Nine Poems by Hanshan
translated by Ad Blankestijn
(1)
For thirty years I have lived in the world,
I must have roamed a million miles.
I walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,
crossed the frontier where the red sand rises.
Through pills I vainly sought immortality,
I read books and studied history.
Today I’m back at Cold Mountain,
I sleep by the creek and wash out my ears.
(HS 302)
出生三十年， 當遊千萬里。
行江青草合，入塞紅塵起。
鍊藥空求仙，讀書兼詠史。
今日歸寒山，枕流兼洗耳。
(2)
Most valuable to me is Cold Mountain,
white clouds always drifting calmly.
Gibbons screech as they play on the road,
tigers roar as they come out among men.
Rocks support me on my walks,
I grab the vines when I sing.
The breeze in the pines rustles coolly,
and the speech of birds twitters around me.
(HS 165)
可重是寒山, 白雲常自閑。
猿啼暢道內, 虎嘯出人間。
獨步石可履, 孤吟藤好攀。
松風清颯颯, 鳥語聲𠴨𠴨。
(3)
People ask me the way to Cold Mountain -
to Cold Mountain there's no through trail.
Ice, in summer, is still frozen,
Mists, in sunlight, keep swirling.
How did someone like me get here?
Because my mind is not the same as yours.
If your mind were like mine,
you would be right here already!
(4)
My home is beneath the green cliffs,
my garden overgrown, but I don't clear the weeds.
New vines hang down in twists and curls,
old stones thrust up, jagged and sharp.
Monkeys pick the mountain fruits,
white herons snatch the fish from the pond.
Under the trees I read mumbling
a few scrolls by a Daoist master.
(HS 16)
家住綠巖下, 庭蕪更不芟。
新藤垂繚繞, 古石豎巉嵓。
山果獼猴摘, 池魚白鷺㘅。
仙書一兩卷, 樹下讀喃喃。
(5)
The four seasons can not be stopped,
years come and years go.
The Ten Thousand Things replace each other,
the Nine Heavens never will decay.
The east will brighten and the west will darken,
flowers will fall, then bloom again.
Only the traveler to the Yellow Springs,
Once departed in darkness, will not return.
(HS 17)
四時無止息, 年去又年來。
萬物有代謝, 九天無朽摧。
東明又西暗, 花落復花開。
唯有黃泉客, 冥冥去不迴。
(6)
We humans living in the dust,
resemble bugs trapped in a bowl.
All day we run round and round,
but never escape from the bowl.
Immortality is beyond our reach,
our illusions are endless.
Months and years flow by like water,
until, in an instant, we've grown old.
(HS 236)
人生在塵蒙, 恰似盆中蟲。
終日行遶遶, 不離其盆中。
神仙不可得, 煩惱計無窮。
歲月如流水, 須臾作老翁。
(7)
All of you who read my poems:
you must hold purity in your heart.
Day after day clean away your greed
instantly correct your falseness.
Drive your evil karma away,
Take Refuge and accept your True Nature.
Today you’ll obtain your Buddha Body,
be quick as if obeying a command!
(HS 1)
凡讀我詩者, 心中須護淨。
慳貪繼日廉, 諂曲登時正。
驅遣除惡業, 歸依受真性。
今日得佛身, 急急如律令。
(8)
My heart is like the autumn moon
in a jade-green pool: clear, bright and pure.
Nothing can be compared to it —
how do you want me to explain it?
(HS 51)
吾心似秋月, 碧潭清皎潔。
無物堪比倫, 教我如何說。
(9)
If you have Hanshan's poems at home,
that's better than reading the sutras.
Write them down on a folding screen,
and from time to time read a poem.
(HS 313)
家有寒山詩, 勝汝看經卷。
書放屏風上, 時時看一遍。
For thirty years I have lived in the world,
I must have roamed a million miles.
I walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,
crossed the frontier where the red sand rises.
Through pills I vainly sought immortality,
I read books and studied history.
Today I’m back at Cold Mountain,
I sleep by the creek and wash out my ears.
(HS 302)
出生三十年， 當遊千萬里。
行江青草合，入塞紅塵起。
鍊藥空求仙，讀書兼詠史。
今日歸寒山，枕流兼洗耳。
(2)
Most valuable to me is Cold Mountain,
white clouds always drifting calmly.
Gibbons screech as they play on the road,
tigers roar as they come out among men.
Rocks support me on my walks,
I grab the vines when I sing.
The breeze in the pines rustles coolly,
and the speech of birds twitters around me.
(HS 165)
可重是寒山, 白雲常自閑。
猿啼暢道內, 虎嘯出人間。
獨步石可履, 孤吟藤好攀。
松風清颯颯, 鳥語聲𠴨𠴨。
(3)
People ask me the way to Cold Mountain -
to Cold Mountain there's no through trail.
