Better Fall to Pieces Like Broken Jade Than Remain Intact As A Mediocre Tile
A Song of Freedom
tr. from the Chinese by Fu Zhengming, the poet himself
Better be a flying firefly than a bird in the cage,
I choose be my psychic self with little light not a slave of darkness!
An old gentleman with love is like jade, a paragon of cleverness;
A true poet is the voice, a power against those in power in his age.
The party’s officials are merely comic monkeys played by their master;
The free cranes flying up in the sky are not someone’s toys.
While the tile pots are making a lot of thunder noise,
The heroes are climbing the mountain to hold the just banner.
Footnotes
This poem with the rhyme scheme of abba cddc is an English version of a special Chinese poem. 藏頭詩 (Cangtou shi, Head-hiding Poetry) is poetry in which the first character of a line is hidden so that the recipient may guess it. It can be regarded as the Chinese version for English acrostic. The difference is, while with "acrostic", certain letters in each line form a word or words, in "Cangtou Shi", the first characters or words of each line form a meaningful sentence or an idiom. It is nearly impossible to translate the Chinese poem into English Head-hiding Poetry.
The Chinese proverb in the poem’s title níng wéi yùsuì bù wéi wǎquán (Better fall to pieces like broken jade than remain intact as a mediocre tile) has similar meaning to English proverb: Better die with honor than live with shame.
Tile pots” are symbol for bombastic politicians. This metaphor comes from an essay by the poet-statesman Qu Yuan (343–278 B.C.)：黄钟毁弃，瓦釜雷鸣(huáng zhōng huǐ qì，wǎ fǔ léi míng) can be translated into: The bronze bells are destroyed and abandoned, while tile pots make a lot of thunder noise. Bronze bells were musical instruments used in religious ceremonies and as a metaphor for virtuous and talented people; the tile pots made of earth, however, are of much less valuable and stands in for mediocrity. This expression is often used to criticize an unjust system that allows evil individuals to stay in power while more competent people are forced out.
寧爲玉碎 不爲瓦全
七律 藏頭格
自由行
寧作我行笑籠鳥，為螢豈可不翻飛！
玉儀雖老懸冰鑒，碎屑猶精集反詩。
不黨無羈張鶴翼，為官蒙辱著猴衣。
瓦鳴貫耳遮清聼，全力登山擧義旗。
嵗在己亥仲秋
傅正明詩書
