On Being Sixty
Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts;Between seventy and eighty, one is a prey to a hundred diseases.But from fifty to sixty one is free from all ills;Calm and still--the heart enjoys rest.I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit andFame;I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age.Strength of limb I still possess to seek the rivers and hills;Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings.At leisure I open new wine and taste several cups;Drunken I recall old poems and sing a whole volume.Mēng-tē has asked for a poem and herewith I exhort himNot to complain of three-score, “the time of obedient ears.”
Words in this poem
- greed n.
- An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain. [Akin to Goth. grdus hunger, Icel. graedhr. sq. root34. See Greedy.]
- illness n.
- The condition of being ill, evil, or bad; badness; unfavorableness. [From Ill.]
- decrepit a.
- Broken down with age; wasted and enfeebled by the infirmities of old age; feeble; worn out. [L. decrepitus, perhaps orig., noised out, noiseless, applied to old people, who creep about quietly; de- + crepare to make a noise, rattle: cf. F. décrépit. See]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Being Sixty is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, On Being Sixty, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/on-being-sixty.html, id L18865.
Form and metre
On Being Sixty is 13 lines in a single stanza. 76% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 15% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 --A----A--BB- lusts · diseases · illsA · rest · and · fame · age · hillsA · strings · cups · volumeB · himB · ears
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts; | 16 | ··/˘·/˘··˘/˘···· |
| Between seventy and eighty, one is a prey to a hundred diseases. | 19 | ··/˘˘·/˘······/˘˘/˘ |
| But from fifty to sixty one is free from all ills; | 13 | ··/˘·/˘······ |
| Calm and still--the heart enjoys rest. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit and | 16 | ·············/˘· |
| Fame; | 1 | · |
| I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age. | 17 | ·····/˘·˘/···˘/˘· |
| Strength of limb I still possess to seek the rivers and hills; | 14 | ·····˘/···/˘·· |
| Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings. | 15 | ····/˘˘/·/˘···· |
| At leisure I open new wine and taste several cups; | 13 | ·/˘·/˘····/˘· |
| Drunken I recall old poems and sing a whole volume. | 14 | /˘·/··/˘····/˘ |
| Mēng-tē has asked for a poem and herewith I exhort him | 15 | ······/˘·//·˘/· |
| Not to complain of three-score, “the time of obedient ears.” | 15 | ··˘/······˘/˘˘· |
Notes from the edition 1
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Line 13 Confucius said that it was not till sixty that “his ears obeyed him.” This age was therefore called “the time of obedient ears.”
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.