Losing Teeth, by Han Yu, 803 ?
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I lost a tooth last year, lost a tooth this year,2
Lost, all of a sudden, six or seven. Looks like it’s not over.
All the rest are loose, in the end they’ll all fall out.
I recall when I lost the first, the gap shamed me;
After losing two or three, I thought I was far gone.
When one was about to fall out, I always blamed myself.
With them in disarray, it was hard to eat, so jumbled I feared to rinse them.
When finally one abandoned me, it was bad as a mountain falling in.
By now I’m used to it; when they’re lost they’re all the same.
Twenty or so left, but they’ll fall out in their turn.
If one’s lost every year, they’ll last a couple of decades;3
Once all are lost, does it matter, fast or slow?
People say when your teeth are lost you can’t expect to live long;
I say life always has its limit—long or short, we die.
People say gaps in your teeth scare those who look;
I say, like Master Zhuang, what’s useless at least survives.4
When you can’t talk clearly, silence is quite all right; when you can’t chew, soft food has its charm.
So my song has become a poem, to shock my wife and children.
Chinois
落齒
去年落一牙，今年落一齒。
俄然落六七，落勢殊未已。
餘存皆動搖，盡落應始止。
憶初落一時，但念豁可恥。
及至落二三，始憂衰即死。
每一將落時，檁檁恒在已。
叉牙妨食物，顛倒怯漱水。
終焉舍我落，意與崩山比。
今來落既熟，見落空相似。
餘存二十餘，次第知落矣。
倘常歲落一，自足支兩紀。
如其落並空，與漸亦同指。
人言齒之落，壽命理難恃。
我言生有涯，長短俱死爾。
人言齒之豁，左右驚諦視。
我言莊周雲，水雁各有喜。
語訛默固好，嚼廢軟還美。
因歌遂成詩，持用詫妻子。
Anglais
Comment
Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824) is best known as a shaper of prose style, but he was a key figure in every field of literature—and, as a statesman, in politics as well. This poem is a splendid example of one kind of innovation among his many kinds. It is conversational and informal. Not only is its language closer to speech than that of his predecessors, but the repetition of the word luo, ‘to fall out, to lose’ in one line after the other is striking.
This poem is from Han Changli shi xinian ji shi 韓昌黎詩繫年詩集 (Poetry of Han Yu, chronologically arranged, with critical notes; Shanghai: Gudian Wenxue Chubanshe, 1957), 2: 81–2. It was probably written in 803, when Han was only 35. He often remarked on the state of his teeth in poems he wrote to friends in that period of his life. A poem of 812 tells us that at the age of 44 he had a little over ten teeth left; his estimate of a tooth to be lost a year was—up to that point—rather accurate (ibid., 8: 369).
Laments over the loss of teeth, and generally over early ageing, were common among scholar-officials, who despite their prestige led hard lives during their endless travels. Rinsing the mouth and brushing the teeth (usually with a willow twig) was common, but dentistry was not a highly developed part of medicine anywhere before modern times. As in Europe, it was easier to find someone to pull teeth than to preserve them.
