Song of Coveting Tea
Hulu jushi fanyi
Wu Kuan of the Ming dynasty
Song of Coveting Tea
I, Elder of the Brew, love tea as I love wine,
Three pints or fifty – there’s no counting.
Beginning in the tea room, there are no unnecessary things:
Just a tea stove and a tea pounder.
Here, there is nothing ever to do but brew tea.
All day long, the tea cup never leaves my lips.
Assisting today’s gathering, a single tea server;
Coming through the door, my guest, a true tea friend.
To express thanks for tea, emulate the poem of Lu Tong;
To brew tea, follow the ode of Huang Jiu.
The Sequel to the Book of Tea, I lend to no one.
The Addenda to the Tea Register, I let slip from the hand:
I will have nothing to do with planting mundane tea.
I know only the few acres of tea garden below this mountain.
Some people merely dream of roaming the tea country,
But I, right here and now, simply do nothing else.
明 吳寬
愛茶歌
湯翁愛茶如愛酒
不數三升幷五斗
先春堂開無長物
只將茶竈連茶臼
堂中無事長煑茶
終日茶杯不離口
當筵侍立惟茶童
入門來謁惟茶友
謝茶有詩學盧仝
煎茶有賦擬黃九
茶經續編不借人
茶譜補遺將脫手
平生種茶不辦租
山下茶園知㡬畞
世人可向茶郷游
此中亦有無何有
Source
Wu Kuan 吳寬 (1435-1504), “Aicha ge 愛茶歌 (Song of Coveting Tea),” Paoweng jia cangji 匏翁家藏集 (Collection of the Paoweng Family Treasures), (Shanghai: Hanfen lou Collection), book 2, juan 4, pp. 7b-8a in Sibu congkan chubian 四部叢刊初編 (Collection of the Four Categories, First Series), Zhang Yuanji 張元濟 (1867-1959), comp. (Shanghai, 1919), vols. 1557-1568.