Defying the Authorities: Thinking of Classical Times

COOL POEMS: Introduction > THE POEMS

Topic: Defying the Authorities

Author: Mei Yaochen (1002-1060)

Thinking of Classical Times

Though the moon may fade, it is no less bright;
though a sword may break, it is no less keen.
The moon becomes full only after it fades;
a sword, though broken, can be forged again.
Power and profit may press like mountains,
but a hero’s heart is hard to bend.
There are things a man must hold dear:
though you kill him, he will never yield.

Comments: Mei wrote this at a time when officials we would tend to see as liberal were trying to expand avenues for entry into officialdom for less-privileged persons and increase checks on abuses of power. Entrenched interests sometimes responded by framing the reformers and throwing them in jail. Under those circumstances Mei’s poem crys out defiance asserting that the human mind can never be subdued. It also warns ominously that killing one man will not stop the protest, for others will arise in his place, like a sword that can be forged again.

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