Choe Chiwon 崔致遠
late 9th century · Silla Korea
In the autumn wind I can only chant in pain. In all the world, few know my music. Outside the window, rain at the third watch. Before the lamp, a heart ten thousand ages away.
秋風惟苦吟 擧世少知音
囱外三更雨 燈前萬古心Goun jip, book 1, "On an Autumn Night, in the Rain"
More from Choe Chiwon · #loneliness
In the same thread
Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso
c. AD 12 · Roman Empire · From Tomis, his place of exile
Here it is I who am the barbarian, understood by no one, and the dull Getae laugh at Latin words.
Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli,
et rident stolidi uerba Latina GetaeTristia (Sorrows) 5.10
Confucius 孔子
5th century BC · Lu, Spring and Autumn China
"No one knows me!" Zigong asked: "Why do you say that no one knows you?" "I do not resent heaven and I do not blame people. I study what is below and reach what is above. The one that knows me is heaven, perhaps."
子曰：「莫我知也夫！」子貢曰：「何爲其莫知子也？」子曰：「不怨天，不尤人，下學而上達。知我者其天乎！」Analects, book 14 (Xianwen)
Abu Firas أبو فراس الحمداني
960s · Aleppo, Syria · In prison in Constantinople
I said, as a dove moaned close beside me: Neighbour, do you feel what I am going through? God forbid! You have never tasted the blow of parting, and no cares have ever crossed your mind.
أقول وقد ناحت بقربي حمامة :
أيا جارتا هل تشعرين بحالي ؟
معاذ الهوى ! ماذقت طارقة النوى ،
ولا خطرت منك الهموم ببالDivan of Abu Firas, the poems of captivity (Rumiyyat)
Charles Baudelaire
1859 · Paris, France · Of a great seabird that sailors catch for fun and set down on the deck
The Poet is like that prince of the clouds who haunts the storm and laughs at the archer; exiled on the ground, amid the jeering, his giant's wings keep him from walking.
Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer; Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées, Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
"The Albatross," in The Flowers of Evil
Jose Hernandez José Hernández
1872 · Buenos Aires, Argentina
Here I settle down to sing to the beat of my guitar, for a man kept from his sleep by an uncommon sorrow, like the solitary bird, finds comfort in his song.
Aquí me pongo a cantar Al compás de la vigüela, Que el hombre que lo desvela Una pena estraordinaria Como la ave solitaria Con el cantar se consuela.
The Gaucho Martin Fierro, the first stanza
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us