Ice, in summer, is still frozen,
Mists, in sunlight, keep swirling.
How did someone like me get here?
Because my mind is not the same as yours.
If your mind were like mine,
you would be right here already!
(HS 9)
人問寒山道, 寒山路不通。
夏天冰未釋, 日出霧朦朧。
似我何由屆, 與君心不同。
君心若似我, 還得到其中。
人問寒山道, 寒山路不通。
夏天冰未釋, 日出霧朦朧。
似我何由屆, 與君心不同。
君心若似我, 還得到其中。
(4)
My home is beneath the green cliffs,
my garden overgrown, but I don't clear the weeds.
New vines hang down in twists and curls,
old stones thrust up, jagged and sharp.
Monkeys pick the mountain fruits,
white herons snatch the fish from the pond.
Under the trees I read mumbling
a few scrolls by a Daoist master.
(HS 16)
家住綠巖下, 庭蕪更不芟。
新藤垂繚繞, 古石豎巉嵓。
山果獼猴摘, 池魚白鷺㘅。
仙書一兩卷, 樹下讀喃喃。
(5)
The four seasons can not be stopped,
years come and years go.
The Ten Thousand Things replace each other,
the Nine Heavens never will decay.
The east will brighten and the west will darken,
flowers will fall, then bloom again.
Only the traveler to the Yellow Springs,
Once departed in darkness, will not return.
(HS 17)
四時無止息, 年去又年來。
萬物有代謝, 九天無朽摧。
東明又西暗, 花落復花開。
唯有黃泉客, 冥冥去不迴。
(6)
We humans living in the dust,
resemble bugs trapped in a bowl.
All day we run round and round,
but never escape from the bowl.
Immortality is beyond our reach,
our illusions are endless.
Months and years flow by like water,
until, in an instant, we've grown old.
(HS 236)
人生在塵蒙, 恰似盆中蟲。
終日行遶遶, 不離其盆中。
神仙不可得, 煩惱計無窮。
歲月如流水, 須臾作老翁。
(7)
All of you who read my poems:
you must hold purity in your heart.
Day after day clean away your greed
instantly correct your falseness.
Drive your evil karma away,
Take Refuge and accept your True Nature.
Today you’ll obtain your Buddha Body,
be quick as if obeying a command!
(HS 1)
凡讀我詩者, 心中須護淨。
慳貪繼日廉, 諂曲登時正。
驅遣除惡業, 歸依受真性。
今日得佛身, 急急如律令。
(8)
My heart is like the autumn moon
in a jade-green pool: clear, bright and pure.
Nothing can be compared to it —
how do you want me to explain it?
(HS 51)
吾心似秋月, 碧潭清皎潔。
無物堪比倫, 教我如何說。
(9)
If you have Hanshan's poems at home,
that's better than reading the sutras.
Write them down on a folding screen,
and from time to time read a poem.
(HS 313)
家有寒山詩, 勝汝看經卷。
書放屏風上, 時時看一遍。
[Han Shan, by Yan Hui (late 13th c.)]
The "Cold Mountain Master Poetry Collection" (Hanshanzi shiji) is
a corpus of over three hundred poems attributed to a legendary Tang
era (618–907) recluse who took the nickname Hanshan (Cold Mountain) from the
isolated hill on which he lived in the Tiantai Mountains. The collection contains a preface by a government official, Lüqiu Yin, who claims to have personally met
Hanshan. The story he tells about Hanshan and his sidekick Shide is very beautiful, but
unfortunately it is all fiction.
Lüqiu Yin claims to have met Hanshan and Shide at the kitchen of Guoqing Temple. When he greeted them, they gave a big laugh and fled. Later, he tried to give them clothing and even a dwelling, but they fled deeper into the mountains and finally went into a cave which closed itself. Their tracks disappeared. This led Lüqiu Yin, who was the local governor, to collect Hanshan's writings, which were written on rocks and cliffs. The Preface also identifies Hanshan as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of wisdom, Mañjuśrjī, and Shide as Mañjuśrī’s companion Samantabhadra, two figures from the Buddhist pantheon who were especially venerated on Mt Tiantai.
But if this is all legend, what is then the truth? The most reasonable conclusion is that the Hanshan collection was composed by several - possibly a great many - anonymous poets over the course of the Tang dynasty (from the 7th to the 9th c.). All writers must have been Buddhist monks connected with the Tiantai temple complex. And then gradually a myth evolved around the collection attributing it to an iconoclastic, reclusive monk named Hanshan - this happened at a time when such types of monks had become highly popular in late Tang Chan literature. Poems were possibly later added to the collection which had been deliberately composed in the voice of such a monk.
