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larryhammerThe first of these is an anthology war-horse, appearing not just in 300TP, but it’s rarely noted in English that it was written as part of a four-poem set. Because curious, I once again translated the rest. The result is better than others I've previously done, possibly because Li Bai really is one of the greats. It might help in setting the scene to be reminded he’s drinking rice wine—think sake not shiraz.
Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon: Four Poems, Li Bai
1.
One jar of wine among the flowers—
I drink alone without close friends.
I raise my cup, inviting the moon—
With matching shadow, that makes us three,
Though moon of course can’t grasp a drink
And shadow helplessly follows my body.
With my companions, moon and shadow,
I happily enjoy the spring:
I sing, the moon bobs back and forth—
I dance, my shadow flails around.
While I’m clear-headed, we’re cheerful together—
Once I am drunk, we all disperse,
Pledged to roam without attachments
To meet again in far Cloud River.
2.
If heaven had no love for wine,
The Wine Star wouldn’t be in heaven.
If earth as well did not love wine,
Earth wouldn’t have a Wine Spring Town.
Since heaven and earth thus both love wine,
My loving wine’s no shame to heaven.
I’ve heard that clear wine suits the holy,
The rule that cloudy’s for the worthy—
Since holy and worthy already drink,
Why then should I seek an immortal?
Three cups partake the Confucian Path,
One ladle unites the Daoist Law—
But I am focused only on wine
And can’t teach this to one who’s sober!
3.
Three months of spring in Xianyang City,
Thousands of flowers like a brocade—
Who can in spring be worried alone?
For facing this, I straight must drink.
Both poor and rich, refined and crude,
The Maker has bestowed their places:
One jar, though, makes life and death the same
And all the things so hard to gauge—
Once drunk, I shrug off heaven and earth
And, fainting, just approach my pillow
Not knowing if my body exists:
This is the happiest place of all!
4.
Thoroughly worried, ten-million times—
I have fine wine, three-hundred cups.
Though there’s more worries and less wine,
Wine drains our worries, to never return.
And so I understand wine-saints:
A heart wine-loving opens the self.
They turned down grain and slept on Shouyang,
Which kept that hungry Yan Hui starved,
And these days there’s men loath to drink—
But what’s the use of worthless fame?
A crab-claw, yes, is an elixir—
A mound of dregs, this is Penglai—
So I must drink down this fine wine
In moonlight, high on a terrace, drunk.
月下独酌四首
之一
花间一壶酒，
独酌无相亲；
举杯邀明月，
对影成三人。
月既不解饮，
影徒随我身；
暂伴月将影，
行乐须及春。
我歌月徘徊，
我舞影零乱；
醒时同交欢，
醉后各分散。
永结无情游，
相期邈云汉。
之二
天若不爱酒，
酒星不在天。
地若不爱酒，
地应无酒泉。
天地既爱酒，
爱酒不愧天。
已闻清比圣，
复道浊如贤。
贤圣既已饮，
何必求神仙。
三杯通大道，
一斗合自然。
但得酒中趣，
勿为醒者传。
之三
三月咸阳城，
千花昼如锦。
谁能春独愁，
对此径须饮。
穷通与修短，
造化夙所禀。
一樽齐死生，
万事固难审。
醉后失天地，
兀然就孤枕。
不知有吾身，
此乐最为甚。
之四
穷愁千万端，
美酒三百杯。
愁多酒虽少，
酒倾愁不来。
所以知酒圣，
酒酣心自开。
辞粟卧首阳，
屡空饥颜回。
当代不乐饮，
虚名安用哉。
蟹螯即金液，
糟丘是蓬莱。
且须饮美酒，
乘月醉高台。
1. The “attachments” are understood as being to worldly things, rather than to each other. Lost in translation: the pledge is “eternal.” The Cloud River aka the Milky Way here represents a Daoist paradise.
2. I feel like we’ve wandered into the chambers of a 17th century university student. Most of the casuistic wordplay comes through, but one pun was untranslatable: 圣 means “holy (person)” and 贤 means “worthy (person),” but 圣贤 means both “a holy (person) and a worthy (person)” and “an immortal/a sage.” The Wine Star, also called Wine Banner Star, is a legits star, and Wine Spring (Jiuquan) is a legits city in Gansu. The Great Path is the Confucian term for the laws of nature, and the Laws of Nature is the Daoist equivalent.
3. Xianyang, the Qin capital, was sometimes used as an alternate name for Chang’an (built across the Wei river by the first Han emperor because Xianyang was destroyed in the turmoil).
4. A wine-saint is someone not greatly affected by heavy drinking. The “they” of line 7 are Bo Yi and Shu Qi, two disciples of Confucius who, rather than serve the unworthy Duke of Zhou, resigned their offices (and the resulting income, paid at the time in grain) and retired to Mt. Shouyang—Li Bai is insinuating that they’d been supporting Yan Hui, Master Kong’s favorite disciple, though that detail’s not related in Analects. Crab claws are still used today in traditional medicines for erectile dysfunction, which is the first hint of eroticism I’ve met from Li Bai. Penglai is a mythical mountain-island of immortals in the eastern ocean, which he drunkenly conflates with a pile of dregs from unfiltered wine.
I do like how at the end of the cycle we’re brought back to the moon. But otherwise, yeah, I see why the first is the most popular.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations
Subject quote from Numb, Linkin Park.
Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon: Four Poems, Li Bai
1.
One jar of wine among the flowers—
I drink alone without close friends.
I raise my cup, inviting the moon—
With matching shadow, that makes us three,
Though moon of course can’t grasp a drink
And shadow helplessly follows my body.
With my companions, moon and shadow,
I happily enjoy the spring:
I sing, the moon bobs back and forth—
I dance, my shadow flails around.
While I’m clear-headed, we’re cheerful together—
Once I am drunk, we all disperse,
Pledged to roam without attachments
To meet again in far Cloud River.
2.
If heaven had no love for wine,
The Wine Star wouldn’t be in heaven.
If earth as well did not love wine,
Earth wouldn’t have a Wine Spring Town.
Since heaven and earth thus both love wine,
My loving wine’s no shame to heaven.
I’ve heard that clear wine suits the holy,
The rule that cloudy’s for the worthy—
Since holy and worthy already drink,
Why then should I seek an immortal?
Three cups partake the Confucian Path,
One ladle unites the Daoist Law—
But I am focused only on wine
And can’t teach this to one who’s sober!
3.
Three months of spring in Xianyang City,
Thousands of flowers like a brocade—
Who can in spring be worried alone?
For facing this, I straight must drink.
Both poor and rich, refined and crude,
The Maker has bestowed their places:
One jar, though, makes life and death the same
And all the things so hard to gauge—
Once drunk, I shrug off heaven and earth
And, fainting, just approach my pillow
Not knowing if my body exists:
This is the happiest place of all!
4.
Thoroughly worried, ten-million times—
I have fine wine, three-hundred cups.
Though there’s more worries and less wine,
Wine drains our worries, to never return.
And so I understand wine-saints:
A heart wine-loving opens the self.
They turned down grain and slept on Shouyang,
Which kept that hungry Yan Hui starved,
And these days there’s men loath to drink—
But what’s the use of worthless fame?
A crab-claw, yes, is an elixir—
A mound of dregs, this is Penglai—
So I must drink down this fine wine
In moonlight, high on a terrace, drunk.
月下独酌四首
之一
花间一壶酒，
独酌无相亲；
举杯邀明月，
对影成三人。
月既不解饮，
影徒随我身；
暂伴月将影，
行乐须及春。
我歌月徘徊，
我舞影零乱；
醒时同交欢，
醉后各分散。
永结无情游，
相期邈云汉。
之二
天若不爱酒，
酒星不在天。
地若不爱酒，
地应无酒泉。
天地既爱酒，
爱酒不愧天。
已闻清比圣，
复道浊如贤。
贤圣既已饮，
何必求神仙。
三杯通大道，
一斗合自然。
但得酒中趣，
勿为醒者传。
之三
三月咸阳城，
千花昼如锦。
谁能春独愁，
对此径须饮。
穷通与修短，
造化夙所禀。
一樽齐死生，
万事固难审。
醉后失天地，
兀然就孤枕。
不知有吾身，
此乐最为甚。
之四
穷愁千万端，
美酒三百杯。
愁多酒虽少，
酒倾愁不来。
所以知酒圣，
酒酣心自开。
辞粟卧首阳，
屡空饥颜回。
当代不乐饮，
虚名安用哉。
蟹螯即金液，
糟丘是蓬莱。
且须饮美酒，
乘月醉高台。
1. The “attachments” are understood as being to worldly things, rather than to each other. Lost in translation: the pledge is “eternal.” The Cloud River aka the Milky Way here represents a Daoist paradise.
2. I feel like we’ve wandered into the chambers of a 17th century university student. Most of the casuistic wordplay comes through, but one pun was untranslatable: 圣 means “holy (person)” and 贤 means “worthy (person),” but 圣贤 means both “a holy (person) and a worthy (person)” and “an immortal/a sage.” The Wine Star, also called Wine Banner Star, is a legits star, and Wine Spring (Jiuquan) is a legits city in Gansu. The Great Path is the Confucian term for the laws of nature, and the Laws of Nature is the Daoist equivalent.
3. Xianyang, the Qin capital, was sometimes used as an alternate name for Chang’an (built across the Wei river by the first Han emperor because Xianyang was destroyed in the turmoil).
4. A wine-saint is someone not greatly affected by heavy drinking. The “they” of line 7 are Bo Yi and Shu Qi, two disciples of Confucius who, rather than serve the unworthy Duke of Zhou, resigned their offices (and the resulting income, paid at the time in grain) and retired to Mt. Shouyang—Li Bai is insinuating that they’d been supporting Yan Hui, Master Kong’s favorite disciple, though that detail’s not related in Analects. Crab claws are still used today in traditional medicines for erectile dysfunction, which is the first hint of eroticism I’ve met from Li Bai. Penglai is a mythical mountain-island of immortals in the eastern ocean, which he drunkenly conflates with a pile of dregs from unfiltered wine.
I do like how at the end of the cycle we’re brought back to the moon. But otherwise, yeah, I see why the first is the most popular.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations
Subject quote from Numb, Linkin Park.
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Date: 28 June 2022 03:59 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 28 June 2022 04:07 pm (UTC)Bù kèqì!
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Date: 28 June 2022 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 June 2022 09:04 pm (UTC)