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Poetry of Ruan Ji ...
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Poetry of Ruan Ji  

 

Ruan Ji (210 - 263)

Taoist, lover of wine and musician. Ruan Ji was one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Highly talented, he was known for an ability to avoid the chains of courts morality and traditions but unbalanced and undisciplined.  Following only the gusts of soul. Sometimes he would wander away on the hills and forget to return, at other times he would shut himself up with his books and see no one for months. He read a lot especially he liked Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi. He drunk a lot, he possessed the skill of whistling and loved to play on Qin. Many considered him to be a madman.

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Jiu Kuang lyrics (a version from 1500's)

1. Enjoying wine and forgetting troubles
Fleet worldly matters: I laugh at the strain.
Quiet, sad feelings are wasted pain.
How to cure sadness: call for wine!
When drunk all day bad manners are fine.
Each day of my whole life through,
I should drink great pots of brew.
It is such bliss, to cruise the Land of Booze;
Sober, then drunk; drunk and wild as I choose.
Once in the hills I forget big news.


2. Drunkenly dancing like a flying immortal
The sky has a wine star,
earth a wine spring; from my cane top many coins swing.
A pool of lees would greatly please; I'd dance tipsily,
Feeling like I'm growing wings, growing wings,
becoming divine;
Gaining the Way happily with wine.

3. Singing loudly to earth and heaven
For wine fancy fur coats we'll swap;
drinking with friends and all pain can stop.
Cups of fine wine and we loosen our gowns;
one great song and we go to town.
For worldly bliss, wine can beat the rest;
Wine's special kiss: it is just the best.
We'll even treat our rulers in jest.

4. Loving wine and forgetting the body
Fat crabs in strong wine begin to stew;
friends called together then drink their due.
While enjoying hills and streams, we ignore the world,
Reason or chaos alike; reason or chaos, peace or risk.
Drunks fall down without assist.

5. Dashing off calligraphy on art paper
Once drunk more wine brings fine verse,
in great brush strokes that could be worse.
A Chang An pub, let him sleep the night.
Called by the court, he said, "Go fly a kite.
As for me, I transcend while tight!"

6. Bending over to exhale
Calmly the rustic exhales his wine;
for fame and wealth he does not pine.
Liu Ling, Bi Zhuo and Tao Qian all were good and pure.
They did not submit, not submit to government control.
Being like them: that should be our goal.

7. Holding the wine and roaming drunk
The whole world's drunk, all except me.
Give me a brew, and from danger I'm free.
How could I really be just a drunk, nothing more!
Of old many great ones had no fame,
only drinkers left their name.
Old toper's aims do not end with wine. 

 

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