Elections

Of course, one should never expect to witness the disappearance of human folly, malice, and bad faith while one is still above ground. "The vale of Soul-making" is no picnic, after all.  Not unexpected are the perennial ways of humanity: it has all been done, seen, and said before.  But it is tiresome nonetheless.  Best to let it all go.

   Autumn Night: Depicting Busyness in the Midst of Silence

White-haired, in clear autumn touched by scenes and emotions,

among hills, moon my companion, living out the last of my life:

night deepens, no lingering echoes from the ten thousand pipes;

all I hear is the sound of the sōzu tapping the rock.

Ishikawa Jōzan (1583-1672) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Kanshi: The Poetry of Ishikawa Jōzan and Other Edo-Period Poets (North Point Press 1990), page 25.  

Watson provides a note on the sōzu: "The sōzu is a device made of a bamboo tube that periodically fills with water from a stream, tips to pour out the water, and then returns to its original position, striking a rock and producing a sharp rapping sound as it does so.  It was intended to scare deer away from the garden."  Ibid, page 25.

Eustace Nash (1886-1969), "Poole Quay from Hamworthy, Dorset"

Watson also provides a note to the phrase "ten thousand pipes" in the third line of the poem:  "The 'ten thousand pipes' . . . is a reference to the famous passage on the noises made by the wind in the forest in the second chapter of Chuang Tzu."  Ibid, page 25.  Here is a portion of the chapter referred to by Watson:

"Tzu-yu said, 'By the piping of earth, then, you mean simply [the sound of] these hollows, and by the piping of man [the sound of] flutes and whistles.  But may I ask about the piping of Heaven?'

"Tzu-ch'i said, 'Blowing on the ten thousand things in a different way, so that each can be itself — all take what they want for themselves, but who does the sounding?'

"Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy.  Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome.  In sleep, men's spirits go visiting; in waking hours, their bodies hustle.  With everything they meet they become entangled.  Day after day they use their minds in strife, sometimes grandiose, sometimes sly, sometimes petty.  Their little fears are mean and trembly; their great fears are stunned and overwhelming. They bound off like an arrow or a crossbow pellet, certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong.  They cling to their position as though they had sworn before the gods, sure that they are holding on to victory.  They fade like fall and winter — such is the way they dwindle day by day.  They drown in what they do — you cannot make them turn back.  They grow dark, as though sealed with seals — such are the excesses of their old age.  And when their minds draw near to death, nothing can restore them to the light."

Chuang Tzu (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (Columbia University Press 1964), page 32.  The brackets appear in Watson's original text.

Explaining Chuang Tzu's meaning, Watson says this about the use of the word "Heaven" in the passage: "Heaven is not something distinct from earth and man, but a name applied to the natural and spontaneous functioning of the two."  Ibid, page 32.

Charles Kerr (1858-1907), "Carradale"

Yes, it all becomes quite tiresome.  Best to let it go.  The soul's home is in other places.

In paddies among the mountains

girls transplant

rice seedlings —

the sound of their singing

drifts up from far away.

Ryōkan (1758-1831) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Ryōkan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan (Columbia University Press 1977), page 30.  The poem is a waka.

Robert Coventry (1855-1914), "The Haven" (1908)

Adrift

A few posts ago, I considered Matthew Arnold's use of the "Sea of Life" metaphor in his poetry.  Recently, however, my thoughts have turned to a more homely image of life:  a boat adrift on calm waters.  I have in mind a wooden rowboat.  Or perhaps, even though I am not a sailor, a small wooden sailboat.

Our life in this world --
to what shall I compare it?
It is like a boat
     rowing out at break of day,
leaving not a trace behind.

Sami Mansei (8th century) (translated by Steven Carter), in Steven Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology (Stanford University Press 1991).

I prefer this image to that of a three-masted Ship of Life, under full sail, cleaving the stormy waves of Time, et cetera.  We all know the inevitable end of such a journey:  "As a rule, everyone ultimately reaches port with masts and rigging gone."  (Arthur Schopenhauer (translated by E. F. J. Payne), "Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the Vanity of Existence," Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume 2 (Oxford University Press 1974; originally published in 1851), page 284.)  An oceanic circumnavigation is far too dramatic.  I fancy this instead:  "a boat amid the ripples, drifting, rocking."  (Christina Rossetti, "Pastime.")

