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Climbing Mt. Xian with Many Gentlemen, Meng Haoran (300 Tang Shi #125)
Affairs of men change every generation,
Coming and going from ancient times till now—
Successful men leave traces on the land,
Which in our lifetimes we can climb and approach.
The waters sink, and Yuliang Island gurgles—
The sky is cold, and Yunmeng Marsh profound.
There’s writing here on Duke Yang’s monument—
I finish reading, and tears soak my lapel.
与诸子登岘山
人事有代谢，
往来成古今。
江山留胜迹，
我辈复登临。
水落鱼梁浅，
天寒梦泽深。
羊公碑字在，
读罢泪沾襟。
Mt. Xian is a shorthand name of Mt. Xianshou, in Xiangyang, Hubei (same city as in #122), a little south of Yuliang Island in the Han River. This is a different Yunmeng (the poem has just Meng Marsh, but that’s another shorthand name) from the one in #124, which is a couple hundred miles away. Idiom: the land is literally “rivers and mountains,” which is vivid enough I regret not managing to use the phrase. Duke Yang is Yang Hu, a Western Jin official stationed here at the border with Wu; hugely popular for allowing cross-border trade during nominal wartime, he was memorialized after his death in 278 with a stelle that still exists. Weeping before it is enough of a tradition that it’s called the “Monument of Tears” (see the sign on its pavilion).
(Amusement: According to a Han-era dictionary, the original meaning of 胜, which now in places that use simplified characters is usually read as the simplified form of 勝 “success,” was “the stench of a wet dog.”)
A lot of translations understand the gentlemen as “friends,” but I haven’t been able to confirm this in a dictionary and 诸 “many/all” was a respectful pluralizer. I’m keeping it as gentlemen for now and will continue researching this.
---L.
Coming and going from ancient times till now—
Successful men leave traces on the land,
Which in our lifetimes we can climb and approach.
The waters sink, and Yuliang Island gurgles—
The sky is cold, and Yunmeng Marsh profound.
There’s writing here on Duke Yang’s monument—
I finish reading, and tears soak my lapel.
与诸子登岘山
人事有代谢，
往来成古今。
江山留胜迹，
我辈复登临。
水落鱼梁浅，
天寒梦泽深。
羊公碑字在，
读罢泪沾襟。
Mt. Xian is a shorthand name of Mt. Xianshou, in Xiangyang, Hubei (same city as in #122), a little south of Yuliang Island in the Han River. This is a different Yunmeng (the poem has just Meng Marsh, but that’s another shorthand name) from the one in #124, which is a couple hundred miles away. Idiom: the land is literally “rivers and mountains,” which is vivid enough I regret not managing to use the phrase. Duke Yang is Yang Hu, a Western Jin official stationed here at the border with Wu; hugely popular for allowing cross-border trade during nominal wartime, he was memorialized after his death in 278 with a stelle that still exists. Weeping before it is enough of a tradition that it’s called the “Monument of Tears” (see the sign on its pavilion).
(Amusement: According to a Han-era dictionary, the original meaning of 胜, which now in places that use simplified characters is usually read as the simplified form of 勝 “success,” was “the stench of a wet dog.”)
A lot of translations understand the gentlemen as “friends,” but I haven’t been able to confirm this in a dictionary and 诸 “many/all” was a respectful pluralizer. I’m keeping it as gentlemen for now and will continue researching this.
---L.
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