More Translations from the Chinese | Page 6

from the flutes of Chao?The ballad-singer's voice rises alone.?O Soul come back to the hollow mulberry-tree![1]
Eight and eight the dancers sway,?Weaving their steps to the poet's voice?Who speaks his odes and rhapsodies;?They tap their bells and beat their chimes?Rigidly, lest harp and flute?Should mar the measure.?Then rival singers of the Four Domains?Compete in melody, till not a tune?Is left unsung that human voice could sing.?O Soul come back and listen to their songs!
Then women enter whose red lips and dazzling teeth?Seduce the eye;?But meek and virtuous, trained in every art;?Fit sharers of play-time,?So soft their flesh and delicate their bones.?O Soul come back and let them ease your woe!
Then enter other ladies with laughing lips?And sidelong glances under moth-eye brows;?Whose cheeks are fresh and red;?Ladies both great of heart and long of limb,?Whose beauty by sobriety is matched.?Well-padded cheeks and ears with curving rim,?High-arching eyebrows, as with compass drawn,?Great hearts and loving gestures--all are there;?Small waists and necks as slender as the clasp?Of courtiers' brooches.?O Soul come back to those whose tenderness?Drives angry thoughts away!
Last enter those?Whose every action is contrived to please;?Black-painted eyebrows and white-powdered cheeks.?They reek with scent; with their long sleeves they brush The faces of the feasters whom they pass,?Or pluck the coats of those who will not stay.?O Soul come back to pleasures of the night!
A summer-house with spacious rooms?And a high hall with beams stained red;?A little closet in the southern wing?Reached by a private stair.?And round the house a covered way should run?Where horses might be trained.?And sometimes riding, sometimes going afoot?You shall explore, O Soul, the parks of spring;?Your jewelled axles gleaming in the sun?And yoke inlaid with gold;?Or amid orchises and sandal-trees?Shall walk in the dark woods.?O Soul come back and live for these delights!
Peacocks shall fill your gardens; you shall rear?The roc and phoenix, and red jungle-fowl,?Whose cry at dawn assembles river storks?To join the play of cranes and ibises;?Where the wild-swan all day?Pursues the glint of idle king-fishers.?O Soul come back to watch the birds in flight!
He who has found such manifold delights?Shall feel his cheeks aglow?And the blood-spirit dancing through his limbs.?Stay with me, Soul, and share?The span of days that happiness will bring;?See sons and grandsons serving at the Court?Ennobled and enriched.?O Soul come back and bring prosperity?To house and stock!
The roads that lead to Ch`u?Shall teem with travellers as thick as clouds,?A thousand miles away.?For the Five Orders of Nobility?Shall summon sages to assist the King?And with godlike discrimination choose?The wise in council; by their aid to probe?The hidden discontents of humble men?And help the lonely poor.?O Soul come back and end what we began!
Fields, villages and lanes?Shall throng with happy men;?Good rule protect the people and make known?The King's benevolence to all the land;?Stern discipline prepare?Their natures for the soft caress of Art.?O Soul come back to where the good are praised!
Like the sun shining over the four seas?Shall be the reputation of our King;?His deeds, matched only in Heaven, shall repair?The wrongs endured by every tribe of men,--?Northward to Yu and southward to Annam?To the Sheep's Gut Mountain and the Eastern Seas.?O Soul come back to where the wise are sought!
Behold the glorious virtues of our King?Triumphant, terrible;?Behold with solemn faces in the Hall?The Three Grand Ministers walk up and down,--?None chosen for the post save landed-lords?Or, in default, Knights of the Nine Degrees.?At the first ray of dawn already is hung?The shooting-target, where with bow in hand?And arrows under arm,?Each archer does obeisance to each,?Willing to yield his rights of precedence.?O Soul come back to where men honour still?The name of the Three Kings.[2]
[1] The harp.
[2] Yü, T`ang and Wen1, the three just rulers of antiquity.
WANG WEI
[A.D. 699-759]
[2] PROSE LETTER
_To the Bachelor-of-Arts P`ei Ti_
Of late during the sacrificial month, the weather has been calm and clear, and I might easily have crossed the mountain. But I knew that you were conning the classics and did not dare disturb you. So I roamed about the mountain-side, rested at the Kan-p`ei Temple, dined with the mountain priests, and, after dinner, came home again. Going northwards, I crossed the Yüan-pa, over whose waters the unclouded moon shone with dazzling rim. When night was far advanced, I mounted Hua-tzü's Hill and saw the moonlight tossed up and thrown down by the jostling waves of Wang River. On the wintry mountain distant lights twinkled and vanished; in some deep lane beyond the forest a dog barked at the cold, with a cry as fierce as a wolf's. The sound of villagers grinding their corn at night filled the gaps between the slow chiming of a distant bell.
Now I am sitting alone. I listen, but cannot hear my grooms and servants move or speak. I think much of old days: how hand in hand, composing poems as we went,