In the Fifth Month of the Year Sinyu, Living Quietly at My Thatched Hall with Nothing to Do, in the Leisure of Tending the Garden and Sweeping the Ground, I Read Du Fu's Poems and, Using the Rhymes of His Poem on the Thatched Hall at Chengdu, Set Down the Pleasures of Leisure辛酉五月。草堂端居無事。理園掃地之暇。讀杜詩。用成都草堂詩韻。書閑適之樂。
懶惰無心賦兩都。况堪著論效王符。緬思潘閬三峯好。且任陳蕃一室蕪。小塢移花邀客看。比隣有酒遣兒沽。何須點檢人間事。出處悲歡命矣夫。
Idle, I have no mind to compose on the Two Capitals, much less to write treatises in imitation of Wang Fu (王符). Far off I think how good were Pan Lang's (潘閬) three peaks, and I let Chen Fan's (陳蕃) single room go untended as it will. I move flowers to the little bank and call guests to look at them, and when the neighbors have wine I send a boy to buy some. Why should I take stock of the affairs of men? Going forth and withdrawing, sorrow and joy—it is fate.
Interlinear notes 1
五首
Five poems.
欲歸江郡詠汀蘋。尙滯京華失鬢春。自號灌畦閑老圃。皆呼傲世一高人。談筵落屑空驚客。睡榻鳴雷幾撼隣。酒渴時時須底物。櫻桃子熟摘嘗新。
Meaning to go back to the river district and chant of the waterside duckweed, I still linger in the capital and have lost the spring of my temples. I call myself an idle old gardener watering his furrows, but everyone calls me a lofty man who looks down on the world. At the talking-mat the falling crumbs startle my guests for nothing, and how often has the thunder roaring at my sleeping couch shaken the neighbors? After the wine runs dry, what is wanted now and then? The cherries are ripe: I pick them and taste what is new.
不把余愚自汚溪。幽栖粗免宦途迷。披襟快却風來北。隱几從敎日向西。世味淺深曾染指。人生得喪已忘蹄。半窓林影搖森翠。讀罷書頭鷰落泥。
I have not fouled the stream with my own folly, and roosting in seclusion have roughly escaped the straying of the official road. I open my collar, and refreshingly the wind comes from the north; leaning on my armrest, I let the sun go west as it will. The shallows and depths of the world's flavor I once dipped a finger in, and for life's gaining and losing I have already forgotten the fish trap. At the half-raised window the forest shadows sway and are green, and by the pillow where I finished reading a swallow drops its mud.
半卷踈簾獨倚欄。雨聲淙瀉劇驚湍。橫雲尙自暗千陣。落日不知餘幾竿。遇客只須浮大白。學仙何苦鍊還丹。爲言隣叟好來往。除却閑談逸老難。
Rolling the coarse blind halfway up, I lean alone on the railing, and the rain pours gurgling down, worse than a startled rapid. The slanting clouds still darken a thousand ranks (陣) of themselves, and I cannot tell how many poles of the setting sun are left. Meeting a guest, I need only float the big cup; why toil at refining the Returning Elixir (還丹) to learn to be an immortal? I say to the old man next door: let us come and go often— take away idle talk, and it is hard to make old age easy.
古來達士貴知微。田園將蕪何日歸。莫問纍纍兼若若。不曾是是况非非。墮車醉者只全酒。把甕丈人寧有機。禦寇南華如可作。吾將問道一摳衣。
From of old the man of insight prized the knowing of first signs; my fields and garden are about to go wild—on what day shall I return? Do not ask about seal-cords hanging in clusters: I have never called the right right, much less the wrong wrong. Falling from his cart, the drunken man is kept whole by wine alone; and what contrivance has the old man who carries his jar in his arms? If Lie Yukou (列禦寇) and Nanhua (南華) could be born again, I would gather up my skirts and go forward to ask about the Way.