Passing Through Zou and Lu, Sacrificing to Confucius and Sighing
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
栖栖一代中。
地犹鄹氏邑，
宅即鲁王宫。
叹凤嗟身否，
伤麟怨道穷。
今看两楹奠，
当与梦时同。
English translation
What was it the Master sought, restlessly hurrying through a whole age?
The land is still the city of the Zou, his house is now the palace of the King of Lu.
He sighed at the phoenix and lamented his ill fortune, he grieved at the unicorn and rued the Way's exhaustion.
Now I see the offering between the two pillars, surely it is as it was in his dream.
Meaning
Revered Master Kong, you toiled and hurried all your life, traveling from state to state — what was it, after all, that you wished to accomplish?
This place is still the old town of Zou, and you were at last buried in the land of your birth; yet your old house was once destroyed by later men and rebuilt as the palace of the Prince of Lu.
In your own day the phoenix did not come, and you sighed that your fate was ill; when the qilin appeared, you grieved and lamented again, sighing over the disorder of the age and the decline of the Way.
Your life was not as you wished; yet today you sit between the two pillars before the hall and receive the homage of later generations, just as you saw in a dream while you lived — surely you must take some comfort in that.
Background
Read the background
In the eleventh month of 725 (the thirteenth year of the Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang), on the day gengchen, Emperor Xuanzong went to Mount Tai to sacrifice to Heaven and performed the great rites of feng and shan. After the sacrifices he went by way of Qufu to the house of Confucius and sent an envoy to offer the grand sacrifice of three animals at Confucius's tomb; moved by the occasion, he composed this poem.