Chinese poets made frequent allusions to the great works of the past, borrowing symbols, metaphors, and entire lines from well-known poems. The three poems that follow span nearly a thousand years and deliberately repeat the image of a magpie flying beneath the moon.

 

短歌⾏ Short Song Style 

作者： 曹操 （Author: Cao Cao, 2nd century)

对酒当歌, ⼈⽣⼏何！ facing wine should sing, people life several how long
譬如朝露, 去⽇苦多。 similar to morning dew, past day bitter much

慨当以慷, 忧思难忘。 generous should use passionate, worry thoughts difficult forget
何以解忧? 唯有杜康。 what can resolve worry? only there is wine
(According to legend, Du Kang is the first person who made wine)

⻘⻘⼦衿，悠悠我⼼。 blue blue you collar, linger linger my heart
但为君故，沉吟⾄今。 only because of you reason, ponder till today

呦呦⿅鸣，⻝野之苹。 you you(onomatopoeia) deer cry, eat field connection word mugwort
我有嘉宾，⿎瑟吹笙。 I have nice guests, drum zither blow reed pipe

明明如⽉，何时可掇？ bright bright similar to moon, when can pick up
忧从中来，不可断绝。 worry from inside come, no can stop absolutely

越陌度阡，枉⽤相存。 transit East-West path pass South-North path, be kind enough to make a journey each other visit
契阔谈䜩，⼼念旧恩。 close distant discuss feasting, heart think of old favor

⽉明星稀，乌鹊南⻜。 moon bright star sparse, black magpie south fly
绕树三匝，何枝可依？ circle tree three circle, which branch can rely?

⼭不厌⾼，海不厌深。 mountain not tired of tallness, sea not tired of deepness
周公吐哺，天下归⼼。 the Duke of Zhou spit out food, sky under return (convert) heart

Translation:

When we have wine before us, we should sing
For who knows how long our lives will be?
Our days are like the morning dew,
It’s bitterness to think how many are gone.

Be passionate. Be generous
When worried thoughts are hard to forget.
All we can do is dissolve them in wine.

Oh, you blue-gowned scholars,
You linger on my heart.
It is only because of you
That I still chant these words.

But the deer call to us from the fields
As they eat the charmed grasses.
I have illustrious guests
Play the drums and zither. Blow the reed pipes!

You are as brilliant as the moon
When can I make you mine?
Worry comes from within
It never fully ends.

Still, every year, people are kind enough
To come from the four corners of the earth to see me.
We talk and feast and remember old favors.
Even after a long parting, we grow close again.

Tonight the moon is bright, the stars are sparse.
And the magpie is flying south.
It circles a tree three times.
Which branch can it rely on?

A mountain will never tire of its height
Nor the ocean tire of its depth.
The Duke of Zhou would spit his food out,
For the chance to greet a scholar.
Everyone under the heavens will learn to believe in me.

 

Translation Note:
The author of this poem was a brilliant warlord who rose to become a king. He wrote this poem to attract scholars to his newly formed court. He borrows frequently from the Book of Songs, perhaps to connect his upstart rule to China’s sacred traditions. The second stanza comes from a love poem addressed to a lover who wore a blue collar denoting his upper class status. Since “blue collar” has exactly the opposite connotation for American readers, we changed the words to “blue gowned” and added “scholar” to make Cao Cao’s point clear.

We took our greatest liberties with the couplet that follows about the deer in the fields. A more literal translation would be “Yu, yu the deer in the field cry, They eat mugwort,” but we found this literal translation very confusing and out of place. These lines also refer back to a poem from the Book of Songs and are meant to set to convey a bucolic scene with deer eating in the fields in sight or earshot of the people feasting. We created a sense of connection with the deer and nature by having the deer “call to us,” rather than bleat. Since a contemporary reader would have known that mugwort was not just any grass, but an almost magical herb used to ward off both disease and evil spirits, we translated it as “charmed grasses.”

As far as we are aware, the image of the magpie flying beneath the moon and looking for a branch that will be safe to land on is original to Cao Cao. It is arguably the most significant image of the poem as it vividly portrays the plight of the people he is trying to woo, and it is the image that seems to have been most often repeated through the ages.

