Blog | Nguyen Du |
Nguyen Du (1765-1820) was the foremost Vietnamese poet of his time. The following translation is taken from A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry, translated by Nguyen Ngoc, W.S. Merwin, and my friend Burton Raffel. In this poem the poet addresses the lost souls who have no relatives to pay them homage and give them sacrifices and prayers as required in the Pure Land tradition of Buddhism.
Summons To The Souls
In the seventh month, off and on it rains like someone sobbing,
The autumn wind penetrates, ice-cold, to the bones.
What agony, an evening in the fall!
The reeds turn white, withered pawlownia leaves drop.
The evening sun softly stretches on white poplars,
On the pear trees dew settles here and there.
Who could remain unmoved at this sight?
Such is the earthly scene, how much more depressing it must be below!
In the long night where earth and sky are pitchblack
Do you have enough spiritual power to wander in the dark?
Pity the lot of creatures of the ten categories!
Solitary, your souls must drift about in foreign lands.
Not only is there no one to worship you with incense and smoke,
Your orphan souls still have to grope through the night.
No distinctions stand now between noble and humble,
What is there left to set the wise apart from the dumb?
Autumn starts, and I set up an altar to pray for your deliverance.
Dipping from this pure vase, I sprinkle you with a willow twig.
All prayers are directed toward the Compassionate Buddha,
That you may be freed and your souls go West.
There are those with proud ambitions
Set on conquering entire countries.
What use now to recall glorious fighting days?
How painful, now that your luck has run out!
All of a sudden rain poured and tiles broke.
Had you known, you would have remained humble.
Now your wealth and nobility breed jealousy and hatred,
Now your blood is spilling, your bones disintegrating.
Having no offspring, you form homeless bands roaming abroad,
Headless demons wailing on rainy nights.
Success, failure are thus a matter of chance
But when are your forsaken souls going to dissolve?
There were those living in orchid nets, lily screens.
You relied on being Heng-E’s in cinnamon-wall palaces.
The country went through a change of hands.
Where do you go now, you frail leaf-like creatures?
The pavilion may be high, water still runs under the bridge.
Is it unnatural that a hairpin gets broken, a vase dropped?
One moment you were surrounded by laughing crowds,
The next, you close your eyes with no one to collect your bones.
What a mortification, to be left with no incense or smoke!
Aimlessly you wander in the woods, by the brooks.
Alas for your limbs so tender, so weak:
They waste over the years, decay with every night.
There are those parading high hats and large sleeves:
In life and death, you always had red pen in hand.
Armed with a bagful of administrative knowledge,
You were Kwan and Chi by night, Yi and Chou by day.
The more prosperous and content you were, the more enemies you made.
You became a hundred kinds of ghosts in scattered graves.
A thousand gold pieces could not bring you back to life,
Your singing pavilions all have gone to pieces.
No relatives do you find now, anywhere,
To offer you a bowl of water or just some joss sticks.
Deserted souls you became, wafting back and forth.
Weighted down by the innocence you killed, you cannot be born again.
Then there were the strategists who laid out battles.
You rushed forward to steal the command seal.
You raised wind and storm, thunder and lightning,
Millions died to pave the way of one man’s glory.
An unlucky moment: A stray bullet, an arrow killed you.
Your flesh now rots, your blood spatters the battlefield.
Now you hover by the seashore, in distant places.
Who knows where thye are buried, your unclaimed bones?
Unfathomable the sky where storms rage and winds howl,
Darkness shrouds the land, a black pall over the earth.
The woods and meadows are wrapped in gloom,
No one is mourning you, no one is holding masses for you.
Others decided to follow the road of wealth.
You exerted yourselves, did away with sleep and food,
Only you kept all your relatives away:
Even if you had succeeded, to whom would you have left your fortune?
You lay down, no one there to receive your last words.
Did your earthly wealth assist you in any way?
Alive, you had money rolling in streams,
Dead, you could not even hold on to a penny.
What love do hired mourners have for you?
Your banyan wood coffin is carried away at night, by torchlight.
Lost in the expanse of fifth-month rice fields,
Where are you going to find an incense stick or a drop of water?
Others again aspired to the name of nobility.
Hopefully you went to the cities and stayed for ages.
One autumn succeeded another, you remained far from home.
With uncertain literary talent how could you expect to succeed?
Trudging from inn to inn, you met with poor weather.
Neither wife nor children were there to take care of you,
People bundled you up, buried you as best they could.
Friends and neighbors affect total indifference.
Far away are your home and village,
So through those crisscrossing the cemetery
You solitary souls try to send word home.
Only wind and moon are there, no lamps or joss sticks!
