Utdrag ur verket Zhuang Zi

Ryssjan finns till enkom för fiskens skull – när man väl har fångat fisken kan man glömma ryssjan. Snaran finns till enkom för harens skull – när man väl har fångat haren kan man glömma snaran. Orden finns till enkom för meningens skull – när man väl har fattat meningen kan man glömma orden. Var kan jag finna den man som har glömt sina ord, att jag må växla ord med honom?

Citatet har hämtats ur det verk som har tillskrivits den kinesiske tänkaren Zhuang Zi. Om honom vet vi endast att hans familjenamn var Zhou och att han anses ha levt mellan åren 369 och 286 före vår tideräknings början. Han var samtida med den konfucianske filosofen Mencius, men ingenting tyder på att de två någonsin träffades. Och hade de träffats hade de helt säkert talat förbi varandra, utan att kunna enas på någon punkt. Mencius, som vidareutvecklade Konfucius verklighetsnära och politiskt förankrade lära, betonade människans medfödda förmåga till moralisk förkovran. Om människan kunde återfinna sitt barnasinne – det hjärtats renhet som är hennes arvedel – kunde hon genom sitt föredöme hjälpa till att skapa en bättre och renare värld. Zhuang Zi däremot lärde, att människans föreställningar endast har relativ giltighet. Det vackra existerar endast i människans medvetande, som motsats till det fula. Det goda och det onda ryms båda i det egenskapslösa och evigt oföränderliga Dao, en i sig själv vilande verklighet, som i sig rymmer allt och intet.

Verket omfattar 33 kapitel, av vilka de sju första anses ha författats av Zhuang Zi själv. De övriga kapitlen har troligen författats av Zhuang Zis lärjungar och lärjungars lärjungar.

I detta verk, som präglas av lyrisk känsla, obändig fantasi och mystikerns djupa inlevelse försöker Zhuang Zi och hans lärjungar visa människan vägen till en sann verklighet, som ligger bortom ord och tanke. Mystikern Zhuang Zi och hans lärjungar försöker skildra den outsägliga erfarenheten, då den sökande människan når fram till den sanna insikten och skenvärldens mångfald i ett nu upphävs och sammansmälter till en odelbar och alltomfattande enhet.

Sedan äldsta tider ingick schamanistiska kultbruk i den religiösa ritualen. Redan under Zhuang Zis levnad synes schamanernas trollrunor ha satts i förbindelse med den daoistiska naturmystiken. Detta gav småningom upphovet till den daoistiska religionen, med dess blinda tro på magiska krafter och odödlighetskult. Men Zhuang Zi själv tog avstånd från dem som med allehanda knep sökte hejda livets naturliga rytm. Hans verk innehåller många underbart vackra allegoriska skildringar av döden, vilka präglas av en tillitsfull förtröstan.

Zhuang Zis filosofi har starka beröringspunkter med den senare Chan-skolan, som i västerlandet är bättre känd under det japanska namnet Zen. Liksom Zhuang Zi hävdar Zen, att människans uppvaknande till medvetande om den högsta sanningen är en ögonblicklig intuitiv erfarenhet. I förklaringens ögonblick avlägsnas allt det som tidigare har stått hindrande i vägen för människans upplysning. Utan att någonting har förändrats – ”berget är fortfarande ett berg och floden fortfarande en flod” – framstår allt i ett förklarat sken. Den som har nått fram till den andra stranden vänder tillbaka för att fortsätta sin gärning på denna stranden. Dessa tankar sammanfattas av en kort dikt av en anonym mästare, som skildrar den stillhet fylld av verklighet, dit Zhuang Zi ville leda sina medmänniskor:

Hur förunderligt, sällsamt och ofattbart!

Jag bär vatten och jag hämtar ved!

