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Overview
Originally published in 1981.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691614984 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/14/2014 |
| Series: | Princeton Library of Asian Translations , #540 |
| Pages: | 234 |
| Sales rank: | 707,827 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d) |
Read an Excerpt
The Zen Poems of Ryokan
By Nobuyuki Yuasa
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1981 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06466-6
CHAPTER 1
Chinese Poems
1. At crossroads and through streets I begged all day.
(1) My wandering steps have led me to a village shrine.
Children come around me, whispering one to another,
The silly priest of last year has returned to play.
2. My walking skirt is short, but my holy gown is long.
(2) Enraptured, I work for hours my own flesh and bones.
Children stop me in a street, and sing loudly to me
A bouncing-ball ballad, beating their hands for joy.
3. Once I sought to triumph at a grass-fighting game.
(3) I revelled in beating children, one after another,
Till evening closed, and I was left alone to view
A perfect moon ascending the cloudless autumn sky.
4. My hair over my ears and my ears big enough for note,
(4) My garments are torn to tatters like shredded clouds.
Half-awake, half-asleep, I trudge along towards home.
Children escort me, some ahead of me, some behind me.
5. Day after day, yet at the return of another long day,
(5) I take pleasure in playing with the village children.
In my sleeves I always have hid a few bouncing balls.
Incompetent otherwise, I luxuriate in spring delight.
6. The silk ball in my sleeve pocket is worth my soul.
(6) Its best bouncer, proudly, is no other than myself.
Should anyone question me on the secret of the art,
By way of reply: one two three four five six seven.
7. All day long I walk through streets, begging for food.
(8) At night I sit for meditation below a protruding rock.
Nought else have I but a holy gown and a begging bowl.
This practice as a soft wind from the west I venerate.
8. Early, on August the first,
(10) I set out to beg in a city.
Silver clouds sail with me.
Golden winds ring my bells.
At dawn I see the thousand gates and doors thrown open.
At noon I feed my eyes with cool bamboo and basho tree.
East or west, I will not pass a single house unvisited,
Not even the slimy haunts of drunkards and fishmongers.
Straight glances of honest eyes break a pile of swords.
Strides of steady feet scorn the heat of boiling water.
Long ago the Prince of Pure Eating preached how to beg,
And the Beggar of Beggars truly acted out his teaching.
Since then it is two thousand, seven hundred years and more.
Yet am I no less a faithful pupil of the First Teacher.
Therefore I beg, a bowl in my hands, a gown on my back.
Have you not read or heard
Of that noble man of high repute, who solemnly decreed,
Equal in eating, equal under the divine law we must be.
Look out, everyone, lest you should run loose unawares.
Who stands secure against the lapse of countless years?
9. Begging on the road, I was caught by a sudden storm.
(11) Directly I sought shelter in an aged village shrine.
Laugh, whoever is tempted, at my sad bowl and flask.
Reconciled am I to finding myself in a ruined house.
10. A few chrysanthemums still about the darkening hedge,
(14) Wintry crows wheel above the cluster of silent trees.
Distant hills and mountain crests aglow with the sun,
Time for me, perhaps, to embrace my bowl and go home.
11. In springtime, all the airs seem to stay in harmony.
(15) Ringing my bells, I walk out to the city's east end.
In a garden, willow trees are sprouting fresh green,
And water weeds lie afloat on a sleepy lake surface. My begging bowl is loaded with a heap of white rice,
And I rise far beyond the glory of the rich emperor.
Hoping truly to follow upon the heels of holy sages
I march along from house to house, begging for alms.
12. All the day long, I have begged most unsuccessfully.
(20) From village to village, I dragged my worn-out feet.
At sunset, I have many more mountainous miles to go.
The wind is strong enough to split my beard asunder.
My garments are reduced to shreds of thinning smoke.
My empty bowl, discoloured from use, looks deformed.
Such as I am, I will not grudge, nor spare my pains.
Cold or hungry, go I must as many a saint before me.
13. This rank absurdity of mine, when can I throw it away?
(22) This abject poverty I shall take to the grave with me.
After dark, along the dirt road of a decaying village,
I carry homeward my begging bowl, weathered and empty.
14. After a long day of begging in the city, I go homeward,
(23) Fully contented with what I have got in my begging bag.
Holy man, which way lies your home, your resting place?
Somewhere beneath those clouds, is all I know about it.
15. Frozen snow holds all the mountain tops about my house.
(25) Barred from human approach, footways of the valley lie.
Day after day, I sit by myself facing the wall of clay.
I hear now and then snowflakes brush against my window.
16. My hermitage is named after the Five Bowls of Rice.
(26) My room is naked, except for the gong, as they say.
A thousand cedars stand together outside my window.
A few odes in my saviour's praise hang on the wall.
An iron pot, my rice-cooker, has some kitchen dust.
My hollow furnace is seldom heated by cooking-fire.
Yet in an east village I have a friend, an old man.
He often knocks at my gate beneath the bright moon.
