by Xi Chuan, translated from the Chinese by Lucas Klein
BEAST
The beast, I see it. The beast, fur thick and stiff, teeth sharp, eyes nearly lifeless. The beast, gasping for breath, growling ill fortune, and from its feet, no sound. The beast, with no sense of humour, like a man straining to hide his poverty, like a man ruined by his mission, with no cradle to provide memories, no destination to locate yearning, not enough lies to plead for itself. It smacks a tree trunk and gathers infants; it is alive, like a cliff, and dead, like an avalanche.
A crow among scarecrows searches for a partner.
The beast, it despises my hairstyle, despises my scent, despises my repentance and reserve. In a word, it despises that I deck out happiness in baubles and jewels. It squeezes its way into my room, orders me to stand in the corner, and with no word of explanation collapses in my chair, shatters my mirror, shreds up my curtains and all that belongs to my spiritual defense. I beseech it: “Don’t take my teacup when I’m thirsty!” Right there it digs up a spring, which I suppose must be some kind of response.
One ton of parrots, one ton of parrots’ nonsense!
We call the tiger tiger, we call the donkey donkey. But the beast, what can you call it? Without a name, its flesh and shadow are a blur, and you can barely call it, can barely be sure of its location in broad daylight or divine its destiny. It should be given a name like “grief” or “embarrassment,” should be given a pool to drink from, should be given shelter from the storm. A beast with no name is a fright.
A song thrush does away with the king’s foot soldiers.
It knows temptation, but not by a palace, not by a woman, and not by a copious candlelit gala. It comes toward us, so is there something about our bodies that makes it drool? Does it want to slurp up the emptiness off our bodies? What kind of temptation is this! Sideways through the passageway of shadows, colliding head-on with the flash of a knife, the slightest hurt teaches it to moan—moaning, existence, who knows what stuff belief is made of; but once it settles down, you hear the sound of sesame at the jointing stage, you catch the scent of the rambler rose.
The great wild goose that clears a thousand mountains, too shy to talk about itself.
This metaphorical beast walks down the slope, plucks flowers, sees its reflection by the riverside, and wonders inside who it could be; it swims across the river, climbs ashore, and gazes back at the mist on the river, with nothing to discover or understand; it rushes into the city, chases girls, finds a piece of meat, and passes the night beneath the eaves, dreaming of a village and a companion; sleepwalking for fifty miles, knowing no fear, waking in the light of a new dawn, it finds itself returning to the location it had set out from: that same thick bed of leaves, the same bed of leaves still hiding that dagger—what’s going to happen?
Pigeon in the sand, you are enlightened by the sheen of blood.
Oh, the age of flight is near!
巨兽
那巨兽，我看见了。那巨兽，毛发粗硬，牙齿锋利，双眼几乎失明。那巨兽，喘着粗气，嘟囔着厄运，而脚下没有声响。那巨兽，缺乏幽默感，像竭力掩盖其贫贱出身的人，像被使命所毁掉的入，没有摇篮可资回忆，没有目的地可资向往，没有足够的谎言来为自我辩护。它拍打树干，收集婴儿；它活着，像一块岩石，死去，像一场雪崩。
乌鸦在稻草人中间寻找同伙。
那巨兽，痛恨我的发型，痛恨我的气味，痛恨我的遗憾和拘谨。一句话，痛恨我把幸福打扮得珠光宝气。它挤进我的房门，命令我站立在墙角，不由分说坐垮我的椅子，打碎我的镜子，撕烂我的窗帘和一切属于我个人的灵魂屏障。我哀求它：“在我口渴的时候别拿走我的茶杯!”它就地掘出泉水，算是对我的回答。
一吨鹦鹉，一吨鹦鹉的废话!
我们称老虎为“老虎”，我们称毛驴为“毛驴”。而那巨兽，你管它叫什么? 没有名字，那巨兽的肉体和阴影便模糊一片，你便难以呼唤它，你便难以确定它在阳光下的位置并预卜它的吉凶。应该给它一个名字，比如“哀愁”或者“羞涩，应该给它一片饮水的池塘，应该给它一问避雨的屋舍。没有名字的巨兽是可怕的。
一只画眉把国王的爪牙全干掉!
它也受到诱惑，但不是王宫，不是美女，也不是一顿丰饶的烛光晚宴。它朝我们走来，难道我们身上有令它垂涎欲滴的东西? 难道它要从我们身上啜饮空虚? 这是怎样的诱惑呵!侧身于阴影的过道，迎面撞上刀光，一点点伤害使它学会了的呻吟——呻吟，生存，不知信仰为何物；可一旦它安静下来，便又听见芝麻拔节的声音，便又闻到月季的芳香。
飞越千山的大雁，羞于谈论自己。
这比喻的巨兽走下山坡，采摘花朵，在河边照见自己的面影，内心疑惑这是谁；然后泅水渡河，登岸，回望河上雾霭，无所发现亦无所理解；然后闯进城市，追踪少女，得到一块肉，在屋檐下过夜，梦见一座村庄、一位伴侣；然后梦游五十里，不知道害怕，在清晨的阳光里醒来，发现回到了早先出发的地点：还是那厚厚的一层树叶，树叶下面还藏着那把匕首——有什么事情要发生?
沙土中的鸽子，你由于血光而觉悟。
啊，飞翔的时代来临了!
[Editors’ note: “Beast” by Xi Chuan, Lucas Klein, from Notes on the Mosquito, copyright ©2006 by Xi Chuan, translation copyright ©2012 by Lucas Klein. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.]
Xi Chuan 西川 (author), penname of Liu Jun 刘军, was born in Jiangsu in 1963 but grew up in Beijing, where he still lives. One of contemporary China’s most celebrated poets, having won the Lu Xun Prize for Literature (2001) and the Zhuang Zhongwen Prize (2003), he is also one of its most hyphenated littérateurs—teacher-essay
Lucas Klein (translator) is a father, writer, and translator, as well as assistant professor in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan (New Directions) won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize, and his scholarship and criticism has appeared in Comparative Literature Studies, LARB, Jacket, CLEAR, PMLA, and other venues. Other publications include October Dedications, his translations of the poetry of Mang Ke (Zephyr Press and Chinese University Press, 2018), and contributions to Li Shangyin (New York Review Books, 2018), as well as the monograph The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness (Brill, 2018). His translations of the poetry of Duo Duo, forthcoming from Yale University Press, recently won a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant. (Photograph of Lucas by Zhai Yongming.)