司空圖二十四詩品第一《雄渾》 / Sikong Tu's Twenty-Four Classes of Poems, 1 - "Undivided Strength"

So here's the first of the twenty-four poems that comprise 司空圖 Sikong Tu's 二十四詩品 Twenty-Four Classes of Poems. Like the other one I posted (#4, 沈著 "Deep in Thought"), this is just a draft. I don't like the working title, and I'm not terribly pleased with how a lot of these have been coming out—though as I work my way through them and get a sense of what the poet is going for, it's getting a bit easier. (Rendering them in to Portuguese is a whole 'nother set of problems. Nossa.)

The title of this collection is misleading, I think, at least in English. This isn't a series of examples of different styles of poetry, as they're all written according to an old four-character pattern (as opposed to the more common, at least when Sikong was writing, five- or seven-character patterns); instead, it's more like an exhibition of poetic themes. But of course it's not that simple; these aren't simply poems about the seasons, landscapes, parting, exile, or whatever. Paulo and I have talked about this, and we think what Sikong is doing, among other things, is providing examples of the motives for writing poetry, and the effects those motives and the act of writing itself has on the poet. The result is a lot of typical Chinese imagery interwoven with philosophical and cosmological ideas, but often without the grounding you find in other poets, which gives each poem, and the project as a whole, an unusual quality. Anyway, these ideas of ours, like the translations themselves, are pretty embryonic, so they'll probably change with time.

Before I forget, I've been reading David Hinton's Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Chinese Poetry, which has provided a lot of food for thought. I'll talk more about that book at a later date, since I haven't finished it and I need to get my thoughts in order, but suffice to say that coming across it when I did has proven to be a textbook case of happy synchronicity.

微臣

史大偉

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雄渾

司空圖

大用外腓

真體內充

反虛入渾

積健為雄

具備萬物

橫絕太空

荒荒油雲

寥寥長風

超以象外

得其環中

持之非強

來之無窮

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"Undivided Strength"

Sikong Tu

Great effort, outer weakness—

the true form of inner completion.

Returning to emptiness, one enters the All;

gather strength and become powerful.

Possessing the myriad things,

cutting across the empty sky—

billowing clouds as far as the eye can see,

the wind rises in the undisturbed silence.

Going beyond appearances,

one attains the center of the All—

grasping without force,

one reaches the Endless.