Frank Jowett (1879-1943), "In Mevagissey Harbour, Cornwall"

Sami Mansei's boat is "rowing out at break of day," bound for a preordained end.  But it is in no hurry, and the scene is suffused with tranquility.  There is a great deal to be said for idle drifting, with a bit of occasional rowing. We will arrive when we arrive.

"These men you wander around with -- none will give you any good advice. All they have are petty words, the kind that poison a man.  No one understands, no one comprehends -- so who can give any help to anyone else?  The clever man wears himself out, the wise man worries.  But the man of no ability has nothing he seeks.  He eats his fill and wanders idly about.  Drifting like an unmoored boat, emptily and idly he wanders along."

Chuang Tzu (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (Columbia University Press 1968), page 354.

Be assured:  Chuang Tzu is advising us that "the man of no ability" who "emptily and idly . . . wanders along" -- "drifting like an unmoored boat" -- deserves our approbation, not our condemnation.  "The clever man" and "the wise man" have both got it all wrong.

                                     July

Naught moves but clouds, and in the glassy lake
Their doubles and the shadow of my boat.
The boat itself stirs only when I break
This drowse of heat and solitude afloat
To prove if what I see be bird or mote,
Or learn if yet the shore woods be awake.

Long hours since dawn grew, -- spread, -- and passed on high
And deep below, -- I have watched the cool reeds hung
Over images more cool in imaged sky:
Nothing there was worth thinking of so long;
All that the ring-doves say, far leaves among,
Brims my mind with content thus still to lie.

Edward Thomas, in Edna Longley (editor), Edward Thomas: The Annotated Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2008).  Thomas wrote the poem in May of 1915.  Ibid, page 235.

China in the 4th century B. C., England in 1915, or now:  there is no difference.

Walter Goodin, "Bridlington Harbour, East Riding of Yorkshire" (1951)

Chuang Tzu is correct:  why aspire to be clever or wise?  (Besides, who in their right mind would, or could, claim to be clever or wise?)  If it is serenity and contentment that we seek (I see no reason to grasp after "happiness," whatever that may be), idle drifting seems to be the proper course of action. But one mustn't equate idleness with sloth, disinterest, or ennui:  it is an active state of being that requires attention, patience, receptivity, and humility.  One never knows when a message may arrive.

"Lessons from the world around us:  certain localities, certain moments 'incline' us towards them; there seems to be the pressure of a hand, an invisible hand, urging a change of direction (of the footsteps, the gaze, or the thoughts); the hand could also be a breath, like the breath behind leaves, clouds, sailing boats.  An insinuation, in an undertone like someone whispering 'look,' 'listen,' or merely 'wait'.  But is there still the time, the patience to wait?  And is 'waiting' really the right word?"

Philippe Jaccottet (translated by Mark Treharne), Cherry Tree (Le Cerisier) (The Delos Press 1991), pages 13-14.

Stanhope Forbes, "The Inner Harbour: Abbey Slip" (1921)

Given the distractions of the modern world, Jaccottet asks a valid question: "But is there still the time, the patience to wait?"  Popular culture, the media, and technology all urge us to pursue ephemeral chimeras at ever-increasing speeds.  But each of us has it in us to step into a drifting boat at any moment and to say good-bye to all that (to borrow from Robert Graves). In my experience, this becomes easier as one ages.

                              Evening

When little lights in little ports come out,
Quivering down through water with the stars,
And all the fishing fleet of slender spars
Range at their moorings, veer with tide about;

When race of wind is stilled and sails are furled,
And underneath our single riding-light
The curve of black-ribbed deck gleams palely white,
And slumbrous waters pool a slumbrous world;

-- Then, and then only, have I thought how sweet
Old age might sink upon a windy youth,
Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth,
Weathered through storms, and gracious in retreat.

