Drinking Song

See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven,

Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again!

See at the mirror in the High Hall

Aged men bewailing white locks--

In the morning, threads of silk;

In the evening flakes of snow!

Snatch the joys of life as they come and use them to the fill;

Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon.

The things Heaven made

Man was meant to use;

A thousand guilders scattered to the wind may come back again.

Roast mutton and sliced beef will only taste well

If you drink with them at one sitting three hundred cups.

Master Ts’ēn Ts’an,

Doctor Tan-ch’iu,

Here is wine: do not stop drinking,

But listen, please, and I will sing you a song.

Bells and drums and fine food, what are they to me,

Who only want to get drunk and never again be sober?

The Saints and Sages of old times are all stock and still;

Only the mighty drinkers of wine have left a name behind.

When the king of Ch’ēn gave a feast in the Palace of P’ing-lo

With twenty thousand gallons of wine he loosed mirth and play.

The master of the feast must not cry that his money is all spent;

Let him send to the tavern and fetch more, to keep your glasses

filled.

His five-flower horse and thousand-guilder coat--

Let him call his boy to take them along and sell them for good wine,

That drinking together we may drive away the sorrows of a thousand

years.