Du Fu sets his sights high
An ambitious young man allies himself with an ancient god
A View of the Sacred Mountain
Du Fu
.
How shall I describe the Lord Mount Tai?
Below, the ancient states of Lu and Qi
Stretch out in endless green. Here nature heaped
All beauty and divinity so high
That sun shines on his yang slopes while the yin
Are dusky dim. Is that his heaving chest
Exhaling sheets of level cloud? Are these
His eyes, stretched wide for birds returning home?
I'll conquer him some day. I'll stand atop
His highest peak, and as I look down
How tiny other hills will seem to me.
There is an odd controversy around this poem. The third couplet, with the chest and the eyes, is believed by many critics to refer to the mountain; and by many other critics to refer to Du Fu himself. The obvious resolution, that Du was playing with the form and half-identifying himself with the mountain, has apparently been sacrilege. But the idea that Du Fu write either version while failing to notice the dual meaning seems much less likely to me! In the modern age, at least Francois Cheng, the French-Chinese scholar, supports the dual reading, and I have tried to let it live equally ambiguously in the translation.
杜甫 望岳
岱宗夫如何？齐鲁青未了。
造化钟神秀，阴阳割昏晓。
荡胸生层云，决眥入归鸟。
会当凌绝顶，一览众山小。