Takashima & the Yilin · A short read
A crane calling from the marsh
A crane calls from deep in the marsh. Beside that sound, the Yilin places a person who has withdrawn from the world and kept to a simple way of living. The poem ends with the person still apart, declining to follow the times.
Shi to Gen, 7 to 52
鶴鳴九皋，避世隱居。抱朴守真，竟不隨時。
A crane calls from the deep marsh; withdrawing from the world, living in seclusion. Holding to simplicity and keeping what is true, to the end refusing to follow the times.
English translation: DaYan. We render 九皋 as “deep marsh”, rather than counting nine separate marshes. 抱朴, “holding to simplicity”, evokes keeping something in its plain, unworked state.
You hear the bird before meeting the person
The verse opens with a sound from somewhere out of sight. Only then does it name the secluded life. The crane and the person share the space of four short phrases, without the poet telling us a story about either one.
The final words, 不隨時, give that quiet scene some stubbornness: the person will not follow the times. We do not learn what they have refused, or what living apart costs them. The poem keeps us outside the dwelling.
Listen to another crane
In the I Ching’s Zhong Fu, hexagram 61, a crane calls in the shade and its young answers. Here the Yilin gives no answering bird. The shared sound leads into two different scenes, one with a response and one with a secluded person.
You can follow that sound into Zhong Fu’s second line, or stay here for a moment. The poem offers little noise beyond the first cry. After the conversations and business disputes elsewhere in the reading room, that is enough to change the pace.
Sources & translation
Jiaoshi Yilin, Shi to Gen (師之艮), received text via Chinese Text Project. Comparison: Zhouyi, Zhong Fu, second line. English translation and reading notes: DaYan.
Chinese Text Project: Jiaoshi Yilin ↗