Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Crazy Man
Du Fu (712-770), "Crazy Man" (tr. Stephen Owen, with his note):
Newer› ‹Older
West of Ten Thousand League Bridge, a single thatched cottage,
the waters of Hundred Flowers Pool are my Canglang.1
Wind in the azure dwarf bamboo, winsomely pure,
rain soaks the river lotus, more fragrant with passing time.
From old friends with fat salaries letters have ceased coming,
my children, constantly hungry, have forlorn complexions.
Knowing I'll be tossed in some ditch when I die, I grow only more careless and free,
and laugh at myself as a crazy man who gets crazier in old age.
1 Canglang the proverbial place of reclusion, where one could either emerge to serve or stay withdrawn, according to the situation of the times.
