Author Information
Excerpt from poem by Chang Heng
by Chang Heng (Zhang Heng)
Imperial Astronomer,
Poet, Mathematician, Philosopher, Painter, Inventor.
A traveler who has seen the wonders of the world sees a man's bones
lying in the earth, and asks the dead man how his life was... a spirit answers:
"...I was a man of Sung
Of the clan of Chuang; Chou was my name.
Beyond the climes of common thought
My reason soared, yet I could not save myself;
For at the last, when the long charter of my years was told,
I too, for all my magic, by Age was brought
To the Black Hill of Death.
Wherefore, O Master, do you question me?"
The traveler answered:
"Let me plead for you upon the Five Hill-tops,
Let me pray for you to the Gods of Heaven and the Gods of Earth,
That your bones may arise,
And your limbs be joined anew.
The God of the North shall give me back your ears;
I will scour the Southland for your eyes;
>From the sunrise will I wrest your feet;
The West shall yield your heart.
I will set each organ in its throne;
Each subtle sense will I restore.
Would you not have it so?"
The dead man responded thus:
"O Friend, how strange and unacceptable your words!
In death I rest and am at peace; in life I toiled and strove.
Is the harness of the winter stream
Better than the melting of spring?
All the pride that the body knew,
Was it not lighter than dust?
What Ch'ao and Hsu despised,
What Po-ch'eng fled,
Shall I desire, whom death
Already had hidden in the Eternal Way-
Where Li Chu cannot see me,
Nor Tzu Yeh hear me,
Where neither Yao nor Shun can praise me,
Nor wolf nor tiger harm me,
Lance prick me nor sword wound me?
Of the Primal Spirit in my substance, I am a wave
In the river of Darkness and Light,
The Maker of All Things is my Father and Mother,
Heaven is my bed and earth my cushion,
The thunder and lightning are my drum and fan,
The Sun and Moon my candle and my torch,
The Milky Way my moat, the stars my jewels.
With nature am I conjoined:
I have no passion, no desire.
Wash me and I shall be no whiter,
Foul me and I shall yet be clean.
I come not, yet am here;
Hasten not, yet am swift."
The traveler then quoth:
"I gazed upon the dead, stared in sorrow and compassion,
Then I called upon my servant that was with me,
To tie his silken scarf about those bones
And wrap them in a cloak of sombre dust;
While I, as offering to the soul of this dead man,
Poured my hot tears upon the margin of the road."
-Translated by Arthur Waley-