17. Bent under a pile of firewood, I walk down a hill.
(27) The green hill road is too steep for my aged legs.
I take a moment's breath, beneath a towering pine.
With a quiet mind, I hear spring warblers twitter.
18. On the garden steps, gay havoc made of cherry flowers.
(28) The sweet colloquy of birds spreading like a tapestry.
Slow steps of the sun loitering a while at the window,
Pale smoke ascends undisturbed from an incense burner.
19. The cottage gate remains unlocked most of the year.
(29) Seldom do callers stir the deep quiet of my garden.
Today, after the prolonged rain of the plum season,
Myriad oak leaves lie scattered on the mossy earth.
20. The basho tree spreading its big leaves at my window
(30) Climbs upwards, all but tall enough to brush the sky.
Beneath its cool shade, I make poems, long and short,
Not for a moment leaving this quiet seat by the tree.
21. Where can I cover myself from the summer heat, except
(31) Here, this place of self-exile, the Shrine of Izuruta,
Where the chorus of cicadas supplies music to my ears,
And the surrounding woods, unasked, breathe fresh air?
22. Utterly devoid of movement, this small house of mine,
(32) All day long, not a single human eye ever glances in.
I sit alone at the window, absorbed in deep thinking,
My ears bent to the quiet falls of scattering leaves.
23. Already well-advanced in hours, this late-autumn night.
(33) Cold dewdrops have penetrated through my outer garment.
Darkness has rendered invisible the walls of my garden.
Crickets singing underneath dying grass are all I hear.
24. My house is buried in the deepest recess of the forest.
(34) Every year, ivy vines grow longer than the year before.
Undisturbed by the affairs of the world I live at ease,
Woodmen's singing rarely reaching me through the trees.
While the sun stays in the sky, I mend my torn clothes
And, facing the moon, I read holy texts aloud to myself.
Let me drop a word of advice for believers of my faith.
To enjoy life's immensity, you do not need many things.
25. To the end of the day I walked along, begging for food.
(35) Having reached home, I close behind me my cottage door.
Then 1 build a fire with branches still bearing leaves,
And read quietly poems of Kanzan, a hermit of old days,
While the swelling west wind brings with it heavy rain.
My thatched roof moans under the weight of the tempest.
But my legs stretched at ease, I lie down on the floor.
What have I to worry me, or to raise doubt in my heart?
26. Since I began to climb this steep path of discipline,
(36) I have lived behind a fast gate and a thousand hills.
Aged trees rise dark about me, fettered by ivy vines.
Rocks look cold on hillsides, half-covered in clouds.
The posts of my house are all ruined by nightly rain,
My holy gown reduced to shreds by early morning mist.
No news of me my kin or the world have cared to know,
Year after year, for all the years I have lived here.
27. As a summer night advances into chaste hours of morning,
(40) From bamboo leaves, dewdrops fall to the brushwood gate.
The pounding noise from my west neighbour has long died.
The rank grass of my garden is moist with gathering dew.
Far and near, the frogs of the marsh chant their chorus.
High and low, fireflies fly about, their lamps blinking.
Keenly awake, I cannot possibly seal my eyes with sleep.
Slowly rubbing my pillow, I think beyond time and space.
28. A solitary trail stretches away through a million trees.
(41) A thousand pinnacles above me are hid in cloud and mist.
Not autumn yet, fallen leaves lie thick upon the ground.
Hardly a rainy day, but all the rocks are dark and grim.
A basket in my hands, I hunt for mushrooms in the woods.
A bucket below my arm, I draw water from a stony spring.
Who can indeed content himself with this manner of life,
Unless he has seen himself altogether lost in the world?
29. I sit down and shut my eyes, as darkness dims the hills.
(44) The thoughts of human affairs leave me, creating a void.
Unable to sustain myself, I lean against the bedclothes
And, half-awake, look into the blank void of the window.
The smoke of the incense burner has measured itself out.
Dewy as it is, I am naked, with but a thin gown upon me.
Rising from my meditation, I stroll about in the garden,
Whence I see the clear moon rise above the highest peak.
30. I am imprisoned in my cottage among the solitary hills,
(48) And think about the wet snow driving outside my window.
The cries of black monkeys are echoed by rocky summits.
The icy stream runs hushed at the bottom of the valley.
The flaming light by the window is chilled to its core,
And frost-dry is the ink slab I have placed on my desk.
The night has thus prevented me from falling to repose.
I employ my brush, often warming it with my own breath.
31. On the floor of an empty hall I planted myself alone.
(51) But nowhere could I find ease for my oppressed heart.
And so I mounted a horse, travelling far at a gallop,
And climbed a mountain, to command a vast, vast view.
Presently a whirlwind came blowing out of the ground,
And the sun dropped westward, losing its usual light.
The winding river at once surged, its waves mounting,
And the boundless stretch of wilderness lay obscured.
Black monkeys called one another in descending gloom,
And a stray fowl roved southward, flapping its wings.
