The Songs of Chu
Page 9
Leaving My Sorrow
I am latter day kin of the god-lord Gaoyang,10
My late father, august shade, was the Elder Rong.11
When the Grip Stars pointed at the first moon of spring,
On the gengyin day, I descended from the sky.12
The August Ones, observing and judging my ways at the outset,13
revealed in the tortoise shell cracks their fine names for me:
They named me True Norm,
Spirit Fair-Share they chose for my cognomen.
8
This beauty within is not my all,
I add refinements the eye can see,
I cover myself with lovage and fragrant wild roots,
And braid the autumn thoroughwort for belt charms.14
Rapid waters I’ll never outrun, it seems—
The years, I fear, will not wait for me.
At dawn on terraced hills I gathered magnolias,
At twilight uprooted slough grass on an islet midriver.
16
Never idle sun and moon hurry,
Fall goes to spring and spring, to fall.
See the grass and trees fading and shedding,
Fear the twilight of your beautiful ones.
Never weeding, you offer no comfort as they flower,
Why not change such ways?15
With thoroughbreds under your reins, you could drive at full gallop,16
Come, let me guide your chariot on the road ahead.
24
The sagely purity of the Three Ancient Lords17
Was the clear result of various fragrances crowding near,
They intermingled even prickly ash and cassia bark.
What cord did they twine of basil and angelica alone?
Yao and Shun with their staunch integrity,
Found their path by following the Way.
How madly Jie and Djou wandered with their sashes undone,18
into dead ends along the side roads.
32
Consider the fleeting pleasures this cabal enjoys,
on their dark and dangerously narrow road.
Do I quail at the calamity they’ve set there for me?
No. That they will overturn your godly chariot—that I fear.
Around it I would run, eye on the road, front and rear,
Till it rolled in the tracks of the ancient kings,
But, Lure Leaf, you do not look to see what I harbor within,19
No, trusting slander instead you boil in sudden rage.
40
I know indeed frank talk brings trouble,
But bear it I will; I can’t stop now.
I point to the Nine Skies, let them be my witness.
Spirit Adorned, all that I do is for you,
(You say: “Let us meet at dusk,” yes, but midway you go up another road.)20
First you give me your promise,
Later regret changes your mind. You avoid me—you have someone else.
It is not being abandoned I take hard,
It is the ever fickle shifting, Spirit Adorned, that leaves an open wound.
48
I grew nine wan of boneset,21
I planted one hundred mu of basil,
Kept separate the plots of peonies and loosestrife,22
And mixed asarum with the scent roots,
Hoping for tall-standing stems and bristling leaves,
I was willing to wait for the season to reap them.
Why would I grieve if they nonetheless withered?
I’d mourn only if all the fragrant ones changed to weeds
56
The crowd wrangles toward you in their greed,
Seeking and demanding with unslakeable fury.
Yes, each looks within for the rule to measure others
Finding there nothing save a heart hopping with envy.
At full gallop they chase,
Yet it doesn’t worry me,
Old age is on its sun-slow way,
That my adornment will never be sung is what I fear.
64
At sunrise I drink the dew magnolia blossoms shed,
At sunset eat the withered petals of fall chrysanthemums.
As long as beauty is true in my heart and pure at my waist,
What harm is there in looking sallow and gaunt?
I pick dry tree roots to knot together rootstocks of angelica,
On which to string the creeping figs’ fallen flowers.
With straightened cinnamon bark I twist basil into chains,
To twine into long, gleaming ropes of garlic stems and snow parsley.
72
Yes, I take as my model adornments of the past,
Not what the vulgar wear now.
Even if they offend the taste of people today,
Gladly I hold to norms Peng and Xian have passed down.23
Deeply I sigh, brushing tears away,
Lamenting mortal life’s many hardships.
Despite my love of adornment, they force on me the bridle and bit,
Yes, they vilify me by day, and send me away into the night.
80
They send me away because of my horse bellyband of basil,
Which I lengthened with the angelica roots I gathered
For this is what my heart loves still,
And I will never regret it, though made to die nine times.
It is your recklessness I resent, Spirit Adorned,
You who never look to see what they hold in their hearts
They, a crowd of women who envy my moth eyebrows,
Singing slanderous songs that call me a slut.
88
Surely they are the vulgar idea of skilled craftsmen these days,
Who, confronted with compass and try square, place one where the other should go.
