On Old Age

This is a nice poem on old age. I'm stumbling through the Owen notebooks in roughly chronological order at this point, and it's clear from poems with such personal themes that the concept of the lyric poem which was to take firm precedence in the Tang has begun to develop. The important point is that the theme chosen does not quite speak for the populace, but with a much more individual voice.


On Old Age

My white hair drops out with the comb,
It's not cold yet, but I want a thick coat.
My bones and joints easily tire and wear out,
Walking, my steps get slower and slower.
I've started worrying that my years are almost up,
One day my soul will just fly high.
And I know that in a hundred years,
Wild weeds will grow in my hall.

The text here is from Yuwen leishi:

魏阮瑀詩曰．白髮隨櫛墜．未寒思厚衣．四支易懈倦．行步益疏遲．常恐時歲盡．魂魄忽高飛．自知百年後．堂上生旅葵．

I can see how this one could be made into a good (not great, but good) piece in English with a little more tinkering. This is a nice small, personal poem to craft like a postcard. The questions in my mind right now are: what's the proper rhythm of a poem like this? What sort of sound techniques (I'm thinking some rhyme might be nice here) can be applied here to make the poem effective in English?

Searching for Ruan Yu 阮瑀 on Google brings up a history of literature study guide that looks as if it is used in high school or college courses. The relevant sentence on Ruan Yu is:

Representative writers of the Jian'an period include the three Caos (Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi), the Seven Masters (Kong Rong, Wang Can, Liu Zhen, Chen Lin, Xu Gan, Ruan Yu) and the woman writer Cai Yan. 建安文学的代表作家是三曹（曹操、曹丕、曹植）和七子（孔融、王粲、刘桢、陈琳、徐干、阮瑀、应玚）和女作家蔡琰。

A succinct description of the "Seven Masters of Jian'an, with examples, is available on this Taiwanese page.

Image: Old man statue of teak, sold from a Jakarta exporter, up to 500 month at US $15,000 a piece. Damn!