Göran Malmqvist

PINDAROS DIKTAR ETT ODE (Pingdaer zuo song),Yang Mu

平達耳作誦   (2000)

Att uppskatta hans ridkonst är som att stint stirra på

en strömvirvel som i en strid flod ett kort ögonblick

skapar en fulländad form vars utsökta detaljer i nästa blink

vidgas tills de uppgår i intet

Det nyfödda barnet lindades in i flera lager av bomullsgräs

som gömdes i en rabatt av gyllengula penséer

Hans vittfarne far var egentligen en gudom, som förr i tiden

brukade vandra i dessa trakter

Hans namn anförtrodde modern tidigt åt ett par

vänliga ormar som nogsamt lade det på minnet

Dessa gråögda boaormar

tog sig an gossen till han kunde gå och springa ikapp med vinden

på slätten täckt av violer

Vad som hände med henne är inte bekant

förmodligen gick hon förlorad bland de poetiska finesserna och rimmen

I samma ögonblick som odet fulländades återvände det

till intet, liksom en vacker strömvivel förintas

i den strida floden

  (Den gröne riddaren. Dikter av Yang Mu, page 451)

DESIDERATA

Vandra lugn i larmet och brådskan och minnes vilken frid som kan rymmas i tystnaden. Stå på god fot med alla och envar, i möjligaste mån utan att göra avkall på Dig själv. Säg Din mening stilla och tydligt och lyssna till andra, även de tröga och fåvitska, ty också de ha någonting att säga. Undvik högljudda och stridslystna personer, ty de utgöra en plåga för själen. Om Du jämför Dig själv med andra kan du bliva fåfäng och bitter, ty de komma alltid att finnas som äro bättre och sämre än Du själv.

Gläd Dig åt såväl Dina framgångar som Dina föresatser. Vinnlägg Dig städse om Din karriär hur oansenlig den än må vara; den är en gripbar ägodel i tider av växlande lycka. Iakttag försiktighet i Dina affärer, ty världen är full av bedräglighet. Men låt icke detta göra Dig blind för de dygder som dock existera; många personer sträva efter höga ideal och livet är fyllt av hjältemod. Var Dig själv. Undvik framför allt att hyckla tillgivenhet. Var heller icke känslokall när det gäller kärlek, ty trots all torftighet och besvikelse är den ständigt återkommande såsom gräset. Finn Dig väl tillrätta med ålderns maningar och avstå beredvilligt från vad som hör ungdomen till.

Uppamma en andlig styrka att värna Dig mot plötslig olycka. Låt inte inbillningar plåga Dig. Mången fruktan alstras av trötthet och ensamhet. Med undantag av en hälsosam tuktan skall Du handskas varsamt med Dig själv. Du är ett barn av världsalltet, i lika hög grad som träden och stjärnorna: det är Din rätt att finnas här. Och antingen Du kan skönja det eller ej utvecklas helt visst världsalltet som det borde.

Lev därför i frid med Gud, vad Du än tror Honom vara. Vad än Din möda och trängtan är skall Du bevara Din sinnesfrid i livets larmande förvirring. Ty trots dess myckenhet av hyckleri, påfrestningar och gäckande drömmar är världen ändå vacker, Var glad. Sträva efter att leva lycklig.

Exerpts from my translation into English of Lennart Sjögren’s latest poem Kalla mig Noa , Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag, 2014.Call me Noah II

We saw water fowls

they lived on prey found in the water

but land birds were gone

where might they land

where might they build their nests:

the shimmering birds

the peacocks with their shrill cries

that gilded our feasts

the pigeons in the squares

the wedding birds

birds wild in the forests.

No land was found under their feet

more doomed to death they were

than we.

The day Shem was lowered in the flood:

how death reached him through the water’s poison.

Did I then hear the neighing of death’s horses?

No, I heard nothing

I saw nothing

only the sucking water

and I asked as fathers always ask

why didn’t his death become mine?

And long afterwards

when the flood had receded

and we had built the new city

the day when Ham’s heart stopped

in the field where he was digging

he who should have worn

the heritage Shem wasn’t allowed to receive.

But Japheth fell in the battle

and was celebrated as a hero.

I know, I know it as well

as that I’m still alive.

But then my happiness was already gone

and the buzz from the heroes was

like the buzz from flies

when they leave their cadaver.

In my dream I speak to him

I see his eyes clearly

then I hardly know if the flood ever existed

and the war in which he fell

the glance from his eye is as close to me

as the day he was born.

She who gave me children I remember

her that I loved the most

when we lay together

it was as if a god was close

as happens in the souls of animals.

