Feelings and Encounters: No. 4
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
池潢不敢顾。
侧见双翠鸟，
巢在三珠树。
矫矫珍木巅，
得无金丸惧？
美服患人指，
高明逼神恶。
今我游冥冥，
弋者何所慕！
English translation
A lone wild goose comes in from the sea, it dares not look back at the palace moat.
Glancing aside, it sees a pair of kingfishers, nesting in the three-pearl tree.
Poised on the crown of that rare tree, have they no fear of the golden pellet?
Fine robes invite the pointing finger, too high a place provokes the gods' hatred.
Now I roam the far, invisible dark, what has the archer to hope for here!
Meaning
A proud lone swan comes from over the sea and dares not even glance at the pond.
Sidelong she spies two gorgeous kingfishers roosting in the fair three-pearl tree.
Upon the top of that rare tree, are they not afraid the hunter's pellet may come?
Fine raiment invites the censure of others; high office draws the hatred of gods and spirits.
Today I soar aloft into the heavens, and those hunters can never take me.
Background
Read the background
In 737, the twenty-fifth year of the Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Zhang Jiuling was demoted from chancellor in the Department of State Affairs to chief administrator (zhangshi) of Jingzhou. Slandered in his later years and exiled despite his loyalty, "whenever he read Han Fei's 'The Sorrow of Isolation' his tears soaked the front of his robe" (Xu Hao, "The Spirit-Path Stele of His Lordship Zhang"), and so he wrote the twelve poems "Stirred by What I Have Met," of which this is one.