They turn away from ink string to follow the crooks in the wood,
And judge others on how well they shift shapes to conform.
Though I am anxious, choked with sorrow, reeling in despair,
Alone, and at a dead end in these times,
I’d rather drop dead and thereby escape—
Such postures I could not bear to assume.
96
The buzzard does not flock,
It has always been so.
How can round and square congrue?
With strangers on a strange path what safety have you?
Those who curb the heart and repress the will,
Who endure the rebukes and take the insults home in a bag,
Yet prostrate themselves before the pure, and die for what is right,
Surely they were most honored by the sages of old.
104
Regretting I did not watch the road more carefully,
I stop and stand a long time—but now I am going back,
Turning my chariot around, retracing my tracks,
Before I find myself too far lost.
I walk my horse slowly through the Thoroughwort Marshes,
Then gallop to rest in the Pepper Hills.
If I approached they would abuse me, shutting me out,
So I’ll reteat to fashion anew the things I used to wear—
112
I make a jacket of water-chestnut leaves,
And pick lotus flowers to fashion a robe.
If they think me worthless, let it be,
As long as the heart within me is truly fragrant.
My tottering headdress I’ll make taller,
My motley dragging sashes, longer,
Adding fragrant plants that mix with mire,
But never lose their luster.
120
Suddenly turning, I let my eyes wander.
I will go and look as far as the Four Wilds,
Waist bristling with luxuriant adornments,
Their fragrance overpowering, wafting everywhere.
Everyone knows from birth what brings them delight.
I, loving adornment alone, make it my
constant.
Though they dismembered my body, that would not change.
How could that chasten a heart such as mine?
128
Sister Nü Xu, bewildered,24
Chided me again and again,
Saying, “Gun being stubborn was heedless of his own welfare,
And wound up dead in the Feather Mountain wilds.25
“So how is it that you, lover of adornment, speak the unadorned truth?
You alone bear this tangle of beautiful trappings;
The others fill our house with puncture vine, hairy joint grass, and cocklebur.26
Yet here you stand, conspicuous and lonely, refusing to wear them.
136
“There are too many, you cannot explain yourself door to door,
Who among them cares to look inside our hearts?
They’re a generation of side-by-sides on the rise, loving their little gang,
How can you be so lofty and aloof that you won’t listen even to me?”
“Better to look to the sages of long ago to fairly judge my case,”
I thought, sighing with sinking heart that it had come to this.
Crossing the Yuan and Xiang Rivers I journeyed south,
And when I reached Chonghua, I laid my case before him:27
144
“When Lord Qi let them hear the Nine Variations and Nine Songs,
The House of Xia gave itself to untethered pleasure.
He ignored, as he plotted the future, the oncoming disaster,
As his five sons waged war within his own house.28
“In his zest for the fields, Bowman Yi grew addicted to hunting,
The giant foxes, his favorite game.29
Good endings are rare for the depraved and reckless—
But Zhuo made it worse when he debauched the bowman’s wife.30
152
“Ao wore the toughest armor on his chest,
but could not curb his lust once he freed the reins.
In the daily revel he lost himself,
And then his head fell off and hit the ground.31
“King Jie’s perversions,
Ended in catastrophe for the royal house of Xia.32
Lord Xin dissected and pickled his ministers in vats of brine,
And thus cut short the Yin royal line.33
160
“Kings Tang and Yu were majestic and reverent.34
The House of Zhou found their path by choosing the Way.
Elevating the worthy, employing the able,
They cut along the ink string’s line and never strayed.
“The August Heavens have no favorites.
Where they see someone of virtue there they send their help.
Only the sagely and wise strive to do likewise,
If they win sway over these lands below.35
168
“Look to the past, turn your eyes to the future,
Keep in view the ultimate purpose of anyone’s plan!
Who can be employed who is unprincipled?
What can be worn that is not fine?36
“Standing close to the cliff’s edge I risk death,
But looking back at how we began I have no regrets.
Cutting the haft before measuring the socket
Was always why the Adorned of old wound up in brine.”
176
Sigh over sob, gagging on grief,
Lamenting the unfitness of my times,
I raised the soft basil to brush away snivel and tears
That wave over wave soaked my robe’s lapels.
