Moving Encounters 4, Zhang Jiuling (300 Tang Shi #4)

[lnhammer]

South of the Yangzi are tangerines
Whose trees pass winter constant green—
Is it because the weather’s warm
Or they’ve a spirit touched by cold?
They could be given to honored guests
But for the hindering mountain deeps.
Our fate commands, and so we meet,
Obeying the Cycle—we can’t seek it.
They just say plant our plums and peaches—
This tree, how isn’t it fine shade?

感遇 之四
江南有丹橘，
经冬犹绿林；
岂伊地气暖，
自有岁寒心？
可以荐嘉客，
奈何阻重深。
运命惟所遇，
循环不可寻。
徒言树桃李，
此木岂无阴？

This was written as the 7th poem of a 12-poem set, and included in the original edition. The citrus is one that grows only in the tropical south. I’m a little iffy on that fine shade, which is literally “yin” as in yin-and-yang, pointing back to that touch of cold spirit in line 4. My sense is that it’s pointing at a cosmic principle as something that can be relied upon, but ATM I’ve no good way to express that compactly in English. (I’m also very confident I’ve grasped either the essence or the point of ll.7-8.)

(That’s the last from the set in 3TP. As far as the rest, I’m not interested in translating 8 more aggrieved moralizations.)

---L.