It was the bird’s nest and a wild summit

that was older than anything in the city and in the water

it was the greatest summit.

From the depth of the bottom the dead again rose toward the surface

distorted

fishes swam

among the walls of the city.

I, Noah

I saw this

I was saved from death.

And now I report

what the flood craved

four of the boats I knew foundered

besides several rafts

and other matter of less buoyancy.

The rain was constantly above us

the stars were invisible, the wind stagnated

we didn’t know where to steer our rudders.

And the day the storm arose

some boats were thrown against cliffs and crushed

rafts built from reed and other stuff

couldn’t bear any longer.

Everywhere the flood drank

those who still ought to be saved

it drank like one that has long gone without water

drinks his fill from a well.

How the fight started

the day we met a raft.

We had taken on board too heavy cargo

and couldn’t take any more

the dry timbre sucked in water

slowly the railing sank toward the surface 

storm gathered, the waves sought us.

A raft approached with three on board

hungrier than we

and closer to death

they shouted to us, hoping to be saved

we pushed away.

Then we were paralyzed by fear

we lived in order to live.

With calculation I hit against the knuckles of the woman

that grabbed our railing

I crushed them

I hit them rashly

we hit them all, we saved our lives

we sentenced them to death.

The waves came to our help

the blood was washed away.

We closed our eyes, we kept silent

we tried to embrace our loneliness to console ourselves

but apart from the consolation that slaughter gives

there was none to get.

I was there, my wife was there

the woman I had loved the longest

Japheth who was still alive then was there

a servant was there

that’s how we saved our lives.

One moment we saw the arms, how they waved

one moment we saw the heads

one moment they shouted curses at us

then the greater throat of the water took over.

I again shut my eyes

I turned away

as I’m used to do.

Then came the nights

there came waking nights

then I heard the curses anew

I turned away, defended myself.

Sooner or later sleep arrives

both to him who curses

and the cursed.

I still remember

how I hit and hit.

How much haven’t I since then

burnt and ravaged

when the wars again grew

from the green strand that we reached

when the time of the flood had ended,

but the hands of the woman

that I sent down to the bottom of the rain

seek me more than anything else.

Perhaps it’s to a wedding of hatred

deeper than the land were the dead grieve

that she invites me

and I cannot hesitate.

How many cities existed no longer

other than as cities of the rain and the dead

furthest down.

Water there was, endlessly it surrounded us

it tempted us to drink death.

The good god of water we had prayed to earlier

when drought burnt our acres

turned into an evil god that sought our lives.

We kept silent, we shouted, kept silent again

we turned inward, toward ourselves

there the rooms were empty too.

And I who was there and I who saw

I can’t see myself.

You ask who I am

you ask far too hard questions.

I who am Noah, I lived a time

for a human being

I lived uncommonly long

I don’t know who I am.

Exerpts from my translation into English of Lennart Sjögren’s latest poem Kalla mig Noa , Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag, 2014.

Call me Noah

or any other name

I met the great flood

I survived.

After the water’s annihilating power

names lack meaning

names you wear for stability’s sake.

Aimless I try to remember

I gather sticks for a building

everything is sticks

compared to the flood and the flood time.

The rain came, how long it lasted I don’t know

forty days and forty nights it’s been said

it could have been more.

Little by little it washed away

what we had built

at last it carried away the trees and the soil.

Our city lay close to the river

boats went away, boats came

we engaged a great deal in trade

sails surrounded us.

I owned a boat, therefore I was saved

a river boat it was

broad and built to carry cargo.

When the rain came, and it came again

a few of us gathered

we foretold

as it’s said that animals can foretell.

Others didn’t gather

they thought the gods would save us

they thought the rain came from the gods.

All we had was our eyes

we saw how the water rose

and it rose again

we gathered, we prepared.

After all, we were many that foretold

we were many that owned boats

I was the one who survived

we ought to have been more.

How the water filled the streets

filled the plains, turned into sea

those who could fled up toward the hills

the water caught up with them

fled toward the mountains, where the water also went.

The difference:

those who couldn’t flee

met death a couple days earlier.

Those of us that had boats

escaped the first death

the second death reached us

when the boats foundered.

