Written after Han Yu's Miscellaneous Discourse on Clouds and the Dragon書韓愈論雲龍雜說後
愈之說曰。龍噓氣成雲。雲亦靈怪矣。龍之使能爲靈也。若龍之靈。非雲之所使靈也。然龍不乘雲。無以神其靈。異乎。其所憑依。乃所自爲也。韓之說如此。予謂之曰。非獨龍也。人亦猶爾。言龍而不及人。何也。詳味韓之意。以龍而喩人。喩人而不及人。欲令意有所蓄而不直洩也。夫粲乎文章。鬱乎詞氣。皆人之所自吐也。絢焉爲錦繡羅縠。峭焉爲高峯絶岸。舒也卷也彤也靑也。皆類雲之紛紜翕霍千狀萬態也。則可謂靈怪矣。其靈也。乃人之所自爲。而非文章才藝之能靈人也。然人不憑文章才藝。亦無以神其靈也。且乖龍不能興雲。唯神龍然後興之。則非雲之靈其龍審矣。然龍不乘雲。無以神其靈。庸人不能吐文章詞氣。唯奇人然後吐之。則文章之不能靈人亦審矣。然人不憑文章。亦無以神其靈。則神龍與詩人之變化一也。請以此洩韓之微也。
The words of Han Yu (韓愈) are these: 「The dragon breathes out its breath and it becomes cloud. The cloud too is numinous and strange. It is the dragon that has made it able to be numinous. The dragon's numen is not what the cloud has made numinous. Yet if the dragon does not ride upon the cloud, there is no way for it to work the wonder of its numen. Strange it is: that on which it leans is the very thing it has itself made.」
Han Yu's words are like this. I say: not the dragon alone — man too is so. Why did he speak of the dragon and not reach to man? If one tastes Han Yu's meaning closely, he was likening man by the dragon. That he likened man and yet did not reach to man was in order that the meaning should have something heaped up in it and should not leak out straightway.
Now the brilliance of writing and the dense, rising breath of language are all what a man has spat forth of himself. In their beauty they become brocade and silk; in their steepness, high peaks and broken bluffs; and their unrolling and rolling up, their reds and blues, are all like the cloud's gathering in confusion and scattering away into a thousand shapes and ten thousand postures: they may be called numinous and strange. That numen is what the man has himself made, and it is not that writing and the arts can make a man numinous. Yet if a man does not lean upon writing and the arts, there is likewise no way for him to work the wonder of his numen.
Again, a misshapen dragon cannot raise clouds, and only a numinous dragon raises them; so it is plain that the cloud is not what makes that dragon numinous. Yet if the dragon does not ride upon the cloud, there is no way for it to work the wonder of its numen. A common man cannot spit forth the breath of writing and of language, and only an extraordinary man spits it forth; so it is plain also that writing does not make a man numinous. Yet if a man does not lean upon writing, there is likewise no way for him to work the wonder of his numen. If it be so, then the transformations of the numinous dragon and of the poet are one. Let me by this bring out the hidden meaning of Han Yu.