We added a line in the final stanza “For the chance to greet a scholar.” The original only states that Duke Zhou spit his food out, an allusion that would have been clear to a contemporary reader and utterly confusing to a modern one.

 

⻦鸣涧   Birds Calling above the Stream

作者： 王维 （Author: Wang Wei, 8th century)

⼈闲桂花落， person idle Osmanthus flower fall
夜静春⼭空。 night quiet spring mountain empty
⽉出惊⼭⻦， moon go out startle mountain bird
时鸣春涧中。 times cry spring brook inside

Translation

An idle man, a cassia flower falling
On this peaceful spring night, the mountain is empty.
Even the rising moon startles the mountain birds.
Which call, now and then, above the spring stream.

 

Translation Notes: 

Wang Wei was a devout Buddhist whose work was often extremely contemplative and peaceful. In addition, this poem was most likely written in Wang Wei’s youth, during one of the most stable and prosperous periods of the Tang Dynasty. For these reasons, we chose to soften the third line a bit by adding the word “even,” and in the fourth line, we translated “times” as “now and then.” The same image which in Cao Cao’s poem shows the danger and insecurity of people who don’t know where they can safely land becomes an idyllic scene in Wei’s poem. The night is so quiet that even the bright moon is startling. However, if Wang Wei had written the poem during the An Lushan rebellion, when he was hiding in the mountains, it would have made more sense to translate the third and fourth lines as “The rising moon startles the mountain birds, which call, again and again, above the spring stream.” Looking into the historical context as well as the author’s other works, helps us to think more deeply about the purpose of the poem.

 

⻄江⽉ West River Moon

作者：⾟弃疾 （Author: Xin Qiji, 12th century)

明⽉别枝惊鹊  Bright moon slant branch startle magpie
清⻛半夜鸣蝉  clean wind half night sing cicada

稻花⾹⾥说丰年  rice flower scent in say abundant year
听取蛙声⼀⽚      listen get frog sound one piece

七⼋个星天外   seven eight the star sky outside
两三点⾬⼭前   two three drops rain mountain front

旧时茅店社林边   old time thatched store temple woods beside
路转溪桥忽⻅       road turn brook bridge suddenly see

Translation:

The bright moon, a slanting branch, a startled magpie,
At midnight a fresh wind blows, and cicada sing.

Deep in the scent of rice flowers, there’s talk of a good crop
And the frogs are all croaking together.

Seven or eight stars appear in the distant sky
Two or three rain drops fall in front of the mountain

There’s an old thatched shop by a temple in the woods,
Take a turn in the path, cross the bridge, and suddenly you see it.

 

Translation Notes:

Because we presented this poem as part of a series of poems which contain images of magpies flying beneath the moon, we felt confident in translating the first line literally, and trusting that the reader would infer that the moon has so startled the magpie that it has flown away. If we had translated this poem without its literary antecedents, we would have written “A moon so bright it startles the magpie/Now only a slanting branch remains.” Our more literal translation of the poem involves the reader more deeply, and it focuses on a very precise instant in time, the fraction of a second that the branch is bent beneath the weight of the departing bird before it springs back again.

Classic Chinese poetry frequently leaves the subject unspecified, forcing the translator to make a decision as to whether the poet is talking about himself or some unnamed person. In the final couplet, we made the somewhat unusual decision to translate in the second person. The poem is so friendly and welcoming that we interpreted the last lines as a series of directions inviting the reader into the village scene.

旅夜书怀  Writing my Thoughts when Traveling at Night

作者：杜甫 （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

细草微风岸  thin grass tiny wind shore
危墙独夜舟  fragile/tall mast lone night broad
星垂平野阔  star hang down flat field wide
月涌大江流  moon surge big river flow
名岂文章著  reputation how (question word) article show
官应老病休  official should old sick stop/rest
飘飘何所似  float float what (question word) similar to
天地一沙鸥  heaven earth one sand gull

 

Translation:

Thin grass, and a gentle breeze on shore,
A tall mast on the night’s lone boat.
Starlight falls to the broad, flat fields,
And the moon’s reflection drifts in the great river’s flow.
Will I be known only for writing poems?
An official should rest when he’s old and sick.
But I flutter from place to place,
Like a gull between heaven and earth.