The trees’ torn-off trunks

turned into rafts

those who traveled with them

soon lost the grip.

The flood’s meal was huge.

The rain turned the days into grey night

the nights became the cellars of the drowned

the stars disappeared

and with them the cardinal points.

Then I was still young

I brought with me

the woman I loved most

our three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Two daughters I’d had

the first-born

that death took, three years old,

the other

more beautiful than any

wasn’t allowed to live when the plague came

and a son between Shem and Ham

who was stillborn

and spared from wearing a name.

A couple of animals and doves

we also brought with us.

We still believed in a return

that life would be possible.

That our boat didn’t founder

I count among the enigmas.

It wasn’t better built than many others.

Who threw that die

I don’t know.

Much later a belief appeared

that I had spoken to the gods

and therefore had been saved.

I was taught that beliefs

can be dangerous to offend against

when many believe in them.

How silent the night became

when the drowned began to seek us

some with faces turned upwards

but mostly downwards

as if the depth

might reveal a truth

but I don’t believe they sought truth

terror seeks no truth.

Water was getting scarce

we gathered from the rain

but some drank from the river.

The rain gave us the mould

it gave us the rancid food

food that carried death within itself.

Den siste Göteborgskoloristen Lars Larson

I ett tidigare inlägg har jag skildrat hur den framstående konstnären Martin Åberg i våra dagar helt har fallit i glömska och hur hans verk slumpas bort för spottstyvrar på auktioner. Lika ledsamt är att kännedom om konstnärer verksamma i Skåne sällan når norr om Hallandsåsen. Jag vill här illustrera detta med en runa som jag den 15 juli 1993 publicerade i Svenska Dagbladet.

”Konstnären Lars Larson avled under en kvällspromenad tillsammans med sin hustru Sonja ovanför Villa Strandhem i Arild, som i tjugofyra år tjänade som deras sommarbostad. LL (så signerade han sina tavlor) förunnades inte att ännu en gång få uppleva augustiljuset över Skälderviken och Arilds hamn.

LL, som var 77 år och bodde i Höganäs, föddes i Göteborg 1915. Han studerade under Pär Siegård (1934) och på Valands Målarskola (1938-43), med Nils Nilsson som lärare. Han utställde separat i Stockholm (Modern konst i hemmiljö 1947; Färg och Form 1981 och 1986), Göteborg (Galleri Aveny 1949, 1953, 1975), Malmö (Galerie Holm 1971,1973), Höganäs Museum (1969, 1978) och Uppsala (Kavaletten 1981). Han finns representerad på bland andra Nationalmuseum, Göteborgs Konstmuseum och Malmö Museum.

Hans närmaste är förutom hustrun Sonja, dottern Eva Birgitta Mattson med make Staffan och sonen Anders samt brodern Per Lanmark, Nyhamnsläge.

*

Bättre än kanske någon annan har Sven Delblanc förmått tolka Lars Larsons egenart som konstnär. I en essä som publicerades inför utställningen i Uppsala 1981, skrev Delblanc bl a följande. ’Egentligen är han den siste Göteborgskoloristen. Man behöver inte gå till biografiska data, en blick på hans dukar är nog för att slå fast samhörighet och tradition. Men han tillhörde alltså den siste koloristen på Valand, hans lärare var Nils Nilsson, hans äldre kamrater var nu glorifierade och högt värderade målare som Sandberg, Ivarsson, Schiöler. Möjligen bör man hålla i minnet, att det bara var tio år sedan Schiöler var nästan bortglömd och inte alls noterad på den kommersiella börsen. Reflexionerna gör sig själva …

I den hysteriska originalitetens namn hävdade man ett beroende av Kylberg, som på sin höjd var ytligt, motiviskt, variationer på ett givet tema, Lars Larson står fri från det nästan oroande spekulativa hos Kylberg, han är i grunden en sekulär mystiker. Här finns inga andra gudamakter än solen, och ljuset är dess manifestation. Man kan få i tankarna en annan ’ohelig’ mystiker, Gunnar Ekelöf, han som också trodde på skapelsens och de döda tingens egenliv. Lugn i vissheten om sin egenart kunde Larson variera motiv man tyckte sig minnas från Kylberg ─de bar ändå hans eget signum. Med hans egna ord: ’Att skilja tillfälligheterna från det varaktiga kräver ett ständigt aktgivande.’”