Vita Sackville-West, Orchard and Vineyard (John Lane 1921).

"Quiet beneath the riding-light of truth."  Well, I doubt that "old age" in itself leads us to the discovery of "the riding-light of truth" (intimations or glimpses of Truth perhaps -- if we pay attention and are lucky).  But, as for "gracious in retreat":  that is a laudable goal, and one that may be attainable as long as we keep our wits about us.

Frank Jowett, "A Sunlight Harbour"

As one who has no wisdom, and who knows nothing, my musings on being able to idly drift on calm waters are purely aspirational.  There may be moments (mere instants) when such a life seems within reach.  They immediately vanish.

Yet, we wouldn't wish it otherwise, would we?

                 Old Crofter

The gate he built last year
hangs by its elbow from the wall.
The oar he shaped this summer
goes through the water with a swirl, a swivel.

The hammer in his great hand
pecks like fowl in the grain.
His haycocks are lopsided.
His lamp stands on the dresser, unlit.

One day the rope he has tied
will slither down the rock
and the boat drift off idly
dwindling away into the Atlantic.

Norman MacCaig, in Ewen McCaig (editor), The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2009).

Henry Moore, "Catspaws Off the Land" (1885)

How To Live, Part Twenty-Six: Dwelling

We live in a noisy world.  The noise comes both from outside and from inside.  All we need is a little peace and quiet.  A universal sentiment, don't you think?

Fortunately, we have it in our power to shut out the noise.  Right at this moment.  To cite but one example:  pay no attention to the News of the World.  It is easily done.  Turning off the internal noise is much more difficult.  Often, at the start of my daily walk, I say to myself:  "No thinking."  I inevitably fail.

T'ao Yüan-ming (whose nom de plume was "T'ao Ch'ien," meaning, roughly, "the Recluse") left his position in government to live in the countryside.  His was not a life of comfortable retreat:  he worked as a farmer and had a large family.  His poetry reflects a sense of contentment and tranquility, with occasional bumps in the road (the inevitable consequence of making one's living as a farmer).

I built my hut in a place where people live,
and yet there's no clatter of carriage or horse.
You ask me how that could be?
With a mind remote, the region too grows distant.
I pick chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge,
see the southern mountain, calm and still.
The mountain air is beautiful at close of day,
birds on the wing coming home together.
In all this there's some principle of truth,
but try to define it and you forget the words.

T'ao Ch'ien (365-427) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (Columbia University Press 1984).  The poem is untitled.

The truths that one finds in poetry are not limited to a particular place or time.  A conversation between T'ao Ch'ien, a Chinese poet of the 4th and 5th centuries, and Walter de la Mare, an English poet of the 20th century, may, I hope, demonstrate the universality of poetic truth.  Think of de la Mare's poems in this post as both a counterpoint to, and an echo of, T'ao Ch'ien's poem.

                         Days and Moments

The drowsy earth, craving the quiet of night,
Turns her green shoulder from the sun's last ray;
Less than a moment in her solar flight
Now seems, alas! thou fleeting one, life's happiest day.

Walter de la Mare, Inward Companion and Other Poems (Faber and Faber 1950).

Robin Tanner, "The Gamekeeper's Cottage" (1928)

T'ao Ch'ien possessed deep knowledge of Taoism.  Hence, it is not surprising that the final two lines of his poem are reminiscent of Lao Tzu's well-known statement from the Tao te Ching (as translated by Arthur Waley):  "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." Here is another translation of T'ao Ch'ien's poem:

I have built my cottage amid the realm of men
But I hear no din of horses or carriages.
You might ask, "How is this possible?"
A remote heart creates its own hermitage!
Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge,
I perceive the Southern Mountain in the distance.
Marvelous is the mountain air at sunset!
The flitting birds return home in pairs,
In these things is the essence of truth --
I wish to explain but have lost the words.

T'ao Ch'ien (translated by Angela Jung Palandri), in Angela Jung Palandri, "The Taoist Vision: A Study of T'ao Yüan-ming's Nature Poetry," Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Volume 15 (1988).

