(701-762)
From: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Li_Po/
The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.
The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:
into the night, singing, they paddle home together.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
Sunlight streams on the river stones.
From high above, the river steadily plunges—
three thousand feet of sparkling water—
the Milky Way pouring down from heaven.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
Far up river in Szechuan,
waters rise as spring winds roar.
How can I dare to meet her now,
to brave the dangerous gorge?
The grass grows green in the valley below
where silk worms silently spin.
Her hands work threads that never end,
dawn to dusk when the cuckoo sings.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped;
The colours of Spring teem on every side.
With leaping fish the blue pond is full;
With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.
The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks;
The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.
By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud
Blown by the wind slowly scatters away.
Li Po
tr. Waley
I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.
I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.
But the moon doesn't drink,
and my shadow silently follows.
I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.
When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.
We share life's joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.
Constant friends, although we wander,
we'll meet again in the Milky Way.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
I came here a wanderer
thinking of home,
remembering my far away Ch'ang-an.
And then, from deep in Yellow Crane Pavillion,
I heard a beautiful bamboo flute
play "Falling Plum Blossoms."
It was late spring in a city by the river.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
To drown the ancient sorrows,
we drank a hundred jugs of wine
there in the beautiful night.
We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.
The finally the wine overcame us
and we lay down on the empty mountain--
the earth for a pillow,
and a blanket made of heaven.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
Drunk on Dragon Hill tonight,
the banished immortal, Great White,
turns among yellow flowers,
his smile wide,
as his hat sails away on the wind
and he dances away in the moonlight.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Waley
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Po
Li Bai or Li
Po (701-762)
was a Chinese poet who lived during the Tang
Dynasty.
His name was
traditionally pronounced Li Bo or Li Po (depending on the romanisation),
hence the familiar name Li Po by which he has long been known in the West.
However, the use of the pronunciation 'bó' (pinyin romanisation), originally associated with the reading of Classical
Chinese, has largely disappeared in modern China, partly as a
result of language planning and standardisation.
Called the Poet
Immortal, Li Bai is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of
the two greatest poets in China's literary history. Approximately 1,100 of his poems
remain today. The Western world was introduced to Li Bai's works through the very liberal translations
of Japanese versions of his poems made by Ezra Pound.
Li Bai is best known for the extravagant imagination and
striking Taoist
imagery in his poetry, as well as for his great love for liquor. Like Du Fu, he spent
much of his life travelling, although in his case it was because his wealth
allowed him to, rather than because his poverty forced him. He is said to have
drowned in the Yangtze River, having fallen from his boat while
drunkenly trying to embrace the reflection of the moon.
Biography
|
|
|
|
Lǐ Bó or Lǐ Bái |
|
|
Li Po or
Li Pai |
|
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Zì: |
Tàibái |
|
Hào: |
Qīnglián Jūshì |
|
aka: |
Shīxiān, |
Li Bai's birthplace is uncertain, but one candidate is Suiye in Central Asia (near modern day Tokmok,
Kyrgyzstan).
However his family had originally dwelled in what's now southeastern Gansu [1],
and later moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuan province,
when he was five years old. He was influenced by Confucian
and Taoist
thought, but ultimately his family heritage did not provide him with much
opportunity in the aristocratic Tang Dynasty. Though he expressed the wish to
become an official, he did not sit for the Chinese civil service examination.
Instead, beginning at age twenty-five, he travelled around
He was given a
post at the Hanlin Academy, which
served to provide a source of scholarly expertise and poetry for the Emperor.
Li Bai remained less than two years as a poet in the
Emperor's service before he was dismissed for an unknown indiscretion.
Thereafter he wandered throughout
Li Bai died in Dangtu in modern day Anhui. Traditionally
he was said to have drowned attempting to embrace the moons's
reflection in a river; some scholars believe his death was the result of mercury poisoning due to a long history of
imbibing Taoist longevity elixirs while others believe that he died of too much sex.
Simon Elegant
novelized Li Po's life in his 1997 work, A Floating Life.
Poetry
Over a thousand
poems are attributed to him, but the authenticity of many of these is
uncertain. He is best known for his yue
fu poems, which are intense and often fantastic. He
is often associated with Taoism: there is a strong element of this in his works, both
in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone. Nevertheless, his
gufeng ("ancient airs") often adopt
the perspective of the Confucian moralist, and many of his occasional verses
are fairly conventional.
Much like the
genius of Mozart there exist many legends on how
effortlessly Li Bai composed his poetry; he was said
to be able to compose at an astounding speed, without correction. His favorite
form is the jueju (five- or seven-character quatrain), of
which he composed some 160 pieces. Li Bai's use of
language is not as erudite as Du Fu's but impresses equally through an
extravagance of imagination and a direct correlation of his free-spirited
persona with the reader. Li Bai's interactions with
nature, friendship, his love of wine and his acute
observations of life inform his best poems. Some, like Changgan
xing (translated by Ezra Pound
as A River Merchant's Wife: A Letter), record
the hardships or emotions of common people. He also wrote a number of very
oblique poems on women.
One of Li Bai's
most famous poems is Drinking Alone under the Moon (月下獨酌,
pinyin Yuè Xià
Dú Zhuó),
which is a good example of some of the most famous aspects of his poetry -- a
very spontaneous poem, full of natural imagery and anthropomorphism:
There are 4 poems
Li Bai wrote under this title, this is the most
famous.
Amongst the
flowers is a pot of wine;
I pour alone
but with no friend at hand;
So I lift the
cup to invite the shining moon;
Along with my shadow, a fellowship of three.
The moon
understands not the art of drinking;
The shadow
gingerly follows my movements;
Still I make
the moon and the shadow my company;
To enjoy the springtime before too late.
The moon
lingers while I am singing;
The shadow
scatters while I am dancing;
We share the
cheers of delight when sober;
We separate
our ways after getting drunk;
Forever will
we keep this unfettered friendship;
Til we meet
again far in the Milky Way.
Influence
Li Bai is known in the West partly due to Ezra Pound's
versions of some of his poems in
A crater on the
planet Mercury has been named after him.
It is possible
that Li Bai was the creator of the martial art Zui Quan.
Footnotes
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Other Poets’ Poems index
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