Still others roamed the seas and rivers.
Pushed by the east wind, your sails blew leeward.
Midstream, a tempest broke out to meet you
And you lay buried in the bellies of fishes.
Others went around trading goods.
Your shoulders show burns from carrying poles.
Winds and rains surprised you in the midst of nowhere:
Your souls are left hovering over the roads.
There are those conscripted into the army.
You left home to go on official duties.
Drinking from springs, eating from bamboo tubes,
For thousands of miles you were exposed to rain and shine.
In battle a man’s life is worth little more than dirt.
A stray bullet, a lost arrow brings you down at any moment.
Now your souls become flickering will-o’-the-wisps
Crying out for injustice, a sight all the sadder by night.
Others missed their chances all through life.
In youth, you went into the flower-and-moon business.
By the time you grew old you were lost,
With no husband or children on whom to rely.
Alive, you faced one hardship after another,
Dead, you have to depend on a charity bowl of gruel.
What a misery, to be born a woman!
What is the reason, the cause for such destinies?
Others had to sleep under bridges, heads resting on the ground.
Day in, day out, you went begging for food.
What a pitiable lot for human beings, like us all!
Depending on others
In death you were buried by the roads.
Others suffered injustice and stayed in jails for endless terms,
Their lives trusted to a single tattered mat.
Dead, their bones are buried in a dungeon corner.
When can your innocence be established and you be free?
Then there were the little babies
Born at the wrong hour, forced to leave father and mother.
Who takes care of you now, who carries you around?
How poignant your unformed cries must be!
Then, the ones drowned in rivers and rapids,
Those who slipped and fell from trees,
Those who died when well-ropes broke,
Those carried away in flood-waters, caught by fire.
Others met with mountain spirits and sea monsters,
Or got caught in wolves’ fangs, elephant tusks.
Some had children, but refused to raise them,
Others had abortions, others met with dire happenings.
Anyone walking on the road is likely to make a false step
And form endless queues with others on the Nei-ho bridge.
Who does not have his own distinct karma?
Where are they now whose souls and spirits have disintegrated?
Are you hiding in this bush or that clump,
Or are you hovering near brooks, amidst clouds?
Are you taking shelter under this grass-leaf or that tree
Or just wandering by this inn or that bridge?
For a time you take refuge in a temple or shrine
Or find lodging at the marketplace, near the riverbank.
Empty meadows also can provide you with places to stay
And so can a hillock, a bamboo grove, a sedge-clump.
Alive, all of you suffered one tragedy after another,
You spent days on end without food, in the biting cold,
For years exposed to the vagaries of life.
Yet now, you have to lament underground, sleep on dew,
Going into hiding every time the cocks crow
And groping your way out after sunset,
Forming dreary processions of children carried on the arms
And old people guided guided along.
Should you have knowing-power, come and listen to the Scriptures!
May you, through the Law, escape rebirth and reach the PureLand!
May His Aureated Light save you from suffering, deliver you from darkness!
In the four seas and all the lands
May the Lord Buddha shake away our anxieties and cleanse our hatreds,
May the All-knowing and Omnipresent Buddha
Change the Wheel of Life in the three Worlds and Ten Directions!
May the Great King Hsiao Mien
Lead the way for all creatures with his miraculous skiff!
May the Sacred and Powerful Law of Buddha
Awake you from your dreams and illusions.
May all of you who belong to the ten categories,
Men and women, old and young, come and listen to the Scriptures!
Like a bubble, a shadow, the world is forever impermanent.
The Scriptures teach us, “All appearances come from the Void.”
Let us then set our minds on following the Buddha,
We will then escape the Cycle of Birth.
Obeying Buddha’s teachings I set up this charity altar.
It does not hold much, only a bowl of gruel and some joss sticks,
A few pieces of clothing and some gold ingots,
To provide you with what is needed to go to Heaven.
Whoever comes, please stay, whatever your position.
Please do not hesitate, these are sincere gifts.
It is not much, but the Miraculous Law will make it into plenty.
Let the Surpremely Revered One apportion it equally among you.
Merciful Savior, Compassionate Buddha,
Please do not make distinctions between rich and poor.
Hail to Buddha, Hail to the Law, Hail to the Clergy!
Hail to all those who have ascended the Lotus Platform!
Notes:
Heng E–a Moon Princess–hence any beautiful, sheltered woman.
Kwan, Chi, Yi, Chou–Chinese historical figures. The first two were known for their administrative abilities. The last for his military skills.
The flower-and-moon business–prostitution.
Nei-ho bridge crosses over the river of blood and the dead must cross it to get to the other world.