When I saw this, a hundred thoughts twisted my brows,
And fear a million times sterner froze my inner core.
Groping for a way to retreat, I could nowhere see it.
Like the year at its close, I stood lost unto myself.
32. Among the low foothills of Mt. Kugami, I have my home,
(54) And with simple tea and plain rice I sustain my flesh.
Long have I hoped to receive a guest with spiked ears.
But men gathering dry firewood are all I can see here.
33. Upon the top of Mt. Kugami, I once turned my head to see
(55) The heavy frozen sky and the dying sun at its lowest rim.
The day before, I had gathered some nuts and drawn water.
Those woods and that spring now below the obscuring blue.
34. A burglar made away with my leaning block and my cushion,
(60) But who could have hindered him from entering my cottage?
On the night I was robbed, I sat down at my black window.
Passing showers made empty sounds in the bamboo thickets.
35. O, the woeful state of this world and man's frozen heart!
(61) I know not where under heaven I can find my life's peace.
Yesterday night, beating drums were heard in the village.
Alarm, they say, at a thiefs approach, to scare him off!
36. In sickbed I remain awake, my eyes under a strange spell.
(63) All the walls about me are dead silent, as night deepens.
The candle remains flameless, the fireplace without heat.
Icy cold creeps, unprevented, beneath my pillow and gown.
Having nothing else to comfort me, I rise out of the bed,
And leaning on my crooked cane, I stagger into my garden.
On the twigs of leafless trees I see stars in full bloom,
And a distant stream plucks a cordless harp, as it falls.
Tonight, I have had the bare strength to write this poem.
Tomorrow, will I have voice to recite, given an audience?
37. My walking stick and straw sandals in this swampy village
(64) Have lured me out to enjoy an easterly breeze in February.
Spring warblers are now in the bush, learning their songs.
Strips of snow about the hedge, grasses already sprouting.
I met a friend by the way, and we spoke of grave subjects.
We opened books at his house; heads in our hands, thought.
A perfect evening, both lights and winds in quiet harmony,
A plum tree breathing sweet inspiration to my blest heart.
38. I have in my possession an old cane to support my weight.
(65) From whom it came to me, what history it has, I know not.
From long use, the bark has dropped away, layer by layer,
Till the incorruptible core of the wood remains lustrous.
Oft with this cane I have crossed a ford, feeling my way,
Often in my wandering, I have saved myself from calamity.
This cane, however, leans aimlessly against a sunny wall,
And its service has been ignored longer than I can count.
39. Priest as I am, I but honor the behests of the western sky.
(66) I hid myself at Mt. Kugami, and stopped counting the years.
All my garments are threadbare like thinning mist or smoke.
I wander around, supporting my weight upon my crooked cane.
Removed to a distant valley, I recite poems to my own ears.
Planting myself upon a stone, I watch silver clouds gather.
Yet, my heart is heavy for this world's sake, and the fame
Man seeks spinning through life, like dust before the wind.
40. The full length of a dark winter night is just its length,
(67) Long and slow-moving, as I once found it upon my cold bed.
There was no life in the candle, no heat in the fireplace.
My face on the pillow, I hearkened to the night-long rain.
41. As the thoughts of my boyhood return to me in this old age,
(69) I often picture myself reading a book alone in a huge hall.
The burning candle before me has been replaced many a time.
In those days I knew not the full length of a winter night.
42. Taken by illness, I lay upon my back, altogether helpless.
(71) Oft my spirit searched in a dream the sights once visited.
This morning, I rose, and dragged my feet to a river-bank.
I saw peach blossoms flowing ceaselessly after the stream.
43. My haggard face is so wasted that it obscures the mirror.
(72) My frosty hair is long enough to produce twisted tangles.
The lips fever-dry incessantly thirst for a moist relief.
The black skin wrapped in filth craves immediate washing.
Burning heat and icy chill dispute for power in my flesh,
And my pulse fails, having fallen in a mire of confusion.
Only woodcutters' talk reaches my ears through the woods,
To acquaint me of the half of February lost all too soon.
44. Imprisoned by the walls of my hermitage I lie upon my back.
(73) For a whole day, not a soul comes to pay me a kindly visit.
My begging bag hangs slack, with my bowl in its empty womb.
My walking stick has surrendered itself to the piling dust.
Dreams go their ways, revolving around the hills and moors.
My spirit returns to the city where it once found pleasure.
At the busy street corners, I have not the slightest doubt,
Many boys are expecting me to return as a matter of course.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Zen Poems of Ryokan by Nobuyuki Yuasa. Copyright © 1981 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
- FrontMatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. vii
- Acknowledgments, pg. ix
- List Of Illustrations, pg. xi
- Introduction, pg. 1
- Map of the Ryōkan Country, pg. 4
- Biographical Sketch, pg. 23
- Chinese Poems, pg. 43
- Japanese Poems, pg. 107
- Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf, pg. 169
- Explanatory Notes, pg. 183
- Glossary of Proper Names, pg. 189
- Selected Bibliography, pg. 217