Page:The works of Li Po - Obata.djvu/132

 ml

��71. CHUANG CHOU AND THE BUTTERFLY

Chuang Chou in dream became a butterfly,

And the butterfly became Chuang Chou at waking.

Which was the real — the butterfly or the man?

Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?

The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea

Returns anon to the shallows of a transparent stream.

The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the

city, Was once the Prince of the East Hill. So must rank and riches vanish. You know it, still you toil and toil, — what for?

��Chuang Chou. A famous philosopher of the 3rd and 4-th centuries B. C, who was an ardent follower of Lao- tzu, the founder of Taoism. Chuang Chou y s writing contains a chapter on his becoming a butterfly in a dream.

[106]

�� �