Some truths cannot be put into words.  These truths are usually the most important truths.  "Forget[ting] the words" or "los[ing] the words" is not necessarily a bad thing:  it may be a sign that you have learned something important.  An observation by Ludwig Wittgenstein (which has appeared here on more than one occasion) complements Lao Tzu and T'ao Ch'ien quite well:  "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Ludwig Wittgenstein (translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness), Proposition 7, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922).

                                      Solitude

     Space beyond space:  stars needling into night:
     Through rack, above, I gaze from Earth below --
Spinning in unintelligible quiet beneath
     A moonlit drift of cloudlets, still as snow.

Walter de la Mare, Inward Companion and Other Poems (Faber and Faber 1950).

Robin Tanner, "June" (1946)

The fourth line of T'ao Ch'ien's poem contains the Chinese character xin. The same character is known as kokoro in Japanese.  The character is a wonderful one:  in both Chinese and Japanese it can mean "heart," but it can also mean "mind."  It can also carry connotations of "spirit," "soul," or "core," which seems appropriate:  heart-mind; mind-heart.  That evanescent and ungraspable thing.  Animula vagula blandula.

Burton Watson elects to translate xin as "mind," as does David Hinton in the following translation of the poem.  Palandri, on the other hand, translates xin as "heart."  Arthur Waley, who produced the first translation of this poem into English (which appears at the end of this post), also elects to use "heart."  This division of opinion suggests that we have no word in English to match the beauty, implication, and subtlety of xin (or kokoro).

I live here in a village house without
all that racket horses and carts stir up,

and you wonder how that could ever be.
Wherever the mind dwells apart is itself

a distant place.  Picking chrysanthemums
at my east fence, I see South Mountain

far off:  air lovely at dusk, birds in flight
returning home.  All this means something,

something absolute:  whenever I start
to explain it, I forget words altogether.

T'ao Ch'ien (translated by David Hinton), in David Hinton, Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China (Counterpoint 2002).

                            Unforeseen

Darkness had fallen.  I opened the door:
And lo, a stranger in the empty room --
A marvel of moonlight upon wall and floor . . .
The quiet of mercy?  Or the hush of doom?

Walter de la Mare, Memory and Other Poems (Constable 1938).

Robin Tanner, "Martin's Hovel" (1927)

"Admirable is a person who has nothing that hampers his mind."  Bashō (translated by Makoto Ueda), in Makoto Ueda, Matsuo Bashō (Twayne 1970), page 118.  And why not this as well, given our consideration of xin and kokoro:  "Admirable is a person who has nothing that hampers his heart."  Perhaps this is what T'ao Ch'ien is getting at in line 4:  "a mind remote" (Watson); "a remote heart" (Palandri); "the mind dwells apart" (Hinton).  And, from Arthur Waley in the translation below:  "a heart that is distant."

I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,
Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.
Would you know how that is possible?
A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds two by two return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.

T'ao Ch'ien (translated by Arthur Waley), in Arthur Waley, One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (Constable 1918).

This remoteness or distance of heart or mind is not a matter of coldness, indifference, or self-absorption.  It is a matter of the mind or the heart not being hampered or stifled by the noise of the World, and by the noise that comes from within our ever-buzzing brain.  "Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?" Chuang Tzu (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (Columbia University Press 1964), page 140.

                                      Night

That shining moon -- watched by that one faint star:
Sure now am I, beyond the fear of change,
The lovely in life is the familiar,
And only the lovelier for continuing strange.

Walter de la Mare, Memory and Other Poems (Constable 1938).

Robin Tanner, "The Wicket Gate" (1977)

Fluttering

Many of the blossoming trees -- cherries, plums, magnolias, dogwoods -- are now at their peak.  Above, below, and all around, it is a pink and white world.  Ah, if this world could freeze in place!  I understand what Wallace Stevens is getting at in "This Solitude of Cataracts":  "He wanted to feel the same way over and over. . . . He wanted his heart to stop beating and his mind to rest/In a permanent realization . . . Just to know how it would feel, released from destruction . . ."  Not in the cards, of course.

