Han Shan or Cold Mountain: life is short

Two poems by Han Shan on the transience of youth for Spring and Summer swiftly lead to Fall and Winter:

7.
A moth-browed girl in town
how her pendants chime
teasing a parrot before the flowers
playing a lute beneath the moon
her singing echoes for months
thousands watch her briefest dance
but surely this won't last
the hibiscus can't bear cold


8.
A fine young man on horseback
waves his whip at the willows
he can't imagine death
he builds no boat or ladder
the seasonal flowers are lovely
until the day they wither and fade
rock sugar and clarified butter
mean nothing when you're dead


The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
Copper Canyon Press
trans. by Red Pine

The following notes are abstracted from the collection of poems
7.  -the young woman is probably a member of a traveling troupe of entertainers
     -the hibiscus is called "the cold-fearing flower" and dies at the first sign of fall
     -fall, of course, signifies the approach of winter, the season of death (my comment)


8.  -boat or ladder: Buddhists use the symbol of a boat for their spiritual discipline
     -ladder refers to the search of wandering Taoists to reach inaccessible places when looking for  plants to concoct their elixirs.
     -"Rock sugar and clarified butter (ghee) represent the taste of liberation, refined of all impurities."
     -In other words, after death it's too late to strive for enlightenment (my comment).



I think Shakespeare would agree:

"Golden lads and girls all must,
 As chimney-sweepers, all come to dust."

Cymbeline, Act IV,  Scene II

Han Shan: a poem

Han Shan, which, I"m told, means Cold Mountain, was one of the numerous hermit/monk/poets who flourished during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries.  As far as I can tell, his real name is unknown for he took the name of the mountain, Cold Mountain, on which was located the cave he lived in.  According to tradition, most of his poems were found on the walls of his cave, nearby trees, and rock faces after his death.


This is one of them:


No. 4
Looking for a refuge
Cold Mountain will keep you safe
a faint wind stirs dark pines
come closer the sound gets better
below them sits a gray-haired man
chanting Taoist texts
ten years unable to return
he forgot the way he came

-- Han Shan/Cold Mountain --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain 
translated by Red Pine

The note to this poem:  "The recitation of sacred writings, such as Lao-Tzu's Taoteching, and the chanting of incantations are among the techniques used by Taoists in their quest to transcend the mortal state."
Perhaps that is why he forgot the way he came.

I think it is written in The New Testament somewhere that a man asked Christ what should he do to be saved.  Christ said he should give up everything, including his family and possessions, and follow him.  IN the past, religious traditions in various cultures seemed to agree that to achieve enlightenment or salvation, one must put aside the things of this world.  I wonder if that belief is still held today.

T'ao Ch'ien: a June poem

Reading the Book of Hills and Seas

In the month of June the grass grows high
And round my cottage thick-leaved branches sway.
There is not a bird but delights in the place where it rests;
And I too--love my thatched cottage.
I have done my ploughing;
I have sown my seed.
Again I have time to sit and read my books.
In the narrow lane there are no deep ruts;
Often my friends' carriages turn back.
In  high spirits I pour out my spring wine
And pluck the lettuce growing in my garden.
A gentle wind comes stealing up from the east
And a sweet wind bears it company.
My thoughts float idly over the story of the king of Chou,
My eyes wander over the pictures of Hills and Seas.
At a single glance I survey the whole Universe.
He will never be happy, whom such pleasures fail to please!


-- T'ao Ch'ien --
(Chinese, 365-427)
from Art and Nature: An Illustrated Anthology of Nature Poetry

 Common themes found among the hermit poets of China:  nature, gardening, reading, isolation--a mix of hard work with ploughing and setting seeds and the relaxation with a book or just seeing.  He has friends, but he doesn't encourage them and many find it to hard to visit him.  I suspect they choose their places with this in mind.

Perhaps there's a contrast here.to western hermits who went out into the desert and the Wilderness to focus their lives on God.  But, I don't remember reading about them with a garden for many depended upon the people nearby to feed them or perhaps animals inspired by God fed them.   The focus of the Eastern and Western hermits differed: one solely on the Deity and therefore not on this world and the Eastern hermit on day-to-day living, as well as reading and poetry and the created universe.

Han-shan: a poem

Han-shan is a classic example of China's hermit Zen/Tao poets. His poetry carries elements of both Zen Or Chan, as it was called in China, and Taoism. Just who he was is not known. His adopted name, Han-shan, means Cold Mountain, which is where the cave in which he lived was located.

