Kunlun
BY MAO TSE-TUNQ
Rising straight in the air above this earth,
Great Kunlun, you have witnessed all that was fairest in the world of men.
Your three million white jade dragons in their flight *
Freeze the sky with penetrating cold;
In summer days your melting torrents
Fill the streams and rivers over the brim,
Changing men into fish and turtles.
What man can pass judgment
On all the good and evil you have done these thousand autumns?
Great Kunlun, you have witnessed all that was fairest in the world of men.
Your three million white jade dragons in their flight *
Freeze the sky with penetrating cold;
In summer days your melting torrents
Fill the streams and rivers over the brim,
Changing men into fish and turtles.
What man can pass judgment
On all the good and evil you have done these thousand autumns?
But now today I say to you, Kunlun,
You don’t need this height, don’t need all this snow!
If I could lean on the sky, I would draw my sword
And with it cut you into three pieces.
One I would send to Europe,
One to America,
One we would keep in China here,
So should a great peace reign in the world,
For all the world would share in your warmth and cold.
You don’t need this height, don’t need all this snow!
If I could lean on the sky, I would draw my sword
And with it cut you into three pieces.
One I would send to Europe,
One to America,
One we would keep in China here,
So should a great peace reign in the world,
For all the world would share in your warmth and cold.
* The men of old used to say: “ When the three million white jade dragons are fighting, their tattered scales flying fill the air.” Thus they described the flying snow. Here I have borrowed the image to describe the snow mountain. In summer, when you climb Minshan, you look out onto a crowd of mountains, sweeping away as if in a dance, and all white. Among the common people, there was a saying that, years ago, when Monkey King passed by here, these were all Mountains of Flaming Fire; but Monkey borrowed the Palm Leaf Fan and put out the flames, and that was how they froze and turned white. — THE AUTHOR