 

Translation Notes:

More than a thousand years after his death, Du Fu is still admired as one of China’s greatest poets, yet he was deeply disappointed by his failure to also become a great statesman. During Du Fu’s lifetime, China was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion which cost millions of lives. As a Confucian, Du Fu wished to help the emperor to restore social order and to alleviate the suffering of the common people, but he never became more than a low ranking official. Please see Qu River for a detailed discussion of one of Du Fu’s attempts to guide official policy.

Some Chinese literary critics have compared the second couplet of this poem to the second couplet of Li Bai’s poem “Crossing at Jingmen and Waving Goodbye”, which we have also translated.

In Li Bai’s poem, the second couplet features images — mountains, plains, the Yangtze and the great wildness. The second couplet of this poem also has the flat field and the Yangtze, but it includes the stars and the moon as well, which appear later in Li Bai’s poem. It is an interesting comparison: Li Bai was crossing the Yangtze at the beginning of his career filled with hope and ready for adventure. His images are dynamic, fanciful, and dazzling. Du Fu was near the end of what he believed was a failed career, and he appears to be docked on the Yangtze rather than crossing it. His portrait of the same scene is quiet, still, and depressive.

曲江 The Qu River

作者：杜甫 （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

朝回日日典春衣， court return day day pawn spring clothes
每日江头尽醉归。 Everyday river head exhaust drunk return
酒债寻常行处有， wine debt common go place have
人生七十古来稀。 people life seventy ancient come rare
穿花蛱蝶深深见， to cross flower butterfly deep deep see
点水蜻蜓款款飞。 skim water dragonfly slowly slowly fly
传语风光共流转， pass along words wind light together flow turn
暂时相赏莫相违. temporary each other appreciate no each other parting

 

Translation: 

Every day I return from court and pawn my spring robes,
And every day, I get so drunk by the river head before going home

Wherever I go, I owe money for wine.
Since ancient times, few people have lived to the age of seventy.

Deep in the flowers, a wandering butterfly appears.
Skimming the water, a dragonfly slowly glides.

Tell these beautiful scenes that we could all be one, roaming together
For a while, enjoying each other’s company without parting.

 

Translation notes:

Our translation of this poem begins rather brutally with the poet pawning his robes and getting drunk by the river every day. It is possible to translate words five and six of the second line differently. Out of context, they could mean “tipsy,” or “drinking my limit,” and others have translated them this way. We believe that “drinking” and “end” mean getting pretty thoroughly drunk here, and that there is a dark note of despair in what otherwise could be a rather typical Chinese poem about having some wine and communing with nature. Other drinking and nature poems do have an element of sadness, of having turned away from a more active style of living. They have also incorporated the idea of not having any money, but they’ve generally done so by painting an almost enviable picture of rustic simplicity, e.g. a humble thatched hut, a small garden, a drink shared with a neighbor. They are often suffused with a Taoist or Buddhist ideal of stillness and contemplation.

Du Fu was a Confucian and was very much concerned with right behavior. In Qu River, we see an urban man pawning his robes and seeing his creditors everywhere. He seems very alone though he works at the seat of power. Du Fu also notes that few people have ever lived to the age of seventy, in other words he doesn’t expect that he will live a long life. He spends the first half of the poem saying nothing about nature other than referencing the river and telling us that he is in debt, that he drinks daily, that he doesn’t expect to live to the 70s, and that he still works for the court. This is not a contemplative or idyllic opening.

The second half of the poem is a more typical work about drinking and longing to be one with the beauty of the natural world, but we note that Du Fu emphasizes the transitory quality of these moments and of the world around him. There is no mention of mountains, the moon, a tall pine, or other more enduring natural sights, only delicate butterflies and dragonflies. Du Fu hopes to join with them “for a while,” implying that he doesn’t expect to enjoy such beauty for long. At the time of writing Qu River, Du Fu was serving as a low-ranking advisor to Emperor Suzong and probably knew that he would soon be banished from the court.

