Liu Zongyuan expresses rococo rage

The king of quietude flies his freak flag

A Hard Road to Walk (1)
Liu Zongyuan

As all you gentlefolk know!
The Hero Kuafu coursed to catch the sun,
He gazed into its evening abyss,
Then leaped the oceans, soared above Kunlun,
And flew beyond the Everything-There-Is
With radiant nebulas as wings. 
His passage took him through the Milky Way,
The helter-skelter stars to left and right
As bright as day.
How long was it until his strength gave out?
He perished on the road of cosmic thirst 
So ant and rat and fox could wedge their snouts
And fight to swallow Kuafu’s organs first.

There is a dwarf that lives in northern lands,
Its stature measures just nine inches tall,
It smiles and laughs and beats time with its hands,
And gobbles specks of grain and drops of dew—
And this is enough,
It lasts these people all their long lives through.

Oh, gaze at our ambition and slight deeds!
All fit to make our sons and daughters weep.

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If you know Liu Zongyuan (773-819), it is probably as the author of delicate, meditative poems like An Old Fisherman and River Snow. But in this series of poems he completely changes his tone, and delivers impassioned, overwrought rants about how hard life is.

This first piece: stunted twittering fools have it so much easier than the heroes who do great things.

Here’s some background on Kuafu:

A very short video that covers the basic myth in 1 minute.

A much more detailed retelling. The main sourcebook for Chinese mythology.

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柳宗元  行道难三首

其一

君不见夸父逐日窥虞渊，跳踉北海超昆仑。

披霄决汉出沆漭，瞥裂左右遗星辰。

须臾力尽道渴死，狐鼠蜂蚁争噬吞。

北方竫人长九寸，开口抵掌更笑喧。

啾啾饮食滴与粒，生死亦足终天年。

睢盱大志小成遂，坐使儿女相悲怜。