Su Shi 蘇軾
man of letters · official · Song China · 1037–1101
Su Dongpo. A Song man of letters who left his name in poetry, prose, calligraphy and even cooking. He was jailed for his poems and exiled three times.
Posts
1061
A life, wherever it comes to: do you know what it is like? It must be like a wild goose in flight, treading on snowy mud. By chance it leaves the marks of its claws on the mud, and when the goose flies on, who can say whether east or west?
人生到處知何似，應似飛鴻踏雪泥。
泥上偶然留指爪，鴻飛那復計東西。"Answering Ziyou's Poem on Remembering Old Days at Mianchi," in the Complete Song Poems
c. 1071 · Teasing his tall younger brother Su Zhe, then a schoolmaster in Chenzhou (Wanqiu)
The teacher of Wanqiu is as tall as a hill; the school of Wanqiu is as small as a boat. He bends his head all day reciting classics and histories, and when he suddenly yawns and stretches, the roof hits his head.
宛丘先生長如丘，宛丘學舍小如舟。
常時低頭誦經史，忽然欠伸屋打頭。"Teasing Ziyou"
1073 · Xi Shi was a famous beauty of the ancient state of Yue
The water gleams and ripples: clear weather is just right. The hills are veiled in mist: rain is wonderful too. If I were to compare West Lake to the beauty Xi Shi, light make-up or heavy, either suits her well.
水光瀲灧晴方好，山色空濛雨亦奇。
若把西湖比西子，淡粧濃抹總相宜。"Drinking on the Lake: Clear at First, Then Rain"
January 20, 1075 · On dreaming of his wife, ten years dead
Ten years, the living and the dead, each lost to the other. I do not try to think of her, yet cannot forget. Her lonely grave is a thousand miles away, and there is nowhere to tell this desolation.
十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘。
千里孤墳，無處話淒涼。To the tune "River Town": recording a dream on the night of the twentieth day of the first month of the yimao year
Mid-Autumn Festival, 1076 · After drinking all night and getting very drunk, thinking of the brother he had not seen in seven years
People have sorrow and joy, parting and reunion. The moon has cloud and clear, full and waning. These things have never been perfect since ancient times. I only wish that you may live long, and that we may share this moon a thousand miles apart.
人有悲歡離合，月有陰晴圓缺，此事古難全。
但願人長久，千里共嬋娟。To the tune "Prelude to the Water Melody"
1080 · Just arrived at his place of exile, after being jailed for his poems
I laugh at myself: all my life I have been kept busy by my mouth, and in old age my affairs have gone from bad to absurd.
自笑平生爲口忙，老來事業轉荒唐。"First Arrival in Huangzhou," in the Complete Song Poems
1082
We are mayflies lodged between heaven and earth, a single grain of millet on the vast sea. I grieve that my life is a moment, and envy the Yangtze that never ends.
寄蜉蝣於天地，渺滄海之一粟。哀吾生之須臾，羨長江之無窮。"First Rhapsody on the Red Cliff"
March 7, 1082 · Caught in rain on the road, with the servant carrying the rain gear gone on ahead. Everyone else was flustered, his preface says, and he alone was not
Do not listen to the rain beating through the woods on the leaves. Why not chant and whistle and walk on slowly? A bamboo staff and straw sandals are lighter than a horse. Who is afraid? In a straw cape through mist and rain, I take my life as it comes.
莫聽穿林打葉聲，何妨吟嘯且徐行。
竹杖芒鞋輕勝馬，誰怕？一蓑煙雨任平生。To the tune "Calming the Wind and Waves"
1082
Drinking at night on the East Slope, I sobered and got drunk again. When I came home it seemed about the third watch. The houseboy's snoring was already like thunder. I knocked at the gate and no one answered, so I leaned on my staff and listened to the river.
夜飲東坡醒復醉，歸來仿佛三更。
家童鼻息已雷鳴。敲門都不應，倚杖聽江聲。To the tune "Immortal by the River": returning to Lingao at night
1083 · On the birth of a son in Huangzhou, his place of exile
Everyone raises a child hoping he will be clever. I have been ruined all my life by cleverness. I only wish my boy to be dull and simple, and, free of disaster and trouble, to rise to the highest offices.
人皆養子望聰明，我被聰明誤一生。
惟願孩兒愚且魯，無災無難到公卿。"Written in Jest at My Son's Bathing Ceremony," in the Complete Song Poems
1084
Seen from the front, a range; from the side, a peak. Far, near, high, low, no two views are the same. I do not know the true face of Mount Lu, only because I am here inside the mountain.
橫看成嶺側成峰，遠近高低總不同。
不識廬山真面目，只緣身在此山中。"Written on the Wall of Xilin Temple," in the Complete Song Poems
1085
Beyond the bamboo, two or three sprays of peach blossom; when the spring river warms, the ducks are the first to know. Mugwort covers the ground and the reed shoots are short: just the season when the pufferfish come upstream.
竹外桃花三兩枝，春江水暖鴨先知。
蔞蒿滿地蘆芽短，正是河豚欲上時。"On Huichong's Painting of a Spring River at Evening"
1096 · Exiled to Huizhou, in the far south
If I could eat three hundred lychees every day, I would not refuse to be a man of the far south for good.
日啖荔支三百顆，不辭長作嶺南人。"Eating Lychees," the second poem, in the Complete Song Poems
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