This poem by the warlord and statesman Cao Cao is one of the earliest examples of landscape poetry in Chinese recorded history. The genre of shanshui 山水 (landscape, literally ‘mountain water’) poetry and art is what first drew me to Chinese history and culture. Almost two thousand years ago, between his numerous campaigns to unify Northern China and conquer neighbouring warlords, Cao Cao wrote the following:
觀滄海
東臨碣石，以觀滄海。
水何澹澹，山島竦峙。
樹木叢生，百草豐茂。
秋風蕭瑟，洪波湧起。
日月之行，若出其中；
星漢燦爛，若出其里。
幸甚至哉，歌以詠志。
Behold The Deep Blue Sea
I headed east for Jieshi mountain, to behold the deep blue sea.
How rough and roiling the tide! Mountainous islands stand tall.
Thickets of trees thriving with life, a hundred plants flourish in bloom.
Autumn winds rustle and howl, vast waves gush forth.
The path of the sun and moon, as if emerging from the middle of it;
Stars shine and sparkle resplendent, as if born from within it.
Such a great fortune to behold! Let these words become a poem of remembrance.
Translation notes
Another poem with a title that immediately poses an imponderable question to a Western reader: what is the colour of the sea? Cang 滄 is really the colour of the sea, somewhere between grey and blue. Here, I have chosen ‘deep blue’ to add depth to the colour, and the sea itself.
The other tricky word in the title is guan 觀 (to watch). This was also in the title of the previous poem, ‘Contemplating a Game of Weiqi’. In that poem, Su Shi was listening to a game of weiqi and writing a poem based on what he imagined. So, translating the word as watching instead of contemplating would have been inaccurate. Here, Cao Cao is also not simply watching something. He headed east to Jieshi mountain ‘in order to’ (a rough translation of yi 以) watch the sea. So, he’s watching the sea from a vantage point, and contemplating the origin of the sun, moon and stars. Sounds more like ‘beholding’ to me.
Remember, Cao Cao was a warlord. Many translations of this poem focus on some peace found within nature. Rather, I read his respect for the ferocity and power of nature. Where there are ambiguous characters such as dan 澹 (tranquil, but can also be translated as rough when referring to the sea), I have elected to represent the full force of the scene.