Lars Larson värnade sin integritet och hade inget till övers för dem som försökte gena mot målet. Hans stillsamma och underfundiga humor kunde stundom bytas i bitsk satir mot konstnärer som enligt hans mening förrådde sig själva i en strävan att göra andra till lags. Mig påminner Lars Larson om de forntida kinesiska konstnärer som hellre vistades fjärran från hovet än de underkastade sig de kejserliga smakdomarna. 

The second instalment of my translation into English of Kjell Espmark’s poem Den inre rymden (The Inner Space)

I’ve been granted permission to search the house

and kick in the door of the villa

where for eighty years my parents

have quarreled about money.

I demand to know with what right

they decouple the laws of nature

and make a grim joke out of trust─

they quarrel so like the Olympian gods,

with mortals as their weapons.

But my parents, failing to understand, stare

at their inexplicably aged son

with a quivering permit in his hand.

And then throw themselves back into the quarrel

without seeing how the sharp words

are about to rough two human lives.

Was I a farmer’s youngest son

ineligible to receive any land

and therefore set to become a priest?

If so, I failed my father and his faith.

I might have become a dentist.

I have had a couple of German years

that yielded sympathy for Hitler’s Reich,

so I understand the eternity to which I am condemned:

this starved murmuring from the camp barracks.

My children have clearly disassociated themselves.

Two wives are there, as faint echoes,

the one is crying and martyrdom,

the other sarcasms and beatings.

I defend my only real memory─

an evening among silent mountains

a fragrance of bogmyrtle and cloudberry mire.

Above me a mute loon.

Let’s now examine an early picture.

The light in the room facing the lake is so strong

that the boys are translucent.

The birthday child is invisible─

my eye cannot perceive its frame. 

The truck, made as a fourth birthday present,

is enormous and black as fate itself.

It carries whoever dares to ride on its bed

into another future than the expected.

It’s here somewhere it will happen any moment now.

Every detail must be documented!

And the fingerprints on the doorhandles

must be carefully brushed into visibility.

I believe I was unwelcome in this life,

only temporarily married into reality.

What I remember are the chisel cuts of fear

to be forced to harm my boys,

the very ones who would revenge me.

I probably nourished them with my self-contempt

But yet I raised them to jobs with a status.

If only their eyes hadn’t become

critical flakes

of the same blackish stone as my own!

Even here I’m unwelcome,

in this land of silence and fumbling shadows.

My attempts to get out of this heritage of stone

and at last reach my boys with tenderness

scare the other frozen ones down here.

How could the sky above Strömsund

one Spring day in 1934

suddenly be laced with cracks

and an ice-blue sheet of it fall down

and shatter to pieces over the roofs?

Equally incomprehensible is my name

which my parents quarreled about, resulting in

what has proved invalid abroad.

They did however agree on a face

that could attract misunderstanding─

already at the age of eight

I was condemned to a future prison.

The childhood they thoughtlessly forced upon me

spread cracks through my later life.

Extracts from my translation into English of Kjell Espmark’s poetry collection Den inre rymden, Norstedts, 2014

The Inner Space I

It’s hazy, like the dawn of time.

Across the fjord a freezing text rushes,

ripple upon ripple.

What might be a heron

tests its wings and takes flight. The promise

of leaves in the crowns of the trees is fulfilled.

And I rise slowly

from the shrunken man on the bench.

It’s time to invent the world.

Like when you clambered out of the pool

on treacherous knees one Friday,

testing the tiles with your foot

and sniggering with what remained of your lips

you shuffle now out of Mother Sea

carefully up among the seacliffs,

an armoured shark that breathes, amazed,

and stretches itself into hands and feet.

You may join in a new attempt

to realize the grand scheme.

Your head is full of memories

of all that is yet to happen.

I’m back in Leukas

and stand by the entrance to the Underworld,

a cleft hidden by thorny shrubs.

The footprints that took me here remain in the sand!

But this time I see something other

than the starting point for a second life.

It is here the Western world is said to begin.

The sea which is but a dazzling sun

hides the ships on their way through the centuries.