The cause of the banishment was Du Fu’s loyalty to his friend and patron, Fang Guan. Fang Guan had been a chancellor to Suzong’s father, who was known as the Bright Emperor. During the An Lushan rebellion, the Bright Emperor escaped from Chang’An, and Suzong, who was the crown prince, declared himself the new emperor not long after. The Bright Emperor sent Fang Guan to recognize Suzong as the new emperor and to give his son the imperial seal. The new emperor was initially pleased with Fang’s arrival and offered him a senior position at court. However, it was later revealed that Fang Guan, while he was the chancellor to the Bright Emperor, advised the Bright Emperor to have Suzong share military commands with several of his brothers, each acting independently from each other and in different geographical territories. Suspicious of Fang’s loyalty to him, the new emperor stripped Fang Guan of much of his power. Du Fu then revealed himself to be either a very good Confucian or a very poor politician (or both) when he protested Fang’s demotion. After Du Fu’s protest, the new emperor grew concerned that Du Fu was inappropriately loyal to Fang, and he ordered the judicial system to interrogate him. This was a fairly unusual step to take given that Du’s ranking was very low as a government official. The result of the interrogation was that Du Fu was cleared of all criminal suspicions and pardoned by the emperor, but he was “banished” in the sense of being reassigned to a more provincial post.

钗头凤  Phoenix Hairpin

作者：陆游 (Author: Lu You, 12th century)

红酥手，黄縢酒， red soft hand, yellow sealed wine
满城春色宫墙柳。full of city spring color Palace wall willow
东风恶，欢情薄。 east wind vicious, happy feeling thin
一怀愁绪，            one bosom sad feeling,
几年离索。            several year parting live all alone
错、错、错。         wrong wrong wrong

春如旧，人空瘦， spring similar to past, people in vain thin
泪痕红浥鲛绡透。 tear trace red sorrowful raw silk thoroughly
桃花落，闲池阁。 peach flower fall, idle pond pavilion
山盟虽在，            mountain pledge although exist,
锦书难托。            brocade letter difficult entrust
莫、莫、莫！        no no no

 

钗头凤 Phoenix Hairpin (Reply Poem)

作者：唐婉 (Author: Tang Wan, 12th century)

世情薄，人情恶， world feeling thin, people feeling vicious
雨送黄昏花易落。 rain send yellow dusk flower easy fall
晓风干，泪痕残， morning wind dry, tear trace incomplete
欲笺心事，            desire to write heart affair,
独语斜阑。            alone talk slant railing
难，难，难！        difficult difficult difficult

人成各，今非昨， people become individual, today not yesterday. 
病魂常似秋千索。 sick soul constantly similar to autumn thousand rope
角声寒，夜阑珊， horn sound cold, night about to end
怕人寻问，             afraid people seek ask,
咽泪装欢。            swallow tear pretend happy
瞒，瞒，瞒！        conceal conceal conceal

 

Translation:

Lu You’s poem:

Rosy soft hands, good wine with a yellow seal
The city filled with the beauty of spring,
Palace walls lined with willows.
A bitter east wind, and our happiness is cut short.
My mind steeped in sorrow and gloom, years of loneliness
This is wrong, wrong, wrong

Springtime has not changed,
But the futility of our lives has withered her.
She wears rouge ― it’s wet from crying.
She carries a silk handkerchief made by mermaids.
It’s soaked with tears.
Peach blossoms fall, lie idle
On the pond and pavilion.
We still have our sacred promise
But even a love letter is hard to send.
We have nothing, nothing, nothing

 

Translation of the reply poem by Tang Wan:

The world feels almost nothing,
Yet a single person can feel such hatred.
Flowers fall easily in the evening rain.
The morning wind is dry,
But traces of my tears remain.
I want to write all that’s in my heart,
But I talk to the slanting railing instead.
My life is so difficult, difficult, difficult.

