A Bird Returns Home (T'ao Yuan-ming - parts 3 and 4)

T'ao Yuan-ming is something like the ur-voice of Tang poetry.  He lived and wrote during the Six Dynasties period, preceding the rise of the Tang Dynasty by several hundred years.  This was a time when Chinese poetry was just beginning to outgrow its folkloric origins.  T'ao is really one of the very first Chinese poets to speak with an identifiable and personal voice.

He is also one of the first great nature poets in the Chinese tradition - in the direct upline of Wang Wei and the vast legion of mountain and stream poets that followed.  Whereas the Confucian tradition had exalted the bureaucrat and scholar and took a dim view of agricultural life, T'ao - as a person and poet -- turned in a decidedly un-Confucian direction when he resigned from his mid-level governmental post, spurned further appointment and retired to his farmstead to pursue a more reclusive life.  Hence his nickname as the Hermit Poet.

This poem cycle is thought to be from T'ao's earlier work.  It is composed with a four character line which was a prevalent form favored in the most antique Chinese lyrics - those that had been collected in the Book of Songs.  The rhythm is thus clipped (a bit like a nursery rhyme) and the composition highly compressed, but still T'ao manages to include a lot of depth even with the abbreviated line, as you can see in the translations below.

In some of these early poems T'ao relies heavily on an extended metaphor in order to give himself more range of expression.  This poem is a good example of his technique.  The poem consists of four parts or numbered stanzas, each one takes a slightly different approach in elaborating the same theme.  It's a technique still in use by modern poets, Wallace Steven's Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird being a good case on point.  T'ao's composition also has a song-like quality, as a result of his repetition of the first line in each of the four stanzas.

I've previously published my translations of parts one and two of this poem, which you can read here.

Part Three

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home

In the midst of a flock

It darted through the forest

Unsure which route

It should choose

Yet joyful upon reaching

Its native roost

Even without its

Former companions

Its voice resounds

Each note in harmony

Day and night

The air so pure

Leisure suffusing

Every breath

其三

翼翼归鸟

相林徘徊

岂思失路

欣及旧　

虽无昔侣

众声每谐

日夕气清

悠然其怀

Part Four

Fluttering its wing

A bird returns home

With feathers ruffled

Shivering on a bare branch

Far it wandered but never

Abandoning the forest

Sheltering in the treetops

Arising at daybreak

In a freshening wind

With habitual song

It marks the sun’s passage

How it still sings

Even when immersed in

Peaceful content

其四

翼翼归鸟

戢羽寒条

游不旷林

宿则森标

晨风清兴

好音时交

　缴奚施

已卷安劳