             Night Rain -- Worrying About the Flowers

I sigh on this rainy late spring night:
the reds and whites that filled the forest are falling to the dust!
Late at night, my soul in dream becomes a butterfly,
chasing after each falling petal as it flutters to the earth.

Ishikawa Jōzan (1583-1672) (translated by Jonathan Chaves), in J. Thomas Rimer, Jonathan Chaves, Stephen Addiss, and Hiroyuki Suzuki, Shisendo: Hall of the Poetry Immortals (Weatherhill 1991), page 49.

As I have noted here before, during the Edo (or Tokugawa) period (1603-1868) a significant number of Japanese poets devoted themselves to writing poems in Chinese.  The poems they wrote are known as kanshi (a Japanese word meaning -- no surprise -- "Chinese poem").  Ishikawa Jōzan is perhaps the most admired kanshi poet.  He possessed a deep knowledge of both Chinese poetry (including its intricate and demanding prosodic rules) and Chinese philosophy.  Hence, it is not unlikely that he had the following passage from Chuang Tzu in mind when he wrote "Night Rain -- Worrying About the Flowers."

"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.  He didn't know he was Chuang Chou.  Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou.  But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou."

Chuang Tzu (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (Columbia University Press 1964), page 45.  A note: Chuang Tzu's family name was "Chuang;" his given name was "Chou."  He later came to be known as "Chuang Tzu" ("Master Chuang") because of his philosophical teachings.

Allusions to Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream appear often in traditional Japanese poetry, particularly in haiku.  Here is one instance:

     O butterfly,
What are you dreaming there,
     Fanning your wings?

Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) (translated by R. H. Bkyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 2: Spring (Hokuseido Press 1950), page 257.

James McIntosh Patrick, "A City Garden" (1940)

When it comes to the seasons, the wistfulness and bittersweetness quotients for spring and autumn are, as I have observed in the past, quite high.  So many reminders of our transience, and of the constancy of change!  Thus arises the irrational (or is it irrational?) desire to freeze things in place.

Here's a thought:  what if we could transform our existence into a spring or an autumn version of a snow globe?  Shake the globe, and you can live in an eternity of fluttering pink and white blossoms or, alternatively, in an eternity of flying and falling yellow, red, and orange leaves.  Would we in time find these eternal worlds monotonous?  I think so.  Wistfulness and bittersweetness are wonderful and essential human things, sorrow and all.

                 Fallen Blossoms on the Eastern Hills

Cherry blossoms filling the ground, sunset filling my eyes:
blossoms vanished, spring old, I feel the passing years.
When blossoms were at their finest I neglected to call.
The blossoms did not betray me.  I betrayed the blossoms.

Ishikawa Jōzan (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Kanshi: The Poetry of Ishikawa Jōzan and Other Edo-Period Poets (North Point Press 1990), page 16.

Here is an alternative translation:

      Falling Cherry Blossoms at Higashiyama

Filling the ground -- cherry blossoms,
     Filling the eyes -- pink clouds;
the blossoms have faded, spring grown old,
     I feel the passing of years.
When the blossoms were at their peak,
     I did not come to visit:
it's not that the blossoms are unfaithful to me;
     I was unfaithful to them.

Ishikawa Jōzan (translated by Jonathan Chaves), in J. Thomas Rimer, et al., Shisendo:  Hall of the Poetry Immortals, page 43.  A note: Higashiyama is a district in Kyoto.  Higashi means "east."  Yama means "mountain."

James McIntosh Patrick, "Glamis Village" (1939)A

It's funny how life works.  When you are young, an afternoon can seem to last for ever.  But at some point you come to notice that a year -- even a decade! -- can pass in the blink of an eye.  The fluttering petals are trying to tell us something.

             A Contemplation upon Flowers

Brave flowers -- that I could gallant it like you,
          And be as little vain!
You come abroad, and make a harmless shew,
          And to your beds of earth again.
You are not proud:  you know your birth:
For your embroidered garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I
          Would have it ever spring:
My fate would know no winter, never die,
          Nor think of such a thing.
Oh, that I could my bed of earth but view
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

Oh, teach me to see death and not to fear,
          But rather to take truce!
How often have I seen you at a bier,
          And there look fresh and spruce!
You fragrant flowers, then teach me, that my breath
Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.

