Jordan Dotson

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Empty words…

September 21, 2014 By Jordan

These I know are more than empty words:
Our life’s a play of light and shade,
Returning at last to the Void.

…from “Returning to Live in the Country II,” by Tao Yuanming (陶淵明), which is one of the Top-10 Country Songs Of All Time. (Translation from the Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry by Burton Watson, which I don’t recommend you buy, because there haven’t been very many good translations since Ezra Pound did this. Though a few of these are cool.)

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Filed Under: Things I wish I'd written Tagged With: Burton Watson, Ezra Pound, Tao Yuanming