The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

by Cold Mountain (Han Shan), Red Pine (Translator), John Blofeld (Introduction)

This authoritative, bilingual edition represents the first time the entirety of Cold Mountain's poetry has been translated into English.

These translations were originally published by Copper Canyon Press nearly twenty years ago. Now, significantly revised and expanded, the collection also includes a new preface by the translator, Red Pine, whose accompanying notes are at once scholarly, accessible, and entertaining. Also included for the first time are poems by two of Cold Mountain's colleagues.

Legendary for his clarity, directness, and lack of pretension, the eight-century hermit-poet Cold Mountain (Han Shan) is a major figure in the history of Chinese literature and has been a profound influence on writers and readers worldwide. Writers such as Charles Frazier and Gary Snyder studied his poetry, and Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums is dedicated "to Han Shan."

1.B

storied cliffs were the fortune I cast
bird trails beyond human tracks
what surrounds my yard
white clouds nesting dark rocks
I've lived here quite a few years
and always seen the spring-water change
tell those people with tripods and bells
empty names are no damn good

71.

someone sits in a mountain gorge
cloud robe sunset tassels
handful of fragrances he'd share
the road is long and hard
regretful and doubtful
old and unaccomplished
the crowd calls him crippled
he stands alone steadfast

205.

my place is on Cold Mountain
perched on a cliff beyond the circuit of affliction
images leave no trace when they vanish
I roam the whole galaxy from here
lights and shadows flash across my mind
not one dharma comes before me
since I found the magic pearl
I can go anywhere everywhere it's perfect

Cold Mountain

A mountain man lives under thatch
before his gate carts and horses are rare
the forest is quiet but partial to birds
the streams are wide and home to fish
with his son he picks wild fruit
with his wife he hoes between rocks
what does he have at home
a shelf full of nothing but books

Genres: Poetry, Buddhism, China, Philosophy, Classics, Zen, Religion

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 793

Reviews

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1958 Jack Kerouac dedicated his book "Dharma Bums" to Han-Shan (Cold Mountain), and in that same year Gary Snyder published his book of poems, "Cold Mountain." While the Chinese didn't find his poems that important, the early beats and others have, and so since then a few more translations of his poems have been published, and I am inundated with them.

While This was my first introduction to Cold Mountain's poems I found that I liked the Introduction by John Blofeld best, and after that the life of Han-Shan as written by the Red Pine who translated these poems. I read these sections twice, and I spent a few hours reading Red Pine's translations of the poems, until I found that they didn't suit me; I was losing interest.

After each poem he spends time making long comments on them, and I tried to read a few but found that I wasn't interested in having them explained to me. Yet, I feel that this could be a very important part of the book for some people. Also, this is more than likely the only book that translates all of Cold Mountain's poems, and those of Cold Mountain's friend, Pickup.

After reading all I could manage to read, not that I won't finish reading the poems someday, I picked up Gary Snyder's book, "Riprap and Cold Mountain." The poems have a better feel to them, but they still were not satisfying to me. Being unsatisfied I bought more books of Cold Mountain's poetry. So far I like Bruce Watson's the best, and then Wandering Poet's, for both have a very nice flow to them and feel very spiritual.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Porter’s a terrific translator: direct, down-to-earth, and clearly in sympathy with the culture and attitude of his subject, one of the Tang “mountain men” who left the mandarin comforts of the capitals for a more austere and anonymous life in the wilds of southeast China. Porter’s own experience as a Columbia grad school dropout who cut out for a Buddhist monastery, then wound up in the wilds of northwest USAmerica, has to be part of the reason for his artfully plainspoken translations. The footnotes especially do a great job of telling you what you need to know to appreciate Hanshan’s rich intertextual play without beating you down with specialized erudition. I wish more translations were like this—I guess what I’m really wishing for is more translators who felt this kind of unembarrassed affinity for the poets whose work they inhabit.

