Thinking of the Six Ethereal Hermit - 懷六如居士

船頭夜釣孤燈前 came about as I woke up on Tuesday, June 04, 2019. Tried to cap it but I was unable to do so. What I had was so contrived. In the end I gave up and gave it a rest.

Then I started on 船頭漁歌聲 and was able to complete in an hour’s time. From this experience, I tried to use the same theme but then as time progressed and with each change, the theme turned out to be something totally different.

1 船頭獨釣孤燈前 On the boat’s bow; fishing in loneliness for that front light reflection,
2影伴寒山歎玉蟾 A shadow accompanies the cold mountains, sighing for the moon.
3玄穹無徑桂枝折 The dark vault of heaven has no road to break an osmanthus bough,
4微覺襟透湖上烟 Barely aware that the lapels are drenched in the mists of the lake.

5弘治若憐六如才 If Emperor Hongzhi had appreciated the talents of the Six Ethereal Scholar,
6莫求一生庶人淵 Upon the ravine of the common masses, his livelihood depended not.
7山路松聲宮伎圖 Then his paintings of Whispering Pines on the Mountain Path and Shu Palace Ladies,
8 難以今日世代傳 Would hardly be in existence; passing down from generation to generation.

01. A figurative translation if we follow exactly the syntax with no pause. “One solitary light by the boat’s bow, finishing in loneliness”. The best time to fish at night is when there is no moon.

03. It is believed together with the Goddess Chang-O and the three-legged jade toad, an osmanthus tree grows in the moon. It is believed that when a bough breaks, it is immediately replaced by another. Thus the tree can never crash and the moon is eternal. “Breaking an osmanthus branch” means one is successful in the imperial examinations.

05. The tenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty whose reign is known as the Silver Age. In Buddhism, the six ethereal are dreams, fantasy, bubbles, shadow, dew and lightning (夢幻泡影露電). 六如居士 is a name that Tang Yin, one of the “Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty” took when he withdrew from the world. His talents were already well known and there was high hope that he would pass the imperial examinations with ease. However, at the capital, perhaps at the wrong time and with the wrong crowd, he was implicated in an examination scandal which he was barred from all future examinations. With the road to officialdom denied, his livelihood depended on commissions and selling of his works.

07. These are two of his paintings. The first one is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei and the other in the Palace Museum, Beijing.