“The Wine Cup”

——Twenty-four Drinking Songs for Tao Yuanming

I pass the gate

My gaze wanders over the west garden

where the hibiscus blooms in brilliant red

I pass the gate. The red hibiscus blooms.

Its flowers fold. Soon they will fade and fall.

Come, drink a cup. Fate calls us to our dooms.

Remember palaces? Tall-ceilinged rooms?

Rich ceremonies?  The emperor’s gilded hall?

I pass the gate. The red hibiscus blooms.

Remember those fine servants, squires and grooms

attendant on us, scurrying to each call?

Come, drink a cup. Fate calls us to our dooms.

Our skulls will soon be planted deep in tombs      

where feasting ants and cockroaches will crawl.

I pass the gate. The red hibiscus blooms.

Autumn already? Bring rakes, spades and brooms.

Sweep summer up till no speck’s left at all.

Come, drink a cup. Fate calls us to our dooms.

Change weaves its webs on insubstantial looms.

But here is wine. For this the clay grew tall.

I pass the gate. The red hibiscus blooms.

Come, drink a cup. Fate calls us to our dooms.

Dusts

Onward, onward – after a hundred years

body and name will both be forgotten

Now this thatched cottage is my hermitage,

following quiet woodland paths seems best.

Against oncoming night, why rant or rage?

When young I was half-blinded in a cage    

of city-dust and rubbish, hope-possessed.

Now this thatched cottage is my hermitage.

Seventy-five, and still I earn my wage

by piecemeal work, with scant let-up or rest.    

Against oncoming night, why rant or rage?

What point is there in shouting at my age?

I grin, breathe deep, walk by, like any guest.     

Now this thatched cottage is my hermitage.

My heart beats on against its old ribcage.

To touch the moment passing, that’s the test   

against oncoming night. Why rant or rage?      

A hundred years – our fate and heritage.       

Considering that, I’m nothing if not blessed.

Against oncoming night, why rant or rage,   

now this thatched cottage is my hermitage?

Loosen your belt

A guest, a guest

If we have wine, we pour it out.

Loosen your belt and drink with me a little.

The board sits ready. Let’s not hesitate.

There’s plenty more inside the glazed clay bottle.

Come in, it’s cold. Put on the copper kettle.

Here’s fire, food, warmth. Here’s wine. And cup and plate.

Loosen your belt and drink with me a little.

Take off your coat and scarf, my friend, and settle

close to the fire, and I’ll stoke up the grate.

There’s plenty more inside the glazed clay bottle.

Ma jong? Or chess? Let’s both be on our mettle.

Don’t we have time before Death calls Check Mate?

Loosen your belt and drink with me a little.

The fire’s a peony. Every flame’s a petal.

Neither has form Death can appropriate.

There’s plenty more inside the glazed clay bottle.

Life is the wine, my friend. Though in fine fettle,

our flimsy vessels fasten us to fate.

Loosen your belt and drink with me a little.

There’s plenty more inside the glazed clay bottle. 

Ends

The cycle of life inevitably comes to an end.

To man’s being there is certainly an end

The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.

but rather a no-thing, an emptiness.

Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.

No scurrying, no self-encumbering,

no counting out or down, no more or less –

the end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.

No other and no else, no square or ring,

no angle, line or curve, no strife or stress –

once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.

Nothing to take away, nothing to bring,

no time, no tense, no map, no fixed address –

the end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.

So sit down, friend, and drink. Stop worrying.

We’re not there yet and worry’s meaningless.

Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.

And who knows what this evening may bring?

Tears? Wonder? Visions? Peace? Forgetfulness?  

The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.

Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.

The poets’ wine-shop

No clouds loom over Mount South

Between skies of pure azure and sea blue

the poets’ paradisal wine-shop stands

inside the gate that let’s newcomers through.  

Isn’t this wine-shop’s waiting for you too  

by the last harbour, past time’s drifting sands,

between skies of pure azure and sea blue?

Come, sit down, watch the dancers, drink the brew

and listen to the best performing bands

inside the gate that let’s newcomers through

and cast off evening shade and morning dew

for here unfiltered timelessness expands

between skies of pure azure and sea blue.

And see who’s here! Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu,

Tao Qian – all rise to greet you. Come, shake hands,

inside the gate that let’s newcomers through.

See Mount Penglai rise high above Daiyu

misted among the lost immortal islands

between skies of pure azure and sea blue

insa ide the gate that let’s newcomers through.

A hundred years?

Alas! Men lodge in the body for a hundred years

and end in the twinkling of an eye.

