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Shide (Chinese: 拾得; pinyin: Shídé; Wade–Giles: Shih-Te; literally "Pick-up or Foundling", fl. 9th century)[1] was a Tang Dynasty Chinese Buddhist poet at the Guoqing Temple on Mount Tiantai on the East China Sea coast; roughly contemporary with Hanshan and Fenggan, but younger than both of them. As close friends the three of them formed the "Tiantai Trio". Shide lived as a lay monk, and worked most of his life in the kitchen of Guoqing Temple.
An apocryphal story relates how Shide received his name: Once, Fenggan was travelling between Guoqing Temple and the village of Tiantai, when at the redstone rock ridge called 'Red Wall' (赤城) he heard some crying. He investigated, and found a ten-year old boy who had been abandoned by his parents; and picked him up and took him back to the temple, where the monks subsequently raised him.[2]
Shide is referred to as Jittoku in Japanese.
Shide wrote an unknown number of poems, but 49 have survived. According to Xiang Chu in his book Cold Mountain Poems and Notes, [3] there are 57 poems attributed to Shih-te. Shih-te's poems are short; and rarely exceed 10 lines. They are typically on a Buddhist subject, and executed in a style reminiscent of Hanshan's.
Some scholars view some of the Shih-te poems as having been authored by Han-shan. Wandering Poet points out that the minds and lives of the two poets were very different, and their poems are therefore easy to tell apart: Shih-te's poems speak of monks and the monastery, Buddhist subjects and mundane things, while Han-shan's poems are majestic and speak of mountains and waterfalls, swirling clouds and flying cranes[4]. In poem 27 the author speaks of being partial to pine cliffs and says he has spent his life drifting like an untied boat; this describes Han-shan, not Shih-te, who spent his life in the kitchen at Kuoching monastery. Indeed, Shide's Poems 44 and 45 have often been considered to really have been written by Hanshan; not impossible as the two were especially good friends- see Poem 33.
Note that in Red Pine's poem 33, line #3 is missing. Han-shan's and Shih-te's poems always have an even number of lines, i.e., 4, 8, 10 or 14, with an odd number of characters per line throughout the same poem, i.e., 3, 5 or 7.
We slip into Tientai caves,
We visit people unseen-
Eat magic mushrooms under the pines.
We talk about the past and present
And sigh at the world gone mad.
Everyone going to Hell
And going for a long time.
The following translation of the same Shih-te poem is by Wandering Poet[5]:
I wander into Cold Mountain cave
To visit someone people don’t know
Cold Mountain is my friend
We chew magic mushrooms beneath the pines
We talk of current and ancient events
We see the world as stupid and crazy
Each and every one is hell bound
Will they ever be free?
The case for Poems 44 and 45 being misattributed is further strengthened by the fact that Poem 45 is otherwise the only poem in Shide's canon which contains Taoist motifs- which are common in Hanshan's poetry. See Red Pine's Shih-te Poem 45:
Up high the trail turns steep
the towering pass stands sheer
Stone Bridge is slick with moss
clouds keep flying past
a cascade hangs like silk
the moon shines in the pool below
I'm climbing Lotus Peak more
to wait for that lone crane once more
Wandering Poet translates poem 45 as a poem authored by Han-shan[6]:
The higher the trail the steeper it grows
Ten thousand tiers of dangerous cliffs
The stone bridge is slippery with green moss
Cloud after cloud keeps flying by
Waterfalls hang like ribbons of silk
The moon shines down on a bright pool
I climb the highest peak once again
To wait where the lone crane flies
Common subjects of Shih-te's poems include back-sliding monks and the foolishness of worldly people in both short-sightedness and their sins; like in Poems 43, 38 and 30, respectively:
By and large the monks I meet
Love their wine and meat.
Instead of climbing straight to Heaven
They slip back down to Hell.
They chant a sutra or two
To fool the laymen in town,
Unaware the laymen in town
Are more perceptive than them.
People crowd in the dust,
Enjoying the pleasures of the dust.
I see them in the dust
And pity fills my heart.
Why do I pity their lot?
I think of their pain in the dust.
Take these mortal incarnations
These comical-looking forms
With faces like the silver moon
And hearts as black as pitch.
Cooking pigs and butchering sheep,
Bragging about the flavor,
Dying and going to Frozen-Tongue Hell
Before they stop telling lies.
Other subjects included him and his friends. See poem 27:
Partial to pine cliffs and lonely trails,
An old man laughs at himself when he falters.
Even now after all these years,
Trusting the current 'like an unmoored boat'.
Wandering Poet translates poem 27 as a poem authored by Han-shan[7]:
I laugh at myself, an old man with faded health
I’m still partial to pine cliffs, I love to play alone
I sigh for the years that are gone
Following my karma, drifting like an untied boat
Poem 39:
A young man studied letters and arms
And rode off to the Capital,
Where he learned the Hsiung-nu had been vanquished;
And all he could do was wait.
So to kingfisher cliffs he retired,
And sits in the grass by a stream
While valiant men chase red cords
And monkeys ride clay oxen.
And sometimes he simply wrote about the Tiantai mountain range where he lived. See poem 49:
Woods and springs make me smile;
No kitchen smoke for miles.
Clouds rise up from rocky ridges,
Cascades tumble down.
A gibbon's cry marks the way,
A tiger's roar marks the way.
Pine wind sighs so softly,
Birds discuss sing-song.
I walk the winding streams,
And climb the peaks alone.
Sometimes I sit on a boulder,
Or lie and gaze at trailing vines.
But when I see a distant village,
All I hear is noise.
Shih-te did not live in the mountains. He lived in the kitchen at Kuoching Temple and wrote about Buddhists. In his book Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry, Wandering Poet translates seven poems attributed to Shih-te as transcendental poems authored by Han-shan, including poem 49[8]. The following is Wandering Poet's translation of poem 49:
Woods and streams always make me smile
No smoke from the fires of men for many miles
Clouds drift among the rocky peaks
Rushing waterfalls plunge down the gorge
The song of apes rings through the forest
A tiger’s roar echoes over all
A soft breeze rustles the fragrant pines
Birds are in conversation everywhere
Wandering, I follow the stream
Alone, I climb the heights
Often I sit cross-legged on the rock
Or lie gazing up at hanging vines
But when I see a distant town
All I hear is noise