CUỐI NGÀY, NHÌN RA, TỪ MỘT NGÔI ĐỀN BÊN BỜ SÔNG | Jia Dao

賈島 Jia Dao (779–843)

Nước
phủ kín chân trời dưới những đám mây;
sương mù trên núi
làm mờ ngôi làng phía xa.

Khi trở về tổ, những chú chim
để lại dấu vết trên cát;
đi trên sông, một chiếc thuyền
không để lại dấu vết trên sóng.

Tôi ngắm nhìn dòng nước
và cảm nhận sự dịu nhẹ của nó;
ngắm nhìn những ngọn núi
cho đến khi tinh thần mệt mỏi.

Mặc dù vẫn chưa muốn
dừng suy ngẫm,
hoàng hôn đã buông xuống
tôi phải cưỡi ngựa trở về.

LATE IN THE DAY, GAZING OUT
FROM A RIVER PAVILION


Chia Tao (779–843)Translations by Mike O’ConnorIn: The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of ChinaWisdom Publications, 1998, pp. 11-42.

Water to the horizon
veils the base of clouds;
mountain mist
blurs the far village.

Returning to nest, birds
make tracks in the sand;
passing on the river, a boat
leaves no trace on the waves.

I gaze at the water
and know its gentle nature;
watch the mountains
until my spirit tires.

Though not yet ready
to leave off musing,
dusk falls,
and I return by horse.

Jia Dao [779-843] CHIA TAO WAS A BUDDHIST POET of the Middle T’ang dynasty. Born into an impoverished family near today’s Beijing, he became a Ch’an (Zen) monk early in his youth, with the religious name Wupen. While scant biographical detail of his monastic days exists, his official biography does note that upon arriving at the Eastern Capital, Lo-yang, Chia Tao wrote a poem protesting a curfew forbidding monks to go out after noon. The poem caught the sympathetic eye of the eminent Confucian poet Han Yu (768–824) and led to the latter becoming Chia Tao’s poetry mentor.

Lê Vĩnh Tài, the poet and translator born in 1966 in Buon Ma Thuot, Daklak, Vietnam. The retired doctor is still a resident of the Western Highlands and a businessman in Buon Ma Thuot.

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By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

There's magic in translating a body of work from one language to another.

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