Now each of us is alone,
And today is nothing like yesterday.
My painful soul swings back and forth like a heavy rope.
The horns at dawn sound cold, and the night will end soon.
I’m afraid people will ask why I’m sad.
I pretend to be happy, smiling instead of crying,
My life is all hiding, hiding, hiding.

 

Translation Notes:

Lu You was a famous poet of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 to 1279). At the age of 20, he married a young lady from an upper class family named Tang Wan who was also talented in poetry and literature. The couple fell deeply in love with each other, and the marriage was a happy one. However, Lu You’s mother disliked Tang Wan and forced the couple to divorce. Tang Wan later married again to a nobleman of royal descent named Zhao Shicheng.

A couple years later, Lu You paid a visit to Shen Garden, a tourist spot that is still popular today, and accidentally ran into Tang Wan and her husband. Lu wrote this poem on the wall of Shen Garden expressing his deep sorrow of being forced to break up with Tang. After Tang Wan read Lu’s poem, she wrote down another one under the same title as a reply. In Lu’s poem, the “bitter east wind” is a metaphor implying the interference from Lu’s mom into their marriage. In Tang’s reply poem, the “hatred” towards the break-up couple probably refers to the same thing. During Lu and Tang’s era, filial piety is strictly observed and it is almost impossible for Lu to disobey his mother, and their grievance over separation is reflected in these two poems.

we also attach another version of the translation for Tang Wan’s reply poem (from The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry).  We encourage readers to read other translations and comment on the choices we made in our translation: http://illsandthrillsoflove.blogspot.com/2010/11/reply-to-phoenix-hairpin-to-tune-of.html

 

作者：杜甫  （Author: Du Fu, 8th century)

竹凉侵卧内，bamboo cold invade bedchamber inside
野月满庭隅。wild moon fill yard corner
重露成涓滴，heavy dew become tiny stream drop
稀星乍有无。sparse star suddenly exist no
暗飞萤自照，dark fly firefly itself shine
水宿鸟相呼。water lodge bird each other cry
万事干戈里，ten thousand affairs shield dagger-ax inside
空悲清夜徂。in vain sorrow clear night fade away

 

Translation:

Cold air from the bamboo grove invaded the bedchamber,
And the moon, shining from the wilderness, flooded the whole yard.
The dew grew heavy and began to drip，
A few stars appeared, then disappeared, came back again.

Flying in darkness, lightning bugs flickered.
Resting by the water, birds called to one another.
Dagger-axes and shields are at the heart of everything.
Hopelessly, I grieved as the clear night ended.

 

Translation Notes:

It is believed that Du Fu wrote this poem right after the An Lushan rebellion ended. The Au Lushan rebellion, which lasted for almost eight years, essentially left the Tang Dynasty devastated, making its western border vulnerable to the Tibetan forces. In 763 AD, immediately after the An Lushan rebellion ended, the Tibetan forces invaded the Tang Empire and briefly captured Chang’an, the capital of the Empire. Du Fu was living in Cheng Du at that time, faraway from the center of the warfare. However, he was very sympathetic towards the sufferings of commoners during the war. The first three couplets describe the natural sceneries at night around his residence, implying that he stayed up awake all night. The last couplet of the poem explains the reason for his sorrow — he was worried about the warfare but he couldn’t do anything to help mitigate the sufferings of the people.

Our translation of Weary Night is not very different from the other translations we’ve seen. We chose to use “invade” in the first line because it was more in keeping with a poem about dagger-axes and shields and because it was more literal. We chose to use “hopelessly” in the final line because the word felt more immediate and personal to use than “in vain.”

 

作者：林逋 （Author:  Lin Bu,  10th century)

 

众芳摇落独暄妍   many fragrant sway fall alone warm beautiful
占尽风情向小园   occupy exhaust wind feeling toward small garden
疏影横斜水清浅   sparse shadow horizontal slanting water clear shallow
暗香浮动月黄昏   dim fragrant float move moon yellow dusk
霜禽欲下先偷眼   frost (white) bird about to go down first steal eye
粉蝶如知合断魂   pink butterfly if know should break soul
幸有微吟可相狎   luckily have tiny chant can each other intimate 
不须檀板共金樽    not need hard wood clapper together gold goblet 
Translation
This is the flower that shows us springtime beauty,
When the others have wobbled and fallen.
It’s the reason we love this small garden.   
   
