70. The Fishing Old Man

A poem by Liu Zongyuan, translated by Hyun Woo Kim

The fishing old man, at night, relies on the rock in the west to sleep;

At dawn, he draws water from the clear Xiang and starts a fire with the bamboos of Chu.

The fog melts away, the Sun rises, and no one is to be seen;

A voice, "heave-ho!"—green are the mountain and the water.

Turning around to look at the end of the sky, I go down the middle of the stream;

On top of the rock, empty-minded clouds are running after each other.

「漁翁」

漁翁夜傍西巖宿

曉汲淸湘燃楚竹

煙銷日出不見人

欸乃一聲山水綠

回看天際下中流

巖上無心雲相逐

From Hyun Woo:

Now that’s what I call a good Tang poem. The poem looks simple, but it is not really so. At night, the poet sees a fishing old man sleeping on a rock, possibly in the middle of the water. At daybreak, the old man draws water and starts a fire. Maybe he is cooking breakfast. Xiang is the name of a river and Chu is the name of a region, so we now know the poet and the old man are in the south of China. It is a foggy morning, and when “the Sun rises” and the “fog melts away”, “no one is to be seen”. The fishing old man is already gone. Still, the poet hears a “heave-ho!” from him, and it sounds as if the voice made him realize “green are the mountain and the water.”

Why does the poet then “turn[…] around to look at the end of the sky” and “go down the middle of the stream”? What does it mean that he notices clouds on the “top of the rock” where the fishing old man slept? Why does the poet say the clouds are “empty-minded” and “running after each other”? Could it be that the poet is projecting the old man and himself to the clouds? Who are they, and what has the poet been doing all this time at the river? Liu Zongyuan leaves his readers in the middle of endless questions and interpretations.

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