Bai Juyi

I only indulge myself in drinking wine and writing poetry. I am indeed indulgent, but what harm will that do?

Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; Chinese: 白居易; 772–846) was a renowned Chinese poet.

Quotes

• 琴詩酒伴皆拋我   雪月花時最憶君
  • My partners at the zither, poetry and drinking have all left me,
    the time of snow, moon and flowers is when I miss a friend the most.
    • A Poem Sent to Yin Xielü (寄殷協律)
      English translation of Lin Tsung-cheng in King, R., Poulton, C., & Endo, K. (2012) Sino-Japanese transculturation: from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Pacific war
    • The phrase "Snow, moon and flowers" (雪月花) derives from this verse

• 言者不知知者默
  此語吾聞於老君
  若道老君是知者
  缘何自著五千文
  • He who preaches knows not, he who knows is mute.
    These are the words, I'm told, of Laozi the master of old.
    But if, it be said, the master, was one who truly knew,
    O why did he pen a treatise, a thousand words five-fold?
    • Translation by Andrew W.F. Wong
    • Variant translation:
      • Whoever speaks is not wise, whoever is wise always keep silence; I hear this message from Laozi. If Laozi is a wise man, why did he himself write Dao De Jing which has five thousand words?
        • Chen, B. (2006). The Debate on the Yan-Yi Relation in Chinese Philosophy: Reconstruction and Comments. Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 1(4), 539–560. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30209875:
          

• I am lucky not to have such bad habits. I only indulge myself in drinking wine and writing poetry. I am indeed indulgent, but what harm will that do?
  • As quoted in Wang, Y. (2015). Medieval Chinese Autobiographical Writing: The Self-Written Epitaph. The Medieval History Journal, 18(2), 305-345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945815602083

I set my eyes on the green mountain, and let my hair grow white.
Who knows how many years I have left to live in this world?
From now till the end of my life, there are only days of leisure.

• I set my eyes on the green mountain, and let my hair grow white.
  Who knows how many years I have left to live in this world?
  From now till the end of my life, there are only days of leisure.
  • As quoted in Wang, Y. (2015). Medieval Chinese Autobiographical Writing: The Self-Written Epitaph. The Medieval History Journal, 18(2), 305-345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945815602083

• I lay my harp on the curved table,
  Sitting there idly, filled only with emotions.
  Why should I trouble to play?
  A breeze will come and sweep the strings.
  • "The Harp", in The White Pony: An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry (1949), ed. Robert Payne, p. 220

• 漠漠秋雲起，稍稍夜寒生。
  但覺衣裳濕，無點亦無聲。
  • Autumn clouds, vague and obscure;
    The evening, lonely and chill.
    I felt the dampness on my garments,
    But saw no spot, and heard no sound of rain.
    • 微雨夜行 ("Walking at Night in Fine Rain"), as translated in Reginald Horace Blyth's Haiku: Eastern Culture, Vol. I (Hokuseidō Shoten, 1950), p. 56; quoted in Alan Watts's Nature, Man and Woman (1958)

• [Bai Juyi] utilized Confucianism to order his conduct, utilized Buddhism to cleanse his mind, and then utilized history, paintings, mountains, rivers, wine, music and song to soothe his spirit.
  • Composition for his own tomb inscription, as quoted in Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living (1940), p. 411

Arthur Waley's translations

Quotes from Translations from the Chinese by Arthur Waley

• For ten years I never left my books;
  I went up ... and won unmerited praise.
  My high place I do not much prize;
  The joy of my parents will first make me proud.
  • "After Passing the Examination" (A.D. 800)

... by virtue of what right
Have I never once tended field or tree?
My government-pay is three hundred tons;
At the year's end I have still grain in hand.
Thinking of this, secretly I grew ashamed.

