Wang Yucheng: Pure Brightness

　Pure Brightness
　　　　　　　　　　　　　Wang Yucheng (954-1001)
It is Pure Brightness. So what?
I have no flowers and wine for the festive.
Alone in this place, spiritless and tasteless,
I am like a monk in the wilderness.
Yesterday, I went to my neighbor, out of customs,
For fire to renew my hearth and stove.
I read by the window early as usual
In the lamp that is being eclipsed by dawn light.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Tr. Fan Jinghua

　　　清明
　　　　　　王禹偁
无花无酒过清明，兴味萧然似野僧。
昨日邻家乞新火，晓窗分与读书灯。

　　　清Clear明Bright
　　　　　　王禹偁
无no　花flower　无no　酒wine　过pass, spend　清明Pure Brightness
兴spirit　味taste　萧然dreary　似like　野wild　僧monk
昨日yesterday　邻neighbor　家house　乞beg　新new　火fire
晓dawn　窗window　分share　与with　读reading　书book　灯lamp


　　　清qing1明ming2
　　　　　　[宋] 王禹偁 (954-1001 Song Dynasty)
无wu2花hua1无wu2酒jiu3过guo 4清qing1明ming2
兴xing1味wei4萧xiao1然ran2似si4野ye3僧seng1
昨zuo2日ri4邻lin2家jia1乞qi3新xin1火huo3
晓xiao3窗chuang1分fen1与yu3读du2书shu1灯deng1

About Pure Brightness Day 有关清明和二十四节气:
　　In traditional Chinese lunar calendar, a year is divided into 24 seasonal division points 二十四节气. Each season is divided into 6 points, marked by 15 degrees of the sun’s position at ecliptic. The first is of course Beginning of Spring (立春), February 4 or 5 on Gregorian calendar, and the seventh is Beginning of Summer (立夏), May 5 or 6 on Gregorian calendar. Beginning of Autumn (立秋) falls on August 7 or 8, while Beginning of Winter (立冬) is November 7 or 8. It should always be kept in mind that whenever the months are mentioned in classic Chinese poetry (as well as Japanese and Korean classic poetry) they refer to lunar calendar months, generally one month and week later than Gregorian calendar. Pure Brightness (清明) is fifteen days after Vernal Equinox (春分), with 15 degree of the sun’s position at ecliptic.
　　Folk customs for Pure Brightness are mostly associated with memorial ceremony for the ancestry. On the day before Pure Brightness, no cooking smoke is allowed, for back in Spring and Autumn Period 春秋时代 (770-476 BC) there was a man called Jie Tui 介推 (or Tui of Jie 介之推) who, once accompanied the dethroned Jin Emperor Wengong 晋文公in exile, declined to come out of hermitage when Wengong took power again. Wengong set fire to the woods Jie Tui secluded, in hope of chasing him out, but Jie Tui, clasping a tree, was burnt to death. Emperor Wengong ordered that on the day Jie Tui died the whole nation should have no fire. Hence, the third line of the poem says that the neighbor comes for fire to renew the stove.

About the poem有关此诗:
　　In relation to the folklore, we can interpret the poem along or against the tradition of the cultural shaping of self. The poet, alone and away from hometown, presents himself as a dissident of the locality, as a homeless stranger to any place. This has always been the image of a poet, as “a monk in the wilderness” in the second line.

　　When he said that he did not have flowers and wine for the festival, he was actually demarcating himself from the society. Therefore, he could not or needed not “taste” the spirit from the lively customs which should be observed as a source of solidarity. Like most pre-modern intellectuals (in contrast with Granscian Organic intellectual), the aloofness in this personality appears to be a quality for self-accomplishment instead of a guideline for everyday practice. Hence, the poet figure in this poem is more of a Daoist than a Confucian scholar-official. From the perspective of everyday concerns, the poem appears to be affected and self-consumed and self-centered. However, in terms of representation of the poet as such, this is wonderful both in language and mood.

　　The last line is worth special rumination. 晓窗dawn window, when linked with 读书 reading, becomes symbolic. As 晓 dawn may also points to 知晓 knowing, and the phrase comes to mean the window to wisdom, and therefore reading by a window through the dark night becomes a process toward dawn and knowledge. When we take the lamp as source of illumination, the dawning of a new day obviously symbolizes the revelation of the source of ultimate wisdom. This again refers back to the Daoist concept of personal and cosmic circulation.

　　And then, finally, should wen understand the day as not a seasonal division point but as a point for departure to a personal revelation? That is, from now on, he enters the gate of pure brightness (clear and bright).

　　依据民间有关清明与寒食的传说来阐述这首诗，或许是有意义的。这可以令我们读出一个知识分子如何以传统呈现并在文化上进行塑造自我。此诗所描述的诗人，独自一人在他乡（这里的独自可以理解为一个人的个体的孤独），这就成为了侨居地的异议者，也就是任何地点的无家的陌生人。这其实可以说是所有诗人的写照，第二行中的“野僧”，永在途中的追寻真理的人。
　　当他说清明之日无花无酒，这实际上是将自己与大众区分了，也就是与社会分隔开来了；从而他不再能够或者有必要从作为团结力量之源的习俗中获得滋味与精神。正如很多前现代的知识分子一样（与葛兰西的有机知识分子相对），他的超然是属于一种人格素质，而不是一种日常实践的指导原则。可以说，这里的诗人形象更像是一个道家行修者，而不是更常见的儒家学者官员。从日常关怀的角度看，这首诗显得有些自我中心，做作而自恋，但是从对于诗人形象的表征来看，这首诗从语言到情绪上的淡泊都很到位。
　　这首诗的最后一行尤其值得咀嚼。当晓窗与读书灯并列的时候，我们自然会联想到这个晓字可能暗示通晓的意思，也就是知，或者智慧之窗。因此，在窗前阅读，度过漫漫长夜，变成了一种走近黎明与抵达智慧的过程。如果我们将灯饰为一种照亮，一种启明之源，那么天明无疑是更大意义上的照亮，展示着最终智慧的源泉。这可说又回到了前文说的道家观念，亦即个人的循环与宇宙的循环的对应。

　　那么，最后我们或许可以再问一句：这里的清明是否可以理解为个人进入澄明状态（清与明）的出发点，而不仅仅是一个节气？

Back-translation into contemporary Chinese

我的英文译文回译成当代汉语：

　　　　　清明
是清明节了。那又怎样？
我没有花也没有酒去增添节日的气氛。
独自在这个地方，没精神，没滋味，
就像一个在荒野中的和尚。
昨日，出于习俗，我去邻居家
借火以便续上我的炉灶。
我在窗前灯下读书，像往日一样早，
灯光，被黎明的光逐渐消蚀隐去。

王禹偁 Wang Yucheng (954-1001), a poet, prose writer of Song Dynasty in ancient China, with a style name of Yuanzhi元之, was born into a very poor family in the present Shandong Province山东巨野. He was very diligent and hardworking, and upon passing the highest imperial examination, he was appointed to a county official in 983 AD. The next year, he was promoted to the county magistrate of the present Suzhou, which belongs to the central part of the traditional Land South to the River (江南 River South). He suffered several ups and downs in his short career, due to literary inquisition. His poems and prose advocated a style of plainness and easiness.