This is a translation of a Korean translation of the (classical Chinese) original. I did the (English) translation about seven years ago for a poetry workshop with either Louise Glück or Larry Raab--I can't remember now, which of them it was. Nor do I remember the name of the Korean translator. The original is by the extremely prolific, much under-rated, polyglot immortal poet Anonymous. Sorry.

The poem itself is an interesting commentary on a recurring theme in ancient Chinese poetry (and in Korean and Japanese poetry, for that matter). Typically, in these poems, the speaker is a former scholar / government official who is a kind of goody-two-shoes conscientious objector: he has been cast off by the corrupt court for being too damned principled for his own good (a stock metaphor employed here is the image of a lone pine tree, standing fresh and green against the snow, which has covered everything else), and he's miserable, living on tree bark and sleeping on stones--and he's loving it. He's damn proud of himself for being such a principled, self-sacrificing, noble, moral, incorruptible pain in the ass.

In this poem, though... Well, read for yourself.

Conversation on the Water

When Gul'won was exiled
And wandering from river to river
His face was sallow and pale
And his form wizened and warped
And therefore a fisherman asked of him:
"Are you not of the royal line of Cho?
What brings you to such a lowly place?"

And Gul'won answered:
"All the world was corrupt
And I alone was pure
All the world was drunk, as well
And I alone awake
And so here am I, banished."
Said the fisherman:

"I have heard that the sage should not dwell on appearance
Or be entrapped, and should be able to live in the world
With ease. You say that the world was unclean--
Why, then were you not able to float above its tide
And ride on it even to the uttermost heights?
Or if the world was drunk, why not drink the dregs
And behave like a fool in the world's eye?
Why must you be profound and refined and exiled all at once?"

The nobleman said:
"I too have heard things, and what I have heard is this--
He who has just washed his hair adjusts his hat accordingly
And he who has just bathed folds his clothes in the proper fashion.
How is the man who is clean to accept and forgive the improprieties
Of the outside world? Rather would one throw one's self into the river
And find one's grave in the bellies of the fish, than to soil
What is pure white with the dust of imperfection."

The fisherman gave him a broad grin and started to pull away
All the while drumming the stern of his boat and singing a song:
When the water of the Yangtze is clean
I wash my hat straps
And when the water of the Yangtze is muddied
I wash my feet . . .

--Soon he was out of sight, and the waters silent.