A Chinese Poem
I stumbled upon this poem while reading “The Importance of Living” by Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang. I found it so beautiful I thought I’d share it here. It is about marriage.
Madame Kuan, wife of the great Yuan painter Chao, was herself a painter and teacher at the Imperial Court. When Chao was thinking of taking a mistress, Madame Kuan wrote the following poem, which touched his heart and changed his mind:
There’s too much emotion.
That’s the reason why
There’s so much a commotion!
Take a lump of clay,
Wet it, pat it,
And make an image of me,
And an image of you.
Then smash them, crash them,
And add a little water.
Break them and re-make them
Into an image of you,
And an image of me.
Then in my clay, there’s a little of you.
And in your clay, there’s a little of me.
And nothing ever shall us sever;
Living, we’ll sleep in the same quilt,
And dead, we’ll be buried together.”
— Madame Kuan