[Eadweard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite chinese poet, he's a bit too preachy for me, too buddhist, some poems were pretty good though.

The notes by the translator are excellent, he explains some of the references and allusions that are featured in the poems (prepare for a lot of buddhist theology).

[Sean Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world is full of busy people
well-versed in countless views
blind to their true natures
they get farther from the Way
if they could see what's real
they wouldn't talk about empty dreams
one thought answers your prayers
revealing a buddha's view
____________

For an image of life and death
consider ice and water
water freezes into ice
ice melts back into water
what lives is bound to die
ice and water don't harm each other
both life and death are fine

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book of Zen poetry by the legendary "Cold Mountain" a wandering Zen Poet from China. The book was translated by Red Pine, and he includes information about Hanshan and commentary on his poems. I wrote a full review at Epinions when I finished this book. It is one I like to re read often, I love Zen poetry.

Hanshan The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

[leren_lezen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite Zen poet, but still pretty nice. His poems are at times more steeped in the Buddhist religious discourse, and those are not really for me. One of my favourite poems was, similar to another reviewer:

The world is full of busy people
well-versed in countless views
blind to their true natures
they get farther from the Way
if they could see what's real
they wouldn't talk about empty dreams
one thought answers your prayers
revealing a buddha's view

[Fran Spellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love having Cold Mountains poems at my bedside. Many of his poems act as koans for me in that I must look further than the words for meaning. I will continue to read into 2021++. “The new year ends a year of sorrow spring finds everything fresh mountain flowers laugh with green water cliff trees dance with blue mist bees and butterflies seem so happy birds and fishes look lovelier still the joy of companionship never ends who can sleep past dawn”

[Ivan Granger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Han Shan (Cold Mountain) is one of the great figures of Chinese Ch’an/Taoist poetry, playful, cantankerous, rich with insight. There are several other good English renderings of his work, including by Gary Snyder. But in my mind this collection by Red Pine is the authoritative English version. The whole collection is here, along with the poetry of Han Shan’s companions, Feng-kan and Shih-te.

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

born 730 AD this guys wrote much of his poetry on rocks and trees. It's hard to find good translations of chinese poetry but this is one of them
very unpretentious

[Mo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like these as much as I expected to. Repetitive and, well, a bit preachy.

[Liam Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold Mountain (and his friends) are a delight. This translation by Red Pine is without a doubt THE Cold Mountain in English. I bought this book after reading Pine's translation of Stonehouse, desiring more hermit-poetry, and was NOT disappointed. Rather than referencing other translators of Hanshan (Cold Mountain) I have read, I will briefly compare these poems to those of Stonehouse by the same translator.

The main difference (beside time/place of life) is that Hanshan writes very lyrically, whereas Stonehouse's poetic excellence rests on a certain coup de main where each line either carries its own force or positions a line or idea to drive the force of the poem. Hanshan, on the other hand, relies on the driving rhythm of his poetics. To put it simply, Hanshan could be sung, Cold Mountain should be recited.

The personality of Hanshan comes through on every page. I feel like I know the guy after reading this work. Hanshan has untamable energy, a sort of metric pulse that reflects his anti-authoritarian nature. In a way the Daoist/Confucian principal of abandoning an unjust society finds perhaps its greatest champion. His poems turn chan (zen) on its head (is this possible?) and resound with the philosophic excellence of the dao.

As I don't intend to leave a thorough review at this time (I need to prepare for a job interview) the two images that remain very strongly with me* include 1. Hanshan harassing priests/monks, reminding them that their position as respected people does not mean they will escape the same consequences for their karmic disturbances - like Curtis Mayfield, he seems to be saying "if there's a hell below, we're all gonna go" and 2. Hanshan fleeing the official determined to meet the great poet and religious maverick, seeming to phase through a crease in the mountain to escape his #1 fan (this, and it's personal, reminds me of Rousseau avoiding kings and other famous people, often to their chagrin.)