His poetry was discovered, according to tradition, after he died, written on the walls of his cave and the trees, rocks, and walls in the area and near several villages. His poems, some 300 of them have been preserved, are generally short and simple. Perhaps that is why I like them. The most common themes are nature and human behavior, frequently remonstrances against pretension and greed and pleas to turn to the good or virtuous life.

#3

The Cold Mountain Road is strange
no tracks of cart or horse
hard to recall which merging stream
or tell which piled-up ridge
a myriad plants weep with dew
the pines all sigh the same
here where the trail disappears
form asks shadow where to

-- Han-shan --
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain
trans. Red Pine


Translator's note: "The last line is also indebted to T'ao Yuan-ming's Form, Shadow, and Spirit,
in which Form and Shadow turn to Spirit for a solution to their transient existence.

In a note, Red Pine describes his visit to Han-shan's cave on Cold Mountain years ago, and it doesn't seem to be any easier to find or get to today than it was in the 8th and 9th centuries when Han-shan lived there.



The last line puzzles me for it seems almost as though a line is missing or perhaps an infinitive.

"form asks shadow where to _____"


Han-shan has a number of poems in which he describes the difficulties of reaching his shallow cave on Cold Mountain. Perhaps he's trying to discourage people from visiting him. But, his poetry really wasn't widely known until after his death, so perhaps that may be only a part of the reason. Whatever the reason, I get a clear sense of the rugged wilderness in which he lived and how easily I could get lost.

Serendipity

The Red Cockatoo

Sent as a present from Annam--
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.


Po Chu-i (772--846)
from World Poetry
Arthur Waley, trans.


I wonder what kind of cage our society uses today. What takes the place of those stout bars?

Contracts?

Serendipity: more autumn poetry from China

Listening to a Monk From Shu Playing the Lute
The monk from Shu with his green lute-case walked
Westward down Emei Shan, and at the sound
Of the first notes he strummed for me I heard
A thousand valleys' rustling pines resound.
My heart was cleansed, as if in flowing water.
In bells of frost I heard the resonance die.
Dusk came unnoticed over the emerald hills
And autumn clouds layered the darkening sky.

-- Li Po --
(701--762)
trans. by Vikram Seth



A lute seems the perfect instrument to capture the flavor of autumn. The only other instrument, I think, would be the flute--well--maybe a cello. That would make an interesting trio--a lute, a cello, and a flute. I wonder if there are any works composed for this trio.





from Autumn Thoughts

Leaves fall turning turning to the ground,
by the front eaves racing, following the wind;
murmuring voices seem to speak to me
as they whirl and toss in headlong flight.
An empty hall in the yellow dusk of evening:
I sit here silent, unspeaking.
The young boy comes in from outdoors,
trims the lamp, sets it before me,
asks me questions I do not answer,
brings me a supper I do not eat.
He goes and sits down by the west wall,
reading me poetry--three or four poems;
the poet is not a man of today--
already a thousand years divide us--
but something in his words strikes my heart,
fills it again with an acid grief.
I turn and call to the boy:
Put down the book and go to bed now--
a man has times when he must think,
and work to do that never ends.

-- Han Yu --
(768--824)
trans. by Burton Watson


One can't always live in the past; today is always interrupting, isn't it.





Both poems are taken from
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our TimeKatherine Washburn and John S. Major, editors

Li Po: Now and then, a glass of wine, or two or . . .

Li Po (701 AD--762 AD)


Drinking Alone In The Moonlight


Number One

Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine,
No friends at hand, so I poured alone;
I raised my cup to invite the moon,
Turned to my shadow, and we became three.
Now the moon had never learned about drinking,
And my shadow had merely followed my form,
But I quickly made friends with the moon and my shadow;
To find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.

Whenever I sang, the moon swayed with me;
Whenever I danced, my shadow went wild.
Drinking, we shared our enjoyment together;
Drunk, then each went off on his own.
But forever agreed on dispassionate revels.
We promised to meet in the far Milky Way.

-- Li Po --



Number Two

Now, if Heaven didn't love wine,
There wouldn't be a Wine Star in Heaven.
And if Earth didn't love wine,
Earth shouldn't have the town of Wine Spring.
But since Heaven and Earth love wine,
Loving wine is no crime with Heaven.
The light, I hear, is like a sage.
The heavy, they say, is called the worthy.
If have have drunk with the sage and worthy,
What need have I to search for immortals?
Three cups and I've mastered the Way;
A jarful and I am at one with Nature.
A man can get hold of the spirit of drinking,
But no point explaining to those who abstain.

-- Li Po --



Old Tai's Wine Shop

When Old Tai goes down below,
He may still make Young Springtime brew;
But there's no Li Po on the Terrace of Night,
So who in hell will he sell it to?