We lodge here for at most a hundred years

then perish in the twinkling of an eye.

That’s just the way things are.* No cause for tears.

Life moves in subtle interlocking spheres.

You get your turn at it and so do I.

We lodge here for at most a hundred years.

Your death’s a window through which Nothing leers

with eerie eyeless grin. Don’t grieve. Don’t sigh.

That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.

No summer sky can bring effective cures      

for winter, which must enter by and by.

We lodge here for at most a hundred years.

What should we do then to allay our fears

of Nothing? Nothing! Does your throat feel dry?

That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.

So, bottoms up! We may as well get by

by drowning fear – and spitting in Death’s eye.

We lodge here for at most a hundred years

That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.

（translations into Chinese by Chen Shangzhen）

Postscript

This selection of six poems comes from a longer sequence.

In February 2019, an unexpected invitation arrived from the Luzhou Laojiao Distillery in Sichuan, to write some  poems on the theme of ‘poetry and alcohol’. At that time I happened to be reading some English translations of poems by Tao Yuanming (365–427 CE). As soon as the invitation arrived, an idea struck me. I started writing straight away and, relatively effortlessly and spontaneously, a set of twenty-four poems flowed from my pen. During composition, at times it even seemed that Tao Yuanming was sitting beside me, that his voice was echoing in my head, and that through these incipient new poems, his voice was telling me exactly what needed to be said and how they wanted to be written. All I needed to do was to accept and follow this inner voice, at once intimately familiar and strangely other.

Among the very many things I love about Tao Yuanming are his vulnerable humanness and his Daoism. These two aspects seem to me inextricable.

I’ve called this set of poems The Wine Cup and have dedicated it, of course, to the immortal memory of Tao Yuanming.  I hope this small homage will fully clarify and endorse my belief that Tao Yuanming is a great and noble Lord of Poems and, equally, a great and noble Lord of Wine.

Most of the poems have an epigraph from a poem by Tao Yuanming. The first poem’s epigraph is the mysterious and profound opening line of the Dao De Jing.

The poems are all villanelles. This verse-form creates a song-like pattern of rhyme and resonance that itself embodies and echoes the cyclic rhythms of nature. I believe that the villanelle’s structure also reflects at least some aspects of the strict formality, economy and delicacy of Tao Yuanming’s own poems.

The two-volume bilingual Chinese-English text of Tao Yuan-Ming’s poems I’ve relied on in making these poems is T’ao Yuan-ming, His Works and their Meaning by A. R. Davis (Cambridge University Press, 2009; first published by Hong Kong university Press, 1983). This scholarly edition has the advantage of delivering Tao Yuanming’s thoughts into English in a literal, modest and transparent way, without frills, affectation  or adornments of any kind. A. R. Davis’s erudite notes, glosses, questions, and uncertainties make it all-the-more valuable.

Richard Berengarten

Cambridge, 2020

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Richard Berengarten (Chinese name Li Dao, b. London 1943) is a British and international poet who has published over 30 books. His writings have been translated into more than 100 languages. His most recent book, Changing is, among other things, a poetic homage to the I Ching. This ambitious poem has been greeted by critics as one of the most exciting contributions in the 21st century to the ongoing dialogue between ancient Chinese thought and modern poetry and poetics. Changing took the author more than 30 years to complete. Berengarten’s awards include: the PEN Slovenia guest-of-honour (2020), Xu Zhimo Silver Willow Award (2017), Manada Prize (Macedonia, 2011), Morava Charter Prize (Serbia, 2005), Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Award (1992) and Eric Gregory Award (1972). He has lived in Italy, Greece, the USA, and former Yugoslavia, and recently has enjoyed visits to China, including international poetry events in Chengdu, Xichang, Luzhou and Gulangyu. In 1975, he founded and ran the now-legendary international Cambridge Poetry Festival, and in 2015 was one of the co-ordinators of the first Xu Zhimo Festival. He lives in Cambridge, where he is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College.

Dr. Chen Shangzhen (translator) teaches at the English Department of Lingnan Normal University (Zhanjiang, China). As a Fellow of the English Poetry Studies Institute (EPSI) at Sun Yat-sen University, and having been a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University (2007-2009), he focuses his academic study on English poetry and poetics. His representative publications include the book Sidney’s Poetical Construction and a series of critical essays on English prosody. He was a visiting scholar at Cambridge (2015-2016). Dr. Chen began collaborating with Richard Berengarten in 2017. He is currently working with Professor Xiao Xiaojun (Shenzhen Polytechnic) in translating Berengarten’s Changing, and he is also co-editing a book of critical essays on this work.

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