Anyways, This and Pine's translation of Stonehouse are among my most cherished books of poetry.

*(it's been nearly a year since I first read through this cover to cover)

[Richard Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a great deal to recommend here.

If you like the poet Han-than ("Cold Mountain," named for the place where he hid himself away), or the translator Red Pine, or poetry based (mostly) on Buddhist thought, or poetry based (somewhat) on Taoist thought, you will almost certainly appreciate this book. It is a complete collection of Cold Mountain's poetry, with almost every single poem getting a paragraph of annotation. (For those who read Chinese, the original is included, on the facing page. Useful for some. For me, that's just nice art.) And I find Red Pine's translations, always, to be clear and comprehensible without glaring modernisms or strange archaisms. For this generation, IMO, speaking only as an ignorant reader, his translations can't be beat.

Here's a random selection:

Sitting alone I keep slipping away
far off with the cares of my heart
clouds wander by the mountainside
wind rushes out the valley
gibbons swing from the trees
birds call through the forest
time slips past my temples
yearend finds me old with regrets

You hear the poem in unadorned language, without gimmick. I like it.

As I am only academically interested in either Buddhism or Taoism, I'll admit I got my fill of those philosophies before I got to the end of the book. (Lots of verses like "The suffering of the Wheel is relentless/ back and forth stirring up the dust/ the ant patrol on its endless round/ the Six Paths are nothing but confusion...") I lean more towards the type of poem above, the ones that sound more like Wordsworth or something, with lots of nature imagery. But even without a deep interest, I was glad to learn quite a bit about religious thought during the Tang dynasty, just acquiring bits and pieces via the poetry and the notes.

Anyway, it was fine. No doubt others will find that aspect more to their taste.

The volume includes a few poems by two of Cold Mountain's associates. That's just the whipped cream on top.

Lots of people should be reading this. Maybe they are. Nobody has consulted me. But If you like any of the things mentioned above, this should be an easy choice.

[Sam Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Red Pine didn't really care about rhythm or rhyme in his translations, but the footnotes were excellent, the interpretations quite good (although there seemed to be at least some debatable choices), and the language itself impressively unaffected. As is revealed in the book itself, Hanshan cared more about the content of his poems than adherence to strict poetic formalities, so I think the austerity of language was a very fine choice, as was that to include the originals. In all, the translations were great, and the comprehensiveness of the collection for this "minor" author is something to be thankful for. I would have liked to know a little more about how the poems were ordered (by Red Pine)—maybe I missed it somewhere.

As for the poems themselves, Hanshan's understanding of nature, the mind, and buddhahood—and subversive, critical sentiments towards religion: especially Daoism, organized religion, and the very notions of immortality and enlightenment—are of course fascinating, especially in light of his posthumous literary and religious status precisely as an immortal and a sage. There are conflicting positions throughout (pro- vs. anti- enlightenment, hermitage, rebirth) but it is somewhat expected. The infrequent and more unassuming poems about love often felt the most charming (e.g. poem 54) and revealed his humanity. His envy at the station of others, lamentations of his lonely (family-less) life, egotistical self-view, and contradictory sentiments revealed the same.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few poems by Cold Mountain in "Mountain Home" that were great. As a result my brother Frank and I tracked down this book--it was neat because it had the Chinese on one page, and the poems on the facing page. My Chinese friends (Xi, Shuang, and Jane) all helped out, reading sections, showing the alliteration and onomatopoeia, and complaining how Cold Mountain was not an outstanding Chinese poet (as I result, I now own more books of Chinese poetry, with the Chinese characters facing the English translation, and tools that will recite the the poems in Chinese!!) I am really looking forward to it.

The beat poets discovered Cold Mountain, and he was one of the first Chinese poets to get really publicized in the US. The problem with Cold Mountain and his cronies Big Stick and Pickup is that they really like to write about what hypocrites we are (and they're right, but we're not sophomores in high school now), and also what hypocrites the ministry are (again, of course). There are some excellent poems about nature and reflecting on it also, but their density is low. I am really looking forward to my future reading, and thank all my friends for a wonderful reading experience.

