Wei Yingwu also fails to meet a hermit

But he never went looking, so it's no great surprise

To the Daoist Hermit in the Quanjiao Hills
Wei Yingwu

The residence is cold this morning
And suddenly I think of you
Out in the hills
You’re cutting firewood in some gulley
When you come back no doubt you’ll brew
A soup of stones!
I wish that I could take a ladle
To bring you warming liquor through
The evening rain
But where in all those empty mountains
Shall I pick up your tracks, hidden from view
By falling leaves?

韦应物  寄全椒山中道士
今朝郡斋冷，忽念山中客。
涧底束荆薪，归来煮白石。
欲持一瓢酒，远慰风雨夕。
落叶满空山，何处寻行迹？

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I hate Wei Yingwu. That’s probably not great for a translator: we should have some sympathy for our authors. But in my defence, I hate him for good reason. Exhibit no. 1 is his patriarchal-to-the-point-of-sociopathic goodbye to his daughter on her wedding. And a close second comes this smug missed-connections poem. Consider the contrast with Meng Haoran last week: Meng set out to find his friend, climbed and searched until dusk, and promised to return next holiday. Wei, on the other hand, sits tight in his warm house, makes no effort whatsoever, and sighs that it’s the hermit’s own fault for having leaves cover his tracks. In this context, the comments about cutting wood (honourable labour) and stone soup (a sign of successful daoist magic, and also of having nothing to eat) just seem condescending, rather than laudatory.

Not all of Wei’s poems are smug and horrible. I like this parting poem. I’ll try to get hold of Red Pine’s book on him and see if it can change my mind.