The collection contains over 300 poems, which often share the same phrases and images. When we look at the themes, these are in the first place of radical reclusion (one fifth of the total, and probably the most famous part); poems stressing the impermanence of the world and a carpe diem theme; poems satirizing worldliness, the wealthy, the ignorant; and explicitly religious poems (mostly Buddhist, but also Daoist). Because of this Buddhist flavor, in the past in China the collection was not regarded as literature.
The Hanshan collection became very popular in Chan Buddhist circles in the Song dynasty (960-1279). With the Chan movement it spread later to countries as Japan and Korea, where it became even more popular - the major Rinzai Zen priest Hakuin (1686–1768) wrote an extended commentary on the collection. Its popularity extended even to the West: Beat poet Gary Snyder made selected translations from Hanshan in the 1950s; and Snyder’s enthusiasm was in turn fictionalized in Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums (1958). There are now four full English translations of the Hanshan poems (notably by Paul Rouzer), plus many partial ones, as by Arthur Waley and Burton Watson.
In Japanese and Chinese paintings, Hanshan is a popular subject; he is often depicted together with Shide.
Lüqiu Yin claims to have met Hanshan and Shide at the kitchen of Guoqing Temple. When he greeted them, they gave a big laugh and fled. Later, he tried to give them clothing and even a dwelling, but they fled deeper into the mountains and finally went into a cave which closed itself. Their tracks disappeared. This led Lüqiu Yin, who was the local governor, to collect Hanshan's writings, which were written on rocks and cliffs. The Preface also identifies Hanshan as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of wisdom, Mañjuśrjī, and Shide as Mañjuśrī’s companion Samantabhadra, two figures from the Buddhist pantheon who were especially venerated on Mt Tiantai.
But if this is all legend, what is then the truth? The most reasonable conclusion is that the Hanshan collection was composed by several - possibly a great many - anonymous poets over the course of the Tang dynasty (from the 7th to the 9th c.). All writers must have been Buddhist monks connected with the Tiantai temple complex. And then gradually a myth evolved around the collection attributing it to an iconoclastic, reclusive monk named Hanshan - this happened at a time when such types of monks had become highly popular in late Tang Chan literature. Poems were possibly later added to the collection which had been deliberately composed in the voice of such a monk.
The collection contains over 300 poems, which often share the same phrases and images. When we look at the themes, these are in the first place of radical reclusion (one fifth of the total, and probably the most famous part); poems stressing the impermanence of the world and a carpe diem theme; poems satirizing worldliness, the wealthy, the ignorant; and explicitly religious poems (mostly Buddhist, but also Daoist). Because of this Buddhist flavor, in the past in China the collection was not regarded as literature.
The Hanshan collection became very popular in Chan Buddhist circles in the Song dynasty (960-1279). With the Chan movement it spread later to countries as Japan and Korea, where it became even more popular - the major Rinzai Zen priest Hakuin (1686–1768) wrote an extended commentary on the collection. Its popularity extended even to the West: Beat poet Gary Snyder made selected translations from Hanshan in the 1950s; and Snyder’s enthusiasm was in turn fictionalized in Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums (1958). There are now four full English translations of the Hanshan poems (notably by Paul Rouzer), plus many partial ones, as by Arthur Waley and Burton Watson.
In Japanese and Chinese paintings, Hanshan is a popular subject; he is often depicted together with Shide.
[Hanshan and Shide, by Kano Sansetsu (1589－1651)]
Most poems speak for themselves. I only have a few notes:
Poem 5: "Yellow Springs" is the Chinese underworld where the dead go, like Hades of the ancient Greeks.
Poem 7: "Refuge" is to take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha, become a practicing Buddhist.
Poem 8: the bright autumn moon is a symbol for enlightenment.
Other translations:
Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T'ang Poet Han-shan (1970), tr. Burton Watson, Columbia University Press
Arthur Waley, 27 poems by Han-shan in Encounter (magazine), September 3, 1954)
Gary Snyder, Cold Mountain Poems in Evergreen Review 2:6 Autumn 1958, p 68-80. Reprinted in Riprap & Cold Mountain poems, 1969)
Robert G. Henricks, The poetry of Han-Shan : a complete annotated translation of Cold Mountain, State University of New York Press, 1990. - x, 486 p.
Red Pine, The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, Copper Canyon Press, 1983, 2000)
Paul Rouzer The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shide, and Fenggan, De Gruyter, 2016. - 403 p, ISBN 978-1-5015-1056-4 also published as Open access ebook.
Illustration 1: Yan Hui, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Illustration 2: Kanō Sansetsu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons