Great knowledge is wide and comprehensive;

Small knowledge is partial and tightly restricted.

Great speech is exact and complete;

Small speech is merely so much talk.

When we sleep, the soul communicates

With what is external to us; when we awake,

The body is set free from the other realms.

Our intercourse with others then leads us

To various activities, and every single day

There is the striving of mind with mind.

There are hesitancies, deep difficulties,

Reservations, small apprehensions

Causing restless distress, as many worries

Produce endless fears. Where our words

Are like arrows sent away from a bow,

We have those who feel their charges

To pronounce what is right and what is wrong;

Where they are given out like the conditions

Of a covenant, we have those who maintain

Their views determined to overcome.

The weakness of our arguments,

Like the decay of things in autumn

And their hibernation in winter,

Shows the failing of the minds of some

From day to day, year in and year out;

Or it is like water which, once voided,

Cannot be gathered up again.

Then all ideas seem as if fast bound

With cords, showing that the mind

Is become like an old and dry moat,

And that today it is nigh to the deadly end

And cannot be restored to vigour

And brightness again. Joy and anger,

Sadness and pleasure, anticipation and regret,

Fickleness and fixedness, vehemence

And indolence, eagerness and tardiness--

All our moods, like music from an empty tube

Or fungus from the warm moisture of moss,

Day and night succeed to one another

And come before us, and we do not know

Whence they sprout. Let us stop on time!

Let us go forward at an opportune time!

Time and time it again on taking every step!

Can we expect to suddenly find out

How our moods are produced in between?