Wang Wei abandons human civilisation

(Except for the books. He likes the books.)

Days of Rain, a Poem at the Wang River Estate
Wang Wei

Days of rain have pooled
in the airy woods,
so fire kindles languidly:
    A fist of wild spinach
    and broth of rough millet
    will feed the farmhands in east field.
Waterlogged meadows
stretch endlessly,
as an egret flies overhead;
    The depths of the shade
    in the towering trees
    are home to warbling orioles.
Living quietly
out among the hills,
I watch the brief hibiscus bloom,
    Pick mallow greens
    underneath the pines,
    and eat the diet of a monk.
Birds, come flocking down,
like the Liezi's gulls,
I'll not trap you for anyone;
    Yang Zhu tussled for seats,
    my rat race is done,
    I am an old man of the wilds.

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In his retirement, Wang Wei had lost his influence in government, and also his interest in writing poetry. He lived in Buddhist retreat on his Wang River estate, and occasionally produced a poem reminding everyone how little he cared about the world.

Wang’s years of scholarship and immersion in the classics produce a curious effect in the last two lines of this poem (the last six lines of the translation). Having announced his love of the bucolic countryside environment, he rams the points home with classical references from the Liezi and Zhuangzi. But these references sit uncomfortably with the farmhands out in east field. Presumably only his friends back in the rejected city would understand what he was saying.

I deliberately heightened the effect in my translation by including the names that Wang Wei’s original only hints at. I think this is justified: the question of whether your poetry should make literary allusions or not was a major controversy at the time, so Wang’s contemporaries would have been very sensitive to the fact that this poem is deliberately focused on the immediate present through its first three couplets, then takes a sharp turn into allusion land in the last. The effect is a kind of irony that I think Wang appreciated.

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积雨辋川庄作

积雨空林烟火迟，蒸藜炊黍饷东菑。

漠漠水田飞白鹭，阴阴夏木啭黄鹂。

山中习静观朝槿，松下清斋折露葵。

野老与人争席罢，海鸥何事更相疑。