-- Li Po --


from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse
from Antiquity to Our Time
Elling O. Eide, trans



(Now--where is that corkscrew?)

Something to think about

It always surprises me, I don't know why, when I find that some current attitudes have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Consider these two poems, one by Po Chu-i (772-846), and one by Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101).



Remembering Golden Bells

Ruined and ill,--a man of two score;
Pretty and guileless, --a girl of three.
Not a boy,--but still better than nothing:
To soothe one's feeling,--from time to time a kiss!
There came a day,--they suddenly took her from me;
Her soul's shadow wandered I know not where.
And when I remembered how just at the time she died
She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,
Then I know that the ties of flesh and blood
Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,
By thought and reason I drove the pain away.
Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed
And three times winter has changed to spring.
This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.

-- Po Chu-i (772-846) --
trans. by Arthur Waley

The third line reminded me of an article I had read just recently about a potentially serious problem in China. Because of the stringent birth laws (one child per family), many families will kill female babies because they prefer to have a male child. A male child will be able to provide some support when they are no longer able to work, whereas a female child will marry into the husband's family, who will support his parents. There is a concern that this will translate into a severe imbalance in the near future, with males being in greater numbers than females. This will make it more difficult for males to set up their own households.




This father has a interesting philosophy regarding his son and his hopes for the boy's future.


On The Birth of His Son

Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.

-- Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101) --
trans. by Arthur Waley


This poem needs no comments from me.



Both poems come from
The World's Best Poems
Mark van Doren and Garibaldi M. Lapolla, ed.

Earth Day

Sailing Homeward

Cliffs that rise a thousand feet
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year,
Without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer
Ever-green,
Streams that for ever flow and flow
Without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years
Your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller's heart,
And moved his brush to write a new song.

-- Chan Fang-sheng -
(Chinese, 5th century)





The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry --
(American, b. 1934)

Han-shan or Cold Mountain

Han-shan was a hermit poet who lived sometime during the late 8th century and early 9th century. No one is certain about his dates, just as no one knows his true name. He lived in a shallow cave on Cold Cliff and called himself after the mountain. According to the Wikipedia entry, after his death, "Lu Ch'iu-Yin, governor of T'ai Prefecture" gave an order to collect Han-shan's "poems written on bamboo, wood, stones, and cliffs — and also to collect those written on the walls of peoples' houses."

The collection I have of his poetry, The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, is a bilingual edition and includes all of his surviving poetry, 307 poems to be exact. The poems are translated by Red Pine and are published by Copper Canyon Press.

His poems are short, for the most part, and many are directed to the reader. It gives me the feeling that Han-shan himself is speaking directly to me. It's almost a poetic FAQ for many of the poems are answers to questions people might ask him--Why are you a hermit? Why are you living in this cave? What is it like to live alone up here? Other poems are comments on social, political, and religious issues. I find it a fascinating glimpse into the mind of someone who lived over a thousand years ago and equally fascinating to discover that many of the issues he covers are still with us today.



This is the first poem in the collection:

Towering cliffs were the home I chose
bird trails beyond human tracks
what does my yard contain
white clouds clinging to dark rocks
every year I've lived here
I've seen the seasons change
all you owners of tripods and bells
what good are empty names


Han-shan seems unimpressed by conspicuous consumption and self-aggrandizement. I wonder if living where he does has contributed to his attitude. I've also read that his poems suggest a melding of Buddhist and Taoist beliefs. That may also have something to do with his disdain.



Note to the poem: "Tripods and bells were cast at great expense for use at sacrificial ceremonies, and the names of ancestors or the men who commissioned them were often carved on their surfaces. Empty names indeed."

Fall Equinox

Today is the First Day of Autumn, although it's a bit hard believing that here in Tucson where the temperatures are still in the high 90s and low 100s. But, just in case someone is reading this who lives where autumn has arrived, I thought I would post a few autumnal poems.



Now in sad autumn
As I take my darkening path . . .
A solitary bird

-- Basho --




Summer begins to have the look
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly but sure perceives
A gain upon the backward leaves--

Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.

The eye begins its avarice
A meditation chastens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.

Conclusion is the course of All
At most to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.

-- Emily Dickinson --





In Hardwood Groves

The same leaves over and over again!
They fall from giving shade above,
To make one texture of faded brown
And fit the earth like a leather glove

Before the leaves can mount again
To fill the trees with another shade,
They must go down past things coming up.
They must go down into the dark decayed.

They must be pierced by flowers and put
Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.
However it is in some other world
I know that this is the way in ours.

-- Robert Frost --





The calling bell
Travels the curling mist-ways . . .
Autumn morning

-- Basho --




The haiku are from--
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Trans. Peter Beilenson
Avenel Books