Song of Unstrained Wine白酒詩
予昔少壯時。喜飮白酒。以其罕遇淸者而常飮濁故也。及歷顯位。所飮常淸。則又不喜飮濁矣。豈以所習之然耶。近因致仕祿減。往往有淸之不繼者。不得已而飮白酒。則輒滯在胷鬲間。不快也。昔杜子美詩云。濁醪有妙理。何也。予昔常飮時。慣飮而已。實未知妙處。况今乎。蓋甫本窮者也。亦豈其以習而言之耶。遂作白酒詩云。
In the days when I was young and vigorous I liked to drink unstrained wine, because clear wine came my way rarely and I always drank the cloudy kind. Once I had passed through high positions, what I drank was always clear wine, and then I came to dislike drinking the cloudy kind. Is this not what habit has made of me?
Of late, having withdrawn from office, my stipend has shrunk, and now and then there are times when the clear wine does not hold out. When I must drink the unstrained wine, every time it sits heavy about my chest and does not go down clean.
In a poem of old by Du Zimei (杜子美) it is said, 「In cloudy wine too there is a wondrous principle.」 What does that mean? Even in the days when I drank it always, I drank it merely from habit and did not in fact know where the wonder lay, and how much less now. Du Fu was by nature a man in straits, so was he not also speaking of what habit had made? And so I make the 「Song of Unstrained Wine」.
Interlinear notes 1
一首○幷序
One poem. ○ The preface is carried along with it.
我昔浪遊時。所飮惟賢耳。時或値聖者。無奈易昏醉。及涉地位高。飮濁無是理。今者作退翁。俸少家屢匱。綠醑斷復連。篘飮亦多矣。滯在胷膈間。始覺督郵鄙。濁醪稱有妙。未會杜公意。迺知人之性。與習自漸漬。飮食地使然。何有嗜不嗜。爲報中饋人。有入愼輕費。無使樽中酒。不作澄淸水。
In the old days when I roamed and wandered, what I drank was cloudy wine and nothing else. Now and then, when clear wine came my way, I could do nothing but get soaking drunk with ease. From the time my station rose, there was no cause to drink the cloudy kind. Now I have become an old man withdrawn, my stipend small and my house often empty. The green clear wine breaks off and resumes, and straining it through a wicker filter has grown common with me. Only after it sat heavy about my chest did I first know that bad wine is a lowly thing. They say there is a wondrous principle in cloudy wine, but I cannot make out Master Du's meaning. From this I know that a man's nature is steeped of itself along with his habit. Drinking and eating too are made so by one's circumstance, so what is pleasant and what is not pleasant? I say to the one who keeps the household: if anything comes in, do not spend it carelessly. Let the wine inside the cask always be clear wine.