Thursday, February 16, 2017
History
Wang An-Shih (1021-1086), "Reading History" (tr. David Hinton):
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Renowned achievement's been bitter business from the beginning.
Who can you trust to tell the story of all you've done and not done?
Whatever happens is already murky enough, and full of distortion,
then small minds muddle the truth further and it's utter confusion:
they only hand down dregs. Their azure-green and cinnabar inks
can't capture the fresh kernel of things, the quintessential spirit,
and how could they fathom a lofty sage's thoughts, those mindless
sentinels guarding thousand-autumn dust on their pages of paper?
