointlessness here
I know how to be happy
by driving six dragons till the sky
When the dragons’ paces are harmonious
My mind will be in peace
Oh god Yellow Carrier
Why has not yet come down
To bring me up to paradise
February 2021
« Tian Wen (Questionning the Highest) 天问 »
About the unknown, overthrowing the mythe about the creation by the Celestral Super being.
“…
At the beginning, who was the guide ?
The formation of the sky and the planet, how to prove it ?
Light and darkness still in one, how were they devided ?
When images were confused, how were they distinguished ? ”
About the douteful, questionning the mythological stories about certain much admired angels, about their assumed power and eternity.
“…
The moon hardly disguised
among the running clouds
What the need to flee
An angel as is Chang E,
So far away, and yet
The arrow of Hou Lian
Could still reach her?
If indeed helped by magic herbes
Couldn’t she humbly
Hide herself on her homeland ?
…
The giant Ao
dancing in the ocean
with the celestral mountains
on its back, but how the mountains
could remain still ?
How the giant gave up his magic boat
To walk on foot and move to the hills ? ”
About the injuste, the injustice from the highest celestral power, from the keen, and from the crowd.
“…
The black shu already planted
The wet land of lu wei already managed
When rewarding the hardworking ones
With herbes of eternalty,
Why the Highest includes Xi
Who failed to control the flood ?
…
For the keedom of Xia
From its attacks to Meng Shan
Have it obtained
Real benefits?
What crimes Mei Xi has committed ?
What was the real reason of the fall of Xia ?
…
“That noble keen of Shang
who made him confused and unwise ?
Why he dislikes his honest supportors ?
Why he listened to devious rumors ?
Is his wife Dan Ji the only one
To be blamed ?”
Carnets
The "child" who wrote "Chinese letters", the narrator in "The field over the sea", was somehow dead, somehow alive.
January 2021
"The fisherman" (extract) by Qu Yuan
Sent for exil, he wandered near the river. Singing poems, he looked thin and weak.
The fisherman met him and asked : « A wise man does not let himself attached to anything, he instead moves along with his world… Why think deep and feel proud, why make yourself dismissed ? »
« After washing one’s hairs, replied Qu Yuan, one wants to dust his hat. After taking a bath, one needs to shake his clothes. How could one let his clean body to touch the dirty earth ? Rather to join the currents in the river, rather to be buried in the womb of fishes. How the pur could bear the dust ? »
With a smile, the fisherman picked up his row and started to sing : « Clean is the water full of waves, it can be used to wash my hat YIN. Disturbed is the water full of waves, it can be used to wash my feet. » And with no more words, he went away
The translator's notes
-- « Fishman » is one of the symbolique figures, or incarnations, of the enlighted being who teaches about the detachment.
-- This piece of work demonstrated the intense inner struggle of Qu Yuan, a question of the kind “to be or not to be”, near the end of his days, when he knew the old world of his was irrevocably vanishing.
Carnets
The pianist Fu Cong, known as Chinese Chopin, was beloved by Polish audience. One said to him: how come he is Chinese, he should be Polish. Fu Cong replied: “I could become Polish, because I am Chinese.”
**************************************
In the internet time, humans, including their mind, could be treated as one of the natural resources waiting to be mined.
Photo by Xu Qin, copy in Qing Dynasty, Shanghai Museum
Decembre 2020
Chu Ge (楚歌）
« A song of Yue » (anonymous)
“What a night it is, oh, sailing between the currents
What a day it is, oh, to travel with the prince
……
My heart can no longer quiet down, oh, since I meet him
Trees in the mountain, oh, branches on the trees,
Of my love he is not aware”
Note :
-- Southern regional songs have existed since long, but the Poetry of Chu 楚辞, as a literary form, was first collected and published by Liu Xiang 刘向（77BCE—6BCE）。
-- Yue 越 was a keendom in today’s lower Delta Chang Jiang area.
--“木有枝 ”（branches on the tree),is pronounced as « mu you zhi », the same pronounciation could also mean « 莫有知 » （do not know).In ancient time, 木and莫have same pronounciation.
To write in the nature, about the nature, for the nature.
The verb should first disappear. Then the “I”.
Technology dominates since 1945, massively transferring power and wealth, bringing the world to a new oral, visual and acting era.
It is assumed, long time ago, in Yi Jing 易經，that the world just IS, with us, or in spite of us. And Buddhism later came to further take off almost all causalities in the happenings in any existence within the cycle of eternal return.
Schopenhauer is a rare true bridge between the East and the West.
That is probably why lots of Chinese thinkers tend to focus on the teaching of "what to do" facing a given situation or an upcoming change, in order to stay away from the nihilism, to be alive even with a fondamental feeling of the fatality.
Extract of “The book of Poetry 诗经”
“Those who know me
Would say I have wonders
Those who don’t understand
Would ask where I’m going
Oh sky so vast,
What indeed I am ? »
Comments by Kong Zi about « The book of Poetry » :
« Sadness without depression, pleasure without abuse ».
It is believed he selected three hundred poems, according to his ascetic taste and his urge to establish order, from three thousands.
October 25
I sometimes feel the comparison between Qing Ping and Haïku should not be automatic, not be of systematic necessity, just as we do not need to bring out Shakespeare that we love, whenever we talk about Dante.
October 20
Extract from 《The Book of Poetry》詩經
"When the mind wonders
I wash my clothes by a stream
In silence my thoughts
Cannot disperse"
CARNET
The entire humanity, not just a part of it, has arrived to a time where the voices of “heroes” will be recalled, because ”heroes” belong to tragedies.
October 9th
Today, Wechat sent in the most recent"Harvest". A lot of ink about Louise Glück. Liu Xiang Yang spent ten years (2006-2016) to translate her, but the author didn't want him to touch her poetry. In the interview with Peng Pai News, Liu appears very poetical.
His translations are in the collection "Silent classicals".
October 7th
Talking about the denominations about the calender, I suddenly recognized that, starting 1949 only, for the first time in its entire history, China adopted "common era", and ended its "one ruler one calendar" tradition.
September 30
Extract of 《The Book of Poetry》詩經
”Such a dark day
with rain and wind
Endless song
of neighbouring chicks
How to still be sad
when you arrived!’
Anonyme of Period Zhou, collected during Chun Qiu (春秋）time.