I was kneeling, robe skirts outspread, stating my case,
When in a blaze of light I received his verdict as follows:
Riding a motley shade bird, hitched to a jade dragon quadriga,37
I’m suddenly journeying upward on a dust-flown wind.38
184
I set forth in the morning from Cangwu,39
And by nightfall reach the Hovering Gardens.40
And would linger awhile near the Spirit Doors,41
But the sun is on its way down.
So I order Xihe to slow her chariot’s pace,42
And keep her eye on Yanzi Mountain, but linger far away,43
For on and on the road stretches far,
where I’ll search high and low.
192
I water my horse at the Xian Pool44
Tie its reins to the fusang tree,45
Break off Ruo-tree branches to brush the sun dry,46
And for a moment wander free and easy.
Ahead I send Wangshu, the moon’s charioteer, as my herald,47
Behind, Feilian, the Wind God, to serve as rear guard.48
Male simurghs are my forerunners,49
And the Lord of Thunder will warn me of the unforeseen.
200
Then I make my phoenix bird soar higher,50
Without stopping, through day and night.
Now the Whirlwind mustering his entourage,
Comes to receive me, leading clouds and rainbows.
The clouds, a great confusion of many shapes, some parting, some merging—
The rainbows, above and below, luminous colors in long arching bands.
I order the gateman of the Sky Lord to open the Sky Gates,
But leaning against them he stares at me distantly.51
208
Long I wait, as the darkening hours close the day,
knotting hidden boneset flowers.
(Chonghua seemed to be saying, People in these times having muddied the waters make no distinctions,
All envy and jealousy, they set barriers in the way of the beautiful.)
Morning, I am about to cross the White Waters,52
And climb Langfeng Peak to tether my horses.53
Not long after looking around, my tears are streaming,
I am grieving there are no women on this high peak,
216
When suddenly, here I am, wandering in this Palace of Spring.54
I break off branches from the jade tree to add to my belt charms.55
Before the blooming flowers fall,
I will seek to give them to a deserving woman on a lower plane.
I order Fenglong, Lord of Thunder, to ride a cloud,56
To find the place where Consort Fu dwells.57
I unknot my ornate belt for an engagement gift,
And order Bell Stones to be my intermediary.58
224
The consort is a great confusion of many shapes, some parting, some merging,
And suddenly perverse and contrary she is difficult to move.
In the evening she goes home to spend the night at Qiongshi;59
But washes her hair at Weipan in the morning.60
Let her keep her beauty, arrogance, and pride,
And amuse herself lewdly in daily revels.
Beautiful indeed she is, but lacks decorum.
Come, let us leave her and look elsewhere.
232
I look, examining, observing, as far as the four limits,
Wandering over all the sky, and then descend.
I see in the distance the involute majesty of the Jade Tower,
Where I catch sight of the beautiful daughters of Lord Song,61
I order the zhen bird to be my go-between.
The zhen bird tells me she is no good for such work.62
But the male jiu bird cries, “I’ll go,”63
Yet, since I despise his deviousness,
240
My heart swithers in doubt;
I want to go myself, but that is never done.
The phoenix soon accepts my gift for the sisters,
But fearing Gao Xin has reached them before me,
It tries to perch far away but there was no place to rest.
So it floats awhile idling adrift.64
I might make the two Yao women of Youyu mine
Before Shao Kang marries them,65
248
But my messengers are timid and my go-betweens inept—
I fear their introductions would assure me nothing.
(Chonghua seemed to be saying, People in these times having muddied the waters envy the worthy,
Setting barriers in the path of the beautiful, their praise goes to the ugly.)
His inner chamber is deep underground,
Nor will the wise king ever rise from his slumber.66
Hiding, to air never, the love in my heart,
How can I go on like this forever?
256
I searched for the qiong straw and slips of bamboo,67
And had Ling Fen cast them to interpret my vision.68
The oracle said, “Two beauties will find each other.
Is mate-finding labor for those of true beauty?69
“Think of the vastness of the Nine Regions,
How could it be there are women here only?”
Ling Fen interpreted: “Force yourself to go far away and have no doubts;
Why would a seeker of beauty reject you?
264
“What place is so unique as to have no fragrant herbs?
What is there to cherish in your old home?
A generation reared in darkness whose eyes can’t bear bright light?
Who among them can distinguish good from bad in us?
“Could it be that people are not all the same in their likes and dislikes?
Consider the singular oddity of this cabal—
They wear mugwort, filling their sashes with it,
And deem wild thoroughwort unwearable.