Henry King (1592-1669), in Norman Ault (editor), Seventeenth Century Lyrics (William Sloane 1950), page 57.

These lines in King's poem seem to anticipate what Stevens would say three centuries later in "This Solitude of Cataracts":  "You do obey your months and times, but I/Would have it ever spring:/My fate would know no winter, never die,/Nor think of such a thing."  A fond but futile hope.

James McIntosh Patrick, "City Garden" (1979)

It seems to me that the appropriate response to all of this "change and chancefulness" (Thomas Hardy, "The Temporary the All") is gratitude. Gratitude (and joy) amidst the wistfulness and bittersweetness (and sorrow) of this fluttering world.

     Recalling Blossoms After They've Scattered

Once I see
the new green leaves,
my heart may take to them too --
if I think of them as mementos
of blossoms that scattered.

Saigyō (1118-1190) (translated by Burton Watson), in Burton Watson, Saigyō: Poems of a Mountain Home (Columbia University Press 1991), page 46.

Is life as complicated as we make it out to be?  Are the particular times in which we live uniquely parlous and complex?  I wonder.

     Simply trust:
Do not also the petals flutter down,
     Just like that?

Issa (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 2: Spring, page 363.

James McIntosh Patrick, "Springtime in Eskdale" (1935)

The Dream Of The Butterfly

The older one gets, the more life begins to take on a dreamlike aspect. Why is this?  First, one's awareness of the transience of all things (including oneself) assumes a more concrete presence.  Mind you, this awareness needn't be accompanied by fear or anxiety.  In fact, one's reaction might well be:  "Ah, yes, so that's how it is.  I suspected as much."  Second, decades of exposure to the follies and capers (evil or absurd) of one's fellow human beings (again, including oneself) cannot help but make you wonder if you are living in a dream world (or a nightmare world).

I claim no originality in making these observations.  The ancient Greek philosophers (Heraclitus, for instance) and the ancient Chinese Taoist philosophers explained these things around 500 B.C. (or earlier).   So much for our Modern God of Progress.  If anything, we have gone backwards since those times.

Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were the two greatest Taoist philosophers.  Lao Tzu is known for the Tao Te Ching, and Chuang Tzu is known for the eponymous Chuang Tzu.  ("Chuang" was his surname; "Tzu" means "Master;" his given name was "Chou.")  Arguments have been made that neither man ever existed, and that the books are the products of various philosophers of the time whose names are unknown to us.

Chuang Tzu often wrote in allegories, the best-known of which is this:

"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.  He didn't know he was Chuang Chou.  Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou.  But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.  Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction!"

Burton Watson (translator), Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (Columbia University Press 1964), page 45.

Stanley Spencer, "The Roundabout" (1923)

Li Po (701-762) was one of the five great T'ang Dynasty poets (the other four are Wang Wei, Tu Fu,  Po Chu-i, and Han Shan).  The poetry of all five is suffused with Taoism (together with greater and lesser degrees of Buddhism), but Li Po's poetry in particular reflects the riddling (and antic) qualities of Taoism.  Hence, it is not surprising that he would have written a poem about Chuang Tzu's dream of the butterfly.

       Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

Dreaming, Chuang Tzu became a butterfly;
waking, the butterfly became the man.

Who knows which is real?
Who knows where endless changes end?

The waters of the deepest sea
return to the smallest stream.

The melon-grower outside the city gate
was once the King of the Hill.

Even rank and riches eventually disappear.
You know.  And still you toil.

Li Po, in Sam Hamill  (translator), Banished Immortal: Visions of Li T'ai-po (White Pine Press 1987).

Stanley Spencer, "The Boatbuilder's Yard, Cookham" (1936)

For purposes of comparison, here is another translation of the same poem:

          Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

Chuang Chou in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Chou at waking.
Which was the real -- the butterfly or the man?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns anon to the shallows of a transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil, -- what for?