• And I today ... by virtue of what right
  Have I never once tended field or tree?
  My government-pay is three hundred tons;
  At the year's end I have still grain in hand.
  Thinking of this, secretly I grew ashamed;
  And all day the thought lingered in my head.
  • "Watching the Reapers" (A.D. 806)

• When the Seasons' changes thus confront the mind
  What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?
  It will teach me to watch the days and months fly
  Without grieving that Youth slips away;
  If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,
  It does not matter whether one is young or old.
  • "At the End of Spring" (A.D. 810)

• I was born in the Realms of Etiquette;
  In early years, unprotected and poor.
  Alone, I learnt to distinguish between Evil and Good;
  Untutored, I toiled at bitter tasks.
  The World's Law honours Learning and Fame;
  Scholars prize marriages and Caps.
  With these fetters I gyved my own hands;
  Truly I became a much-deceived man.
  At ten years old I learnt to read books;
  At fifteen, I knew how to write prose.
  At twenty I was made a Bachelor of Arts;
  At thirty I became a Censor at the Court.
  Above, the duty I owe to Prince and parents;
  Below, the ties that bind me to wife and child.
  The support of my family, the service of my country—
  For these tasks my nature is not apt.
  • "Chu Ch'ēn Village" (A.D. 811)

• In the depth of the night not daring to let any one know
  I secretly took a huge stone and dashed it against my arm.
  For drawing the bow and waving the banner now wholly unfit;
  I knew henceforward I should not be sent to fight in Yün-nan.
  Bones broken and sinews wounded could not fail to hurt;
  I was ready enough to bear pain, if only I got back home.
  My arm—broken ever since; it was sixty years ago.
  One limb, although destroyed,—whole body safe!
  But even now on winter nights when the wind and rain blow
  From evening on till day's dawn I cannot sleep for pain.
  Not sleeping for pain
  Is a small thing to bear,
  Compared with the joy of being alive...
  • "The Old Man with the Broken Arm" (a satire on militarism)

I remember, when I was young,
How easily my mood changed from sad to gay.
... But now that age comes,
A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.

• I remember, when I was young,
  How easily my mood changed from sad to gay.
  If I saw wine, no matter at what season,
  Before I drank it, my heart was already glad.
  But now that age comes,
  A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.
  And always I fear that when I am quite old
  The strongest liquor will leave me comfortless.
  • "The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden" (A.D. 812)

• A gentle wind blows on my fishing-gear
  Softly shaking my ten feet of line.
  Though my body sits waiting for fish to come,
  My heart has wandered to the Land of Nothingness.
  Long ago a white-headed man
  Also fished at the same river's side;
  A hooker of men, not a hooker of fish,
  At seventy years, he caught Wen Wang.
  But I, when I come to cast my hook in the stream,
  Have no thought either of fish or men.
  Lacking the skill to capture either prey,
  I can only bask in the autumn water's light.
  When I tire of this, my fishing also stops;
  I go to my home and drink my cup of wine.
  • Fishing in the Wei River (渭上偶钓)

Chang Hen Ge (長恨歌; "A Song of Unending Sorrow")

Translation from The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology by Witter Bynner

• 春寒賜浴華清池
  温泉水滑洗凝脂
  • ...It was early spring. They bathed her in the Flower-Pure Pool,
    Which warmed and smoothed the creamy-tinted crystal of her skin

• 可憐光彩生門戸
  遂令天下父母心
  不重生男重生女
  • And, because she so illumined and glorified her clan,
    She brought to every father, every mother through the empire,
    Happiness when a girl was born rather than a boy.

• 在天願作比翼鳥
  在地願為連理枝
  天長地久有時盡
  此恨綿綿無絶期
  • ...That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
    And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
    Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
    While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever.
  • The last four lines.

Quotes about Bai Juyi

• Although there have been many wars in China, the natural outlook of the Chinese is very pacifistic. I do not know of any other country where a poet would have chosen, as Po-Chui did in one of the poems translated by Mr. Waley, called by him The Old Man with the Broken Arm, to make a hero of a recruit who maimed himself to escape military service.
  • Bertrand Russell, The Problem of China (1922), p. 195

• The most striking characteristic of Po Chü-i's poetry is its verbal simplicity. There is a story that he was in the habit of reading his poems to an old peasant woman and altering any expression which she could not understand. The poems of his contemporaries were mere elegant diversions which enabled the scholar to display his erudition, or the literary juggler his dexterity. ... No poet in the world can ever have enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than Po.
  • Arthur Waley, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919), pp. 166 and 168

External links

• Bai Juyi: Poems – English translations of Bai Juyi's poetry.