Gazing at the Peak, Du Fu (300 Tang Shi #8)
Monday, 26 September 2022 06:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerAbout Mt. Tai—what’s there to say?
’Tween Qi and Lu, unlimited green
Where Nature gathers mysterious grace.
Its north and south split dusk and dawn,
Great breast engendering layered clouds.
Eyes burst, beholding its gathered birds.
Can one ascend its vanishing peak?
One glance and crowded mountains shrink.
望岳
岱宗夫如何？
齐鲁青未了。
造化锺神秀，
阴阳割昏晓。
荡胸生层云，
决眦入归鸟。
会当凌绝顶，
一览众山小。
Written in 736 when Du Fu was 24—which is old enough to not really count as juvenalia, but he didn’t develop his distinctive poetic voice till his 40s. (A sight that “bursts the eyeballs” —srsly? Also, ew.) Qi and Lu were the two Warring States who bordered Mt. Tai in Shandong, one of the five sacred mountains of Daoism.
(When Li Bai was 24, he was writing masterpieces like #43.”)
—L.
’Tween Qi and Lu, unlimited green
Where Nature gathers mysterious grace.
Its north and south split dusk and dawn,
Great breast engendering layered clouds.
Eyes burst, beholding its gathered birds.
Can one ascend its vanishing peak?
One glance and crowded mountains shrink.
望岳
岱宗夫如何？
齐鲁青未了。
造化锺神秀，
阴阳割昏晓。
荡胸生层云，
决眦入归鸟。
会当凌绝顶，
一览众山小。
Written in 736 when Du Fu was 24—which is old enough to not really count as juvenalia, but he didn’t develop his distinctive poetic voice till his 40s. (A sight that “bursts the eyeballs” —srsly? Also, ew.) Qi and Lu were the two Warring States who bordered Mt. Tai in Shandong, one of the five sacred mountains of Daoism.
(When Li Bai was 24, he was writing masterpieces like #43.”)
—L.