Text (fifth contemplation: Devoured)

Translation of Chinese poem accompanying the fifth of nine contemplations from the seventeenth-century Japanese artist Morishige.

"On the wide plains people are scarce. What is there? Wild beasts fighting for the corpse cannot be kept off. In the morning one sees the form of the swollen and rotting belly. In the evening one hears the howling of the tigers and wolves devouring it.

Hungry dogs bark and destroy the piled up earth. Greedy birds flock together after having left the Woods of their villages. The high expectations of present-day life are a dream among dreams. Should one not be ashamed of it?"