Wang Wei: My Translations to English

RETURNING TO MOUNT SONG

Trees flanking the clear stream.

My cart horse ambling on.

Flowing water knows how I feel.

Evening birds come home with me.

Empty town above the old ferry.

Setting sun filling the autumn hills.

Far away from the outside world,

returned to the foot of the mountain.

    --Wang Wei

Alt:  back home at the foot of the mountain.

Tai Yi, the Cenral Peak of Zhongnan Mountain

Zhongnan near the imperial city:
height upon height right down to the sea.
Look back at white clouds, they're all one.
Enter the green haze, it's all gone.
From the middle peak, the land shapes change.
Sun and shade no valley dapple the same.
Hoping for a human place for the night,
call to that woodsman across the water.

Separation Sickness

Red beans of the longing tree grow there in the south.   

Come the spring, the branches bush out and fill with seeds.   

I hope, friend, that you will pick more and more and more   

of what is the best thing for this illness of ours. 

     

alt:  of what is the simple for this illness of ours.

王維

相思

紅(Red)豆(Bean)生(Born/Grow)南(South)國(Country)，

春(Spring)來(Come)發(Produce)幾(How Many)枝(Branch)。

願(Wish)君(You)多(Much)采(Pluck)擷(Pick)，

此(This)物(Item/Thing)最(Most)相(To)思(Think)。

相思: (combination of these two character means Lovesickness)

     --word for word translation by Laijon Liu

White stones stick up from Bramble Brook.

Red leaves sparse against a cold sky.

No rain now on the mountain path.

My clothes wet from the high green brush.

--Wang Wei

PASSING THE TEMPLE OF TEEMING FRAGRANCE

The Temple of Teeming Fragrance

measureless miles in summit clouds.

Ancient forest, a pathless way.

Deep mountains, directionless bell.

Spring water over jagged rocks.

Yellow sun on cool green pines.

Twilight, winding pool.  Quiet sitting

uncoils the poison dragon of the heart.

     --Wang Wei, my tr.

Monks make incense at the Temple of Teeming Fragrance.

DEER FENCE

Empty Mountain.
Seeing no one.
Hearing someone's
echoing voice.
The late day sun
enters again
the deep forest,
shining once more
on the green moss.
--Wang Wei, my tr.

In my old age, I want only peace.

The ten thousand things are not my concern.

I've no plan for the rest of my life

but to come back to this, my ancient woods.

Piney wind blows my girdle open.

Mountain moon lights upon the lute I play.

So where's the warp and weft of the world?

Fishermen's songs come far up the inlet.

--Wang Wei, my tr.

Surely you can say,
having come from my village,
if the winter plum
has already blossomed there
by the filigreed window.




SITTING ALONE ON AN AUTUMN NIGHT


Alone, grieving over my graying hair.
In the empty hall, nearly nine o'clock.
Mountain fruit fall in heavy rain.
Grasshoppers sing in my lamplight.
Hair gone white can never go back.
Nothing can change to yellow gold.
Want to cast off age and illness?
You need to study not being born.

Some translators have "no rebirth" in the last line for what is most literally "no-birth."  But I think that with Wang Wei's Buddhism being the Dao-tinged Buddhism of Zen, he wouldn't have been so concerned with reincarnation.  Perhaps the the reference would have been more to the illusion of self, of ego, of something that came into being at a certain time and persisted in its essence all through one's life.  To not hang on to that illusion.

AUTUMN EVENING, MOUNTAIN LODGE


Empty mountain, just after rain.
Evening air, the air of autumn.
The bright moon shines through the trees.
A clear spring flows over stones.
Bamboo rustles, washergirls return.
Lotus leaves sway, fishing boats glide by.
Sweet grass of spring withers as it will.
Noble friends, of course we should stay!

Wang Wei was a painter as well.