Lot Essay
Minagawa Kien was a leading Japanese Confucianist. He has transcribed a poem by Wang Wei (699-759), the well-known Tang court poet, musician and painter, translated as follows:
Alone I sit in dark bamboo,
Strumming the lute, whistling away;
Deep woods that no one knows,
Where a bright moon comes to shine on me.
Translation from Burton Watson, Chinese Lyricism, (New York, 1971), p. 173
Alone I sit in dark bamboo,
Strumming the lute, whistling away;
Deep woods that no one knows,
Where a bright moon comes to shine on me.
Translation from Burton Watson, Chinese Lyricism, (New York, 1971), p. 173