[Alex Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started this at the beginning of the summer and was slowly working my way through it. Here we are at the end now and I am glad to have read this. The poems are still fairly accessible after more than a millenium with good annotations on all the parts of Buddhism I was unaware about before reading this. That being said at points the poems by Han Shan felt paradoxical to me. A decent chunk of these poems seem to take more of a preachy quality, but when something is said like "Relax in the village square before the sky everything is empty. No direction is better or worse, east is just as good as west," and then later on the reader will be lectured about how the younger generation (of his day) is going in the wrong direction, I feel like one needs to questions the consistency of some ideas expressed in the poems.

Or maybe I just misinterpreted some of the poems. That's possible too, I suppose.

[Ci · Rating 3 out of 5]

For bilingual readers of Chinese and English, this book provides an elegant and convenient display stanzas side-by-side. The translated version carries the salient imageries from the original text yet is written with a simplicity that is markedly different from the original poems. The original poems, anchored in ancient Chinese ideograms with naturalistic symbols (mountain, snow, tree, bird, etc) that are far harder to access emotionally even for a fluent modern Chinese reader. The spirituality of these poems are mostly monk-recluse, living in a state of nearly absolute Nature, is a rejection of the world and yet still haunted by past memories and melancholia of loss. However this reader does not find herself sufficiently in sympathy with these sentiments.

[Laurent De Serres Berard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of words of a man desillusioned by society and became an hermit, but even then became dessilusioned by hermitage, living with contempt.

The poems tends to be raw, and does not reduce the difficulties of life, temptations or the burden of loneliness but still reflect in each poems a desire to reach a certain peace with oneself and with the state of the world. His poems are sometimes self-depreciating, ressentful, admirative, other times taunting at different belief system, but other times refering to them as well. It provide in this sense a very humanistic, unfiltered view of the hermitage he lived.

The notes by the author are appreciated and help contextualized the poems and its references, as well as learn a lot on chinese poetry, taoism, Han folklore and more.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a unique book. First of all, don't expect rhythmic poetry. Han Shan's poems are more like koans than poems themselves. The reading is fascinating because it gives you great insight into the Taoism and Buddhism culture of China's Tang Dynasty. It also provides a sense of what hermits were all about at the time. This comes through thanks to Red Pine's incredible translation, which adds in-depth commentary and massive references.

If you're into Taoism, early Buddhism and Zen, this is definitely a great book to read.

[Justin Minorkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

234

​Cold Mountain speaks these words
​as if he were a madman
​he tells people what he thinks
​thus he earns their wrath
​but a straight mind means straight words
​a straight mind holds nothing back
​crossing the River of Death
​who’s that jabbering fool
​the road to the grave is dark
​and karma holds the reins

[AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moth-browed girl in town
how her pendants chime
teasing a parrot before the flowers
playing a lute beneath the moon
her singing echoes for months
thousands watch her briefest dance
but surely this won't last
the hibiscus can't bear the cold

[Moonshine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time faves.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems to meditate upon...(satori guaranteed)

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Translations with depth and breadth. It is worth owning a copy for those Buddhists, poets or both.

[Theelmo26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

me gusta este libro por que contiene cosas que van de acuerdo al tema y además es muy acertivo

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Day after Day no Sun
Year after Year no Spring

[Ellen Ankenbrock · Rating 5 out of 5]

writing wonderful poetry
humble hermits

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buddhist teachings embedded in metaphors from nature.

[Bart · Rating 4 out of 5]

The irreverence makes it a joy

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not possibly have more adoration for this!!! 10/10, five stars, wonderful.

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime

There is some sublime poetry and some sublime wisdom here. There are few timeless poems. As you read the poems you can appreciate his growth as an artist.