Skip to main content

The Weaker of the Wine

Su Tung P'o (1036-1101)

“The weakest wine is better than warm water.
Rags are better than no clothes at all.
An ugly wife and a quarrelsome concubine
Are better than an empty house.”

The weaker the wine,
The easier it is to drink two cups.
The thinner the robe,
The easier it is to wear it double.
Ugliness and beauty are opposites,
But when you’re drunk, one is as good as the other.
Ugly wives and quarrelsome concubines,
The older they grow, the more they’re alike.
Live unknown if you would realize your end.
Follow the advice of your common sense.
Avoid the Imperial Audience
Chamber, the Eastern Flowery Hall.
The dust of the times and the wind of the Northern Pass.
One hundred years is a long time,
But at last it comes to an end.
Meanwhile it is no greater accomplishment
To be a rich corpse or a poor one.
Jewels of jade and pearl are put in the mouths
Of the illustrious dead
To conserve their bodies.
They do them no good, but after a thousand years,
They feed the robbers of their tombs.
As for literature, it is its own reward.
Fortunately fools pay little attention to it.
A chance for graft
Makes them blush with joy.
Good men are their own worst enemies.
Wine is the best reward of merit.
In all the world, good and evil,
Joy and sorrow, are in fact
Only aspects of the Void.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Phrases for Public Speakers at Sea

by M. B. Powell We ought, first of all, to note her oceanic eyes flecked with sea wrack. And we should pause to consider the wavy wilderness of her damp hair. I will not dwell on her cheeks ruddy under my thumbstrokes. I will not attempt to explain the shapely abalone shells of her ears. I wish to call your attention to the cunning animal of her mouth, muscular. I wish to say something about the mollusky dark language of her kisses. I am obliged to mention her sudden breasts, breaching, rhythmic. And I am perfectly astounded at her finger charting my lips round her nipple. Here, in this connection, let us notice her nipple against the roof of my mouth. Here, in passing, let us observe ...
2 comments
Read more

Low

It's not happiness, but something else; waiting for the light to change; a bakery. It's a lake. It emerges from darkness into the next day surrounded by pines. There's a couple. It's a living room. The upholstery is yellow and the furniture is walnut. They used to lie down on the carpet between the sofa and the coffee table, after the guests had left. The cups and saucers were still. Their memories of everything that occurred took place with the other's face as a backdrop and sometimes the air was grainy like a movie about evening, and sometimes there was an ending in the air that looked like a scene from a different beginning, in which they are walking. It took place alongside a scene in which one of them looks up at a brown rooftop early in March. The ground hadn't softened. One walked in front of the other breathing. The other saw a small house as they passed and breathed. The reflections in the windows made them hear the sounds on th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Gift

The day my mother dropped a net of oranges on the kitchen table and the net broke and oranges rolled and we snatched them, my brother and I, peeled back the skin and bit deep to make the juice explode with our laughter, and my father spun one orange in his palm and said quietly, "This was Christmas, 1938," said it without bitterness or anger, just observing his life from far away, this tiny world cupped in one palm, I learned I had no way to comprehend an orange. Sean Lause Beloit Poetry Journal Winter 2008/9
Post a Comment
Read more