<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 閒坐看書貽諸少年>
<Format: 五言古詩>
<Year: 1981>
<BookName: Tu Fu -A New Translation>
<Translator: Wu, Juntao>
<TranslatedTitle: Reading While I Sit Idly, Sent to Youths>
<BookPage: 562-563>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 1, 5>
<End Header>
<Poem>
雨砌長塞蕪
風庭落秋果
窗間有閒叟
盡日看書坐
書中見往事
歷歷知福禍
多取終厚己
疾驅必先墮
勸君少干名
名為錮身鏁
勸君少求利
利是焚身火
我心知已久
吾道無不可
所以雀羅門
不能寂寞我
<End Poem>
<Translation>
Rain has flooded tall, cold white grass,
Wind has felled autumn fruit in the courtyard.
The idle old man at his window
Sits all day reading books.
In the books he finds retold from time long past
The endless cycle of blessing and disaster—
The more one acquires, the more he loses.
The fastest horse is sure to fall first.
I urge you, young man, to covet a name less,
For a famous name is a chain to shackle the body.
I urge you, young man, to seek profit less,
For profit is a fire burning the body.
A long time my heart has known
The Way that may be safely attained.
Hence the swarming sparrows
Around my unvisited brush-wood gates
Aid me to escape
Loneliness and melancholy.
<End Translation>
<Formatted Translation>
Rain has flooded tall, cold white grass,
Wind has felled autumn fruit in the courtyard.
The idle old man at his window
Sits all day reading books.
In the books he finds retold from time long past
The endless cycle of blessing and disaster—
The more one acquires, the more he loses.
The fastest horse is sure to fall first.
I urge you, young man, to covet a name less,
For a famous name is a chain to shackle the body.
I urge you, young man, to seek profit less,
For profit is a fire burning the body.
A long time my heart has known
The Way that may be safely attained.
Hence the swarming sparrows around my unvisited brush-wood gates
Aid me to escape loneliness and melancholy.
<End Formatted Translation>