Tao Qian, "Drinking, Twenty Poems"

4.

Roost after roost, still lost from the flock
The sun sets but I'm still alone, flying,
Back and forth, no certain place to stop.
Night after night, my cry turns sorrowful.
Midst the sound, I think of clear distances,
Going and coming, reluctant, ambivalent...

There, straight and alone grows a pine,
Drawing back my wings, I come back, return.
No morning glories in this stiff wind,
But this tree, alone, never will decline.
I project a self that already has what it needs...
Never opposing that in a thousand years

其四
栖栖失群鸟，日暮犹独飞。 徘徊无定止，夜夜声转悲。
厉响思清远，去来何依依。 因值孤生松，敛翮遥来归。
劲风无荣木，此荫独不衰。 托身已得所，千载不相违


That's of course just a raw, first-timer translation. A few interesting glosses:

得所 谓得到安居之地或合适的位置。语出《诗·魏风·硕鼠》：“乐土乐土，爰得我所。”

敛翮 lian3he2 收拢翅膀。指回归。晋 陶潜 《饮酒》诗之四：“厉响思清晨，远去何所依；因值孤生松，敛翮遥来归。” 唐 元稹 《雉媒》诗：“敛翮远投君，飞驰势奔蹙。”

荣木 木槿。晋 陶潜 《荣木》诗：“采采荣木，结根于兹。晨耀其华，夕已丧之。” 逯钦立 注：“荣木，木槿。其花朝生暮落。” 明 宋濂 《叶夷仲文集序》：“ 夷仲 生有异资，其文辞之进，如荣木升而春涛长。” 清 钱谦益 《追和朽庵和尚乐归田园十咏·农人告余以春及次韵》：“泉流荣木下，春入老农颜。” Not the morning glory of course, but the Rose of Sharon.

依依 [be reluclant to part;feel regret at parting]∶恋恋不舍的样子 依依不舍 ; 二情同依依。——《玉台新咏·古诗为焦仲卿妻作》 尚依依旁汝。——清· 林觉民《与妻书》

At SWCAS I was on a panel with some interesting other scholars, one of whom was an older gentleman named Vincent Yang. Sitting in his old-fashioned polyester tweed coat (ok maybe not tweed, but grey, checked in really small knit squares -- what's that called?) and huge, owlish glasses, he read a paper on Tao Qian that I would have found very boring except that he was winding his way toward a very simple point using close readings of the poems, and this point is one that I had already sort of come up with on my own, by looking at the end of the cautionary piece to Tao's sons. The point is this: Tao was not whole-heartedly a recluse, but at times felt some tension, and some guilt, over not serving the state.

I almost forgot about Professor Yang's talk, but I re-encountered his handout, which contains poems 1 and 2 from the "Twenty Poems on Drinking." The fifth of these is one of those that is iconic for its celebration of the recluse life, but I'm not as sure what is going on in the 4th. I wrote a note at the top of the page that says, "his heart knew no return -- failed." I can't remember which poem that note was supposed to have gone with. I'll have to ask Professor Yang for a copy of his paper!

(Side note: This should be completely unsurprising since I knew Professor Yang came from Baylor University, but he is an evangelical Christian who commented in the student newspaper The Lariat, "There are literally billions of people in China who don't know Jesus." One would love to draw a connection between the professor's religious beliefs, political agenda, and close-reading of Tao Qian's poetry, but that is at the moment beyond me.)

陶 渊 明 集
饮 酒 二 十 首 并 序 Preface to the "Drinking, Twenty Poems"
　　
余闲居寡欢，兼比夜已长，偶有名酒，无夕不饮。顾影独尽，忽焉复醉。既醉之後，辄题数句自娱。纸墨遂多，辞无诠次。聊命故人书之，以为欢笑尔。

I reside in leisure with few pleasures. Around here the nights have grown long. I happened to have good ale; there is never a night without drinking. Looking after my shadow, I finish alone, and then suddenly I'm once again drunk. And after I'm drunk, I come up with several verses to amuse myself. Paper and ink follow along, lots of both, yet the words lack any explanation or sequence. In jest, I ordered a good friend to write them out, to please us and make us laugh.

As usual with my approaches to classical Chinese poetry these days, I turn first to the discussion at Baidu.com. There's a whole Baidupedia entry on this set of poems, with a nice extended introduction.

According to Baidupedia, Tao Qian wrote these poems in a fit of unhappiness during the year 416, just when the general Liu Yu 刘裕 had beaten back the northern barbarians and regained some of the ground lost by the Western Jin. Liu Yu was full of bravado, but Tao Qian must have found him overconfident, or so the Baidupedia would have us understand.

Here's the connection between drinking, politics, life, and poetry, formulated by the Baidupedia author.

Tao Yuanming only wanted to drink; never a night passed that he didn't drink himself utterly drunk. He understood that life in this world is like a flash, around for an instant then passing away, so one should remain open-minded, unbound by convention, and also loose, cool, stable, passing through life without worries and concerns. It is perhaps by drinking that our Tao Yuanming was able to secure his name in history.

陶渊明只要弄到酒，没有一个晚上不喝他个一醉方休。他认识到，人生在世像闪电一样，稍纵即逝，就应该坦荡从容，无忧无虑地度过。也许靠着饮酒，我陶渊明就能青史留名。

Of course, there are some paradoxes and tensions here -- did Tao worry about 'securing his name in history'? If not, why did he publish his poetry, or ever even show it to his friends? Also, I really wonder about the qualities of personhood so celebrated here: open-minded, unbound by convention, and also loose, cool, and stable. This awkward phrase translates the two terms 坦荡 and 从容. Looking at women's writings I think we also see a celebration of 从容, the whole "keep your cool" thing, but I think there is a gender to this term: for women, it has more of a sense of accepting one's fate and learning to bear suffering.

Here's a paper that Google revealed, that might help me translate some of the more difficult lines. More importantly, it might help me understand more deeply something about the concepts of "self," "identity" and "experience" in Tao Qian:

略论陶渊明诗歌中的鸟、菊意象
Image of bird and chrysanthemum in Tao Yuanming's poems
<<广东青年干部学院学报>>2004年 第18卷 第01期
作者: 刘振燕,

期刊 ISSN : 1009-5446(2004)01-0087-02

在陶渊明诗歌的诸多意象中,写得最多而且最能代表诗人人格美的意象是鸟与菊.诗人通过对鸟、菊意象的构建,艺术地再现了其对理想的追求,对自由的向往,以及敢于在逆境中抗争的高蹈独善、率真的人品. Abstract: Among the multitudinous imagery of Tao Yuanming's poetry, the most numerous in his writing and the most representative of the poet's individual image of beauty are birds and chrysanthemums. The poet through the images of birds and chrysanthemums structurally and artistically reproduces his search for ideals, his inclination towards freedom, as well as the aloof integrity and personal quality of forthrightness with which he dared to resist an adverse world.

There are some very interesting key words in the abstract. Professor Scott would no doubt direct my attention to the author's assumption of a clear sense of "individuality" (ren ge) in Tao's poetry, a clear anachronism. I think she and I are both curious about the concept of 'personal quality' (ren pin), which suggests that poetry is 'evidence of the personality' in a fashion that is similar to the 'evidence of experience' in foundationalist Western history. (Yes, I'm basically just mouthing off at this point)