Li Po, in Shigeyoshi Obata (translator), The Works of Li-Po (J. M. Dent 1923).

What, then, are we to do with this wisdom?  After all, we have to wake up each day and go about our business, butterfly dream or not.  But it can't hurt to have a little perspective.  A histrionic false world -- loud and vulgar and disingenuous -- clamors for our attention.  That world is nothing but a chimera.

Stanley Spencer, "Mending Cowls, Cookham" (1915)

Life Explained, Part Twenty-Seven: Dreams

What would we do without our dreams?  Waking or sleeping, they are always with us.  Of course, there is a school of thought (sometimes espoused by the Chinese and Japanese Taoist and Buddhist poets) that life itself is nothing but a dream.  Consider Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream:  did Chuang Tzu dream that he was a butterfly?  Or did the butterfly dream that it was Chuang Tzu?  Or, for instance, this:

The vicissitudes of this world are like the movements of the clouds.
Fifty years of life are nothing but one long dream.
Sparse rain:  in my desolate hermitage at night,
Quietly I clutch my robe and lean against the empty window.

Ryokan (translated by John Stevens), One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan (1977).

                       Lucien Pissarro, "The Garden Gate, Epping" (1894)

Perhaps one definition of a human being is "the creature that dreams."  But, in our current "civilization" -- in particular, its political and entertainment and "social science" worlds -- the dreams that are being peddled are at once shallow and frightening.  Although we cannot stop dreaming, we should beware of dreaming dreams that are not our own.

                      Dreams

The farmers are walking about
in their soggy fields.  Inside their heads
a pleasant sun shines on crops without weeds.

In a house across the road a young man
plays a piano, aware of Bach and Bartok
listening indulgently to his blundering counterpoint.

And the dog asleep in a doorway twitches
his forepaws.  He's chasing
the fattest hare in Midlothian.

Dreams fly everywhere.  They creep
into minds whose owners have slammed them shut.
That boy's lungs are full of them.

Sometimes they come true and the world stares
at a new great painting or a body by the wayside
with chopped off hands.

The dreams of sleep dissolve when the window whitens
and the dreams of daylight swarm in with a passport to heaven
in one hand and a passport to hell in the other.

And sweet berries grow over the graves
of all of us or a white stone marks the place
which is the end of dreams, and of hell, and of heaven.

Ewen McCaig (editor), The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2009).

                           Lucien Pissarro, "High View, Fishpond" (1915)

Winter

I intend to visit R. S. Thomas's Christmas poems next week, but, for now, the following poem by him is a nice companion piece to Norman Nicholson's "December Song," which appeared in my previous post.  (If nothing else, they both contain robins.)

            Winter

Evening.  A fire
in the grate and a fire
outside, where a robin
is burning.  How they both
sing, offering a friendship
unacceptable to the hand
that is as vulnerable to the one
as it is treacherous to the other.

Ah, time, enemy of their music,
reducing fuel to feathers, feathers
to ash, it was, but a moment ago,
spring in this tinder:  flames
in flower that are now embers
on song's hearth.
                                 The leaves fall
from a dark tree, brimming
with shadow, fall on one who,
as Borges suggested,
is no more perhaps than the dream God
in his loneliness is dreaming.

R. S. Thomas, Mass for Hard Times (Bloodaxe Books 1992).

                  Alfred Munnings, "From My Bedroom Window" (1930)

I have little knowledge of the works of Borges, so I do not know the source of the reference made by Thomas at the end of the poem.  However, I once read something by Borges (I cannot recall if it was a poem, a story, or an essay) in which he referred to Chuang Tzu's parable of the butterfly.  The parable has some affinity, I think, with what Thomas writes about in the final three lines of the poem.  However, I have no idea if this is what Thomas had in mind.

Burton Watson translates Chuang Tzu's parable as follows:

"Once Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.  He didn't know he was Chuang Tzu.  Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Tzu.  But he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu."

Burton Watson (translator), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (1968).

                          Eugene Jansson, "Hornsgatan by Night" (1902)