Grand 文言文 Reading Project #10: 《醉翁亭記》 by 歐陽修

[OneEye]

I'm pretty late getting this up, but I've been feeling out what the situation will be like for the group here in Taipei this fall. The text for this week is 《醉翁亭記》 by 歐陽修 (or 歐陽脩, as two of the five copies on my shelf write it).

This one is available in the 古文觀止, as well as 《文言文40篇大探索》, Fuller's An Introduction to Literary Chinese, and 王力's 《古代漢語》（第三冊）, among other textbooks I'm sure. It's also in every 國文 textbook for Taiwanese students I've looked through. I think we can say it's required reading, in other words. If you have none of the above, it's also available on wikisource, as usual. There are some discrepancies among the different versions, for instance 釀泉/讓泉 and 山之僧智仙/智僊.

Here's the text copied and pasted as it appears on wikisource:

環滁皆山也。其西南諸峰，林壑尤美。望之蔚然而深秀者，琅琊也。山行六七里，漸聞水聲潺潺，而瀉出於兩峰之間者，釀泉也。峰迴路轉，有亭翼然臨於泉上者，醉翁亭也。作亭者誰？山之僧智仙也。名之者誰？太守自謂也。太守與客來飲於此，飲少輒醉，而年又最高，故自號曰醉翁也。醉翁之意不在酒，在乎山水之 間也。山水之樂，得之心而寓之酒也。

若夫日出而林霏開，雲歸而巖穴暝，晦明變化者，山間之朝暮也。野芳發而幽香，佳木秀而繁陰，風霜高潔，水落而石出者，山間之四時也。朝而往，暮而歸，四時之景不同，而樂亦無窮也。

至於負者歌於途，行者休於樹，前者呼，後者應，傴僂提攜，往來而不絕者，滁人遊也。臨溪而漁，溪深而魚肥；釀泉為酒，泉香而酒洌；山餚野蔌，雜然而 前陳者，太守宴也。宴酣之樂，非絲非竹，射者中，弈者勝，觥籌交錯，起坐而諠譁者，眾賓歡也；蒼顔白髮，頹然乎其間者，太守醉也。

已而夕陽在山，人影散亂，太守歸而賓客從也。樹林陰翳，鳴聲上下，遊人去而禽鳥樂也。然而禽鳥知山林之樂，而不知人之樂；人知從太守遊而樂，而不知太守之樂其樂也。醉能同其樂，醒能述以文者，太守也。太守謂誰？廬陵歐陽修也。

Does anyone want the unpunctuated version? No? OK, no problem then. Shouldn't be difficult to remove punctuation marks if you want, anyway.

This will probably be the text for next week as well. Much of the meeting on Wednesday is likely to be taken up by introductions, discussion of how the group will work, etc. I believe I'm the only one still around from the summer, so it's a whole new group. So far it looks like we've got a good mix of people, so it should be fun. I'll post the next text once we finish this one.