Glad you noticed it! All the lines are such bangers, but a fan fact: ever since Su Shi (another famous poem with, well, a rather unfortunate name when romanized) claimed that this poem would have been better without the last two lines, people for and against him have been arguing for a thousand years. I personally disagree.
Hot take, I agree with Su Dongpo….but that’s because, like him, I’d read Buddhist undertones into any poem given half a chance. (Wonder which side of this debate Han Yu would come down on.)
No, on the contrary, the last two lines make the Buddhist themes TOO explicit for me. 無心 especially. Even the cloud imagery and the metaphor of entering the stream. (Heck if I were really going out on a limb I’d even connect 回看 to the common Chan metaphor of “turning the light around” 回光返照 as guidance for looking inward and illuminating the mind. But that’s probably anachronistic: Liu Zongyuan preceded Linji after all.)
With the last two lines, the poem loses its delicacy and lingering overtones 韻. For me, at least. I would have interpreted it thematically more or less the same without the last two lines. But a person less inclined to Buddhist over-interpretation would probably disagree.
Yes, it must be because I'm not reading it in a Buddhist light. Liu would have been under the Buddhist influence somewhat, but he doesn't seem to explicitly describe a certain mental state of non-diffrentiating by 无心 in this poem. Saying that the clouds are 无心 is in fact very 有心, and thus I believe it was Liu's intention to become an active agent who moves and projects himself to the outer world in the last two lines, unlike in the preceding four where he stays a passive observer. Without the last two lines, the poem becomes too cliché.
Yeah I’d agree with you thematically. Liu is no Wang Wei. (Aesthetically he also…is no Wang Wei.)
If I’m reading correctly between your lines, we may have parsed the last few characters differently. I don’t read 無心 as modifying 雲; I follow the syntax of previous lines and interpolate a caesura. So there’s “no mind above the rocks—clouds circle around each other.” (Forgive my quick and very loose translation.) In my reading, the poet has followed the fisherman and disappeared entirely.
Ah, very fair. Considering the conventions, it is likely that your understanding of the syntax is correct. Now I should reconsider my translations, though I think both 回看天際 and 巖上無心 as a whole could be modifying the phrases that follow.
I don't know anything except that "empty minded clouds" is my favorite phrase today.
There's some sense of mystery in there, isn't it? It seems as if we can grasp it, but its meaning slides away…
"The fishing old man, at night, relies on the rock in the west to sleep."
This one line alone guaranrees the poem's distinction. I love "the rock in the west." That's just so fine!! Gary Michael Dault
Glad you noticed it! All the lines are such bangers, but a fan fact: ever since Su Shi (another famous poem with, well, a rather unfortunate name when romanized) claimed that this poem would have been better without the last two lines, people for and against him have been arguing for a thousand years. I personally disagree.
Hot take, I agree with Su Dongpo….but that’s because, like him, I’d read Buddhist undertones into any poem given half a chance. (Wonder which side of this debate Han Yu would come down on.)
That's an interesting take. Do you think the last two lines undermine the Buddhist undertone somehow?
No, on the contrary, the last two lines make the Buddhist themes TOO explicit for me. 無心 especially. Even the cloud imagery and the metaphor of entering the stream. (Heck if I were really going out on a limb I’d even connect 回看 to the common Chan metaphor of “turning the light around” 回光返照 as guidance for looking inward and illuminating the mind. But that’s probably anachronistic: Liu Zongyuan preceded Linji after all.)
With the last two lines, the poem loses its delicacy and lingering overtones 韻. For me, at least. I would have interpreted it thematically more or less the same without the last two lines. But a person less inclined to Buddhist over-interpretation would probably disagree.
Yes, it must be because I'm not reading it in a Buddhist light. Liu would have been under the Buddhist influence somewhat, but he doesn't seem to explicitly describe a certain mental state of non-diffrentiating by 无心 in this poem. Saying that the clouds are 无心 is in fact very 有心, and thus I believe it was Liu's intention to become an active agent who moves and projects himself to the outer world in the last two lines, unlike in the preceding four where he stays a passive observer. Without the last two lines, the poem becomes too cliché.
Yeah I’d agree with you thematically. Liu is no Wang Wei. (Aesthetically he also…is no Wang Wei.)
If I’m reading correctly between your lines, we may have parsed the last few characters differently. I don’t read 無心 as modifying 雲; I follow the syntax of previous lines and interpolate a caesura. So there’s “no mind above the rocks—clouds circle around each other.” (Forgive my quick and very loose translation.) In my reading, the poet has followed the fisherman and disappeared entirely.
Ah, very fair. Considering the conventions, it is likely that your understanding of the syntax is correct. Now I should reconsider my translations, though I think both 回看天際 and 巖上無心 as a whole could be modifying the phrases that follow.