Evening Faces

             Evening faces, as intrigued as I was with the title, I often found the text difficult to follow at times.  However, I love the comparison of the white flower and of the mystery of the lady off a far.  The correlation of a white flower, being quite beautiful but out of place, serves for both the beautiful flower growing on a vine in a poor area as well as a pretty, frail girl of statue living in a rundown area.  At the beginning of story I felt that Genji was royalty, because how he reverences himself within the carriage but I wondered what would bring him to such a region to see an ill nun.  Yet I believe because the loyalty that he must have felt for his nursemaid, which now a nun, is what lures him. "I think I need not ask whose face it is, So bright, this evening face, in the shining dew."  So romantic, love at first sight of a figure so far off leads me to believe that the Genji is lead by the mystery of it all. His curiosity grows as he receives an answer to the mystery woman and his curiosity is continuously fed, as he is drawn to her like a moth to a flame.  "Come a bit nearer, please. Then might you know whose was the evening face so dim in the twilight."  Again evening faces, I believe is used to illustrate the young lady as described by the white flowers so carefully placed in an unusual setting of a depressed area however, showing beauty and elegance, both being out of place is whats intriguing at the same time.  This keeps the attention of the reader, because of the mystery of them both.

T'ao Ch'ien "Life A Mere Shadow"

The King James Version of the Bible, in the book of James, chapter 4 verses 14 says “For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away”.  The New International Version (1984) says “Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.  The New Living Translation (2007), says “For they are like a breath of air, their days are like a passing shadow”.  Perhaps this is what the poet T'ao Ch'ien meant in his depiction of the poems Substance to Shadow, Substance and Spirit’s Solution.  T’ao Ch’ien was born in Ch’ai-sang in present-day Kiangsi Province.  He lived during the Eastern Chin and Liu Sung dynasties.  Both his father and grandfather served as perfects, however by T’ao Ch’ien’s time the family must have become poorer and despite his preference for a secluded life, he held several posts, in order to support his family.  He was said to have been more philosophic or meditative, than idyllic or a bucolic poet.  Perhaps this is what helps to shape his view on life and death.  My interpretation of his poems Substance to Shadow, Substance and Spirit's Solution is that he was saying, that whether you choose to live your life wise or ignorant, noble or base, that it was just a mere shadow.  Life is here today and gone tomorrow.  No one notices, the departure of a life except for the things that he once used, which is left to catch their eye and move them to grief.  He says that whether you die old or young, death is the same and there is no difference.  So surrender to the cycle of things.  I equate this to mean, stop worrying about life itself and just go with the natural flow of life.  Which I believe that this attitude could possible help preserve the quality of ones life.  Then when it is time to leave this earth, go, go without any unnecessary fuss.