The darkness streaming out of the entrance to Hades

presses forth a philosophy.

And the crag Sappho shall throw herself off

elicits the vertigo in her poems.

When we walk up through the brushwood 

along what will be known as Ström’s watery vale

to find a height for our village

our steps still retain

our first steps across the savanna.

My clan memory reveals a touch of myth.

In that memory, the wife is standing at the strait, 

with the king’s pardon in her hand.

Her feet bleeding from the barefoot walk

from Stockholm all the way to Red Isle.

Her love believes it has saved her husband

from block and wheel.

But no boat is to be found on her shore,

everybody wanted to get across to see

how he fares who paid tribute to a losing king.

And so she has to stand on this side

and watch from afar her husband’s head fall.

It’s here the story seems improved 

in order to incise the helplessness of love

for grey cottages and consumptive youngsters 

and impress on them

the language of clenched teeth.

Three hundred years I have searched for proof.

The wife is still screaming in the laundry hut,

alone with the fire. The door is locked

by a crossbar─put there on purpose

or dropped in place by chance?

The farmer, firelight still in his beard,

was acquitted by the court.

But the suspicion remains. As prosecutor

I zealously search through later years

for the descendent the farmer is hiding in.

I wait for you to make a wrong move

that reveals his guilt.

In an outhouse on Listarum Slopes

with chisel and hammer Jakob Roos

stands and carves out an Assyrian lion.

His skill runs through two generations 

to me as I sculpt my text.

The vault of heaven in Komstad marble

bears traces of his chisel.

The blackbird’s song is sensually carved

and surrounded by a billowing foliage of stone.

I have pondered over the great comet

that remained so long in the sky last year.

Was it the comet that stole little Märit away?

It can’t very well have been a punishment,

since I’ve nothing to regret.

And every night I read in the brown book

that contains all human knowledge.

In that way I fulfill my duty to prepare

my unborn grandchildren who will take over

in the real university of life.

One day, when I leave my farmer’s body

and float away above the Hotag montains

neither sins nor negligence ought to weigh heavily.

I only fear that the last day

may not be allowed to call itself Justice.

                                       

Yang Mu

               

     
Yang Mu is not only one of the greatest living poets and essayists in the Chinese language, but also an eminent scholar in Classical Chinese poetics and in various fields of research related to Classical Western literature. To him, there are no short cuts to true scholarship: he taught himself Old English in order to appreciate the epic poem Beowulf, Middle English in order to study works by Geoffrey Chaucer and his contemporaries, Classical Greek in order to acquaint himself with the works of Homer and Pindaros, and German in order to translate the first part of Ernst Robert Curtius’ monumental work Europäische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter into Chinese. Masterpieces in both Chinese and Western literature have to some extent served as sources of inspiration for Yang Mu’s own poetry. 

As a young man, Yang Mu wrote a series of fifteen essays under the title Letters to Keats. In this “correspondence” with the British poet, which mostly deals with the meaning of life and the condition of man, Yang Mu discusses themes such as Nature, Beauty, Love and Loneliness and the aesthetic and philosophical conceptions that characterize Romanticism. The final verses of Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”─Beauty is Truth, truth beauty, that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know─may serve as motto for Yang Mu’s literary and scholarly works.

As an academic teacher, Yang Mu has endeavored to impress on his students the importance of investigating common denominators in Chinese and Western literary traditions. He is a stern master and stresses that poetry is a calling and that few are called. Lifelong devotion and hard work are required of anyone who answers the call. But the creation of genuine poetry also requires that insights and knowledge are paired with personal integrity and a high moral standing.

In several of Yang Mu’s poems, the elusive concepts of Time and Memory play important roles. Just before writing these lines I finished reading a draft translation into English of Yang Mu’s collection of essays entitled Memories of Mount Qilai, a key work in which the author recounts his formative years in his native Hualien. In this work, memory and identity are indelibly linked; subtle observations of inner states of mind and the outer world are captured in neo-classicist, poetically charged prose. A classic of autobiographical writing from Taiwan.

Just as I had finished writing these lines, the postman brought me Yang Mu’s 14^th collection of poetry, containing poems from 1956 to 2013.