What a fine poem. Marianne probably knows some of Du Fu's answers to her question, such as this one in David Young's version:
I AM A MADMAN
My thatched cottage stands
just west of Thousand Mile Bridge
this Hundred Flower Stream
would please a hermit fisherman
bamboo sways in the wind
graceful as any court beauty
rain makes the lotus flowers
even more red and fragrant
but I no longer hear from friends
who live on princely salaries
my children are always hungry
with pale and famished faces
does a madman grow more happy
before he dies in the gutter?
I laugh at myself--a madman
growing older, growing madder.
|