Its thin shadows slant across the clear, shallow water
Its hidden fragrance floats beneath the yellow moon.
   
A snow-white bird steals a look before landing.
If the pink butterflies knew it was here, their hearts should break.
Luckily, I can make these flowers my friends by softly chanting poems.
There’s no need for a golden chalice or a singing girl’s wooden clapper. 
Translation Notes

The poet Lin Bu was a famous recluse in the northern Song dynasty and lived a quiet life in a mountain by the West Lake during his later years.  He was very fond of plums and cranes, and spent much time admiring them.  Since he never married, he earned the reputation of “considering plums his wife and cranes his children,” which was not a compliment in a Confucian society, despite the fact that Lin Bu was a much admired poet. Lin Bu was highly admired in Japan where he came to be regarded as one of the poetic immortals. A famous Japanese painting of Bu hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art today. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/78232

Plum blossoms were very highly regarded in ancient Chinese culture and considered to be symbols of purity, courage, hope, longevity, and many other virtues, in part because they bloom very early in the year, often when there is still frost or snow on the ground. Even today, people say that its three stamens represent Sun Yat-sen’s three principles of the people and that its five petals represent the five branches of government.
We have included many color words in our translation, but it would be possible not to do so. “Yellow moon” frequently refers to dusk and could be translated as such. The “white” which describes a bird literally translates as frosty. The word for pink may also be a shortened version of a word for rouge. Some translations of this poem do not use the colors; we have chosen to use them both because we thought they painted a vivid image in a poem that takes place in a garden and because we suspect that Lin Bu deliberately chose to use yellow, gold, white, and pink since they are the colors of plum blossoms. As with so many translation choices, however, some of the original nuances have been lost. Our translation does not have dusk, frostiness, or a reference to such feminine allurements as rouge, all of which are hinted at in the original. 
The second stanza of the poem is said to have originated from poetry first written by Jiang Wei, a poet living in an era slightly before Lin Bu.  The poetic lines written by Jiang Wei are as follows (translated version):  The bamboo’s shadows slant across the clear, shallow water; the cassia’s fragrance floats beneath the yellow moon.  The first word in each of the two lines, namely, “bamboo” and “cassia” in the original was changed by Lin Bu into “sparse” and “hidden”.  Lin Bu only changed two words in this stanza, both from noun to adjective, and he was able to demonstrate the beauty and fragrance of the plums.  Today we could no longer find the complete version of Jiang Wei’s poem and only that couplet remains. 
作者：柳宗元   (Author: Liu Zongyuan, late 8th century)
千山鸟飞绝，    Thousand mountain bird fly absolutely
万径人踪灭。    Ten thousand trails man trace extinguish
孤舟蓑笠翁，    lone boat grass coat hat old man
独钓寒江雪        Alone fishing cold river snow

Translation:

A thousand mountains: no bird flying.
Ten thousand trails: not one traveler’s footprint.
But an old man wearing a grass coat and hat in the snow,   

Fishes from a boat on the cold river.

 

Translation Notes:   
We make a great, though not always successful, effort to be faithful to the original Chinese by including all images in the poem and not adding any of our own unless we think we must have them to explain a crucial reference to contemporary readers. The results are sometimes awkward as we not only lose the meter and rhyme, but often end up talking about “railings” or “hats” that are not particularly evocative in English. Somewhat wistfully, we compare our translation above to this translation by adel@douban.  The translation was published on douban, a Chinese social media website. 
Not a feather amid the mountains 
Not a soul on the trails 
But an old fisherman in the snow 
Fishing in a drifting boat 

https://www.douban.com/people/des.fleurs/status/3480528599/

 

We think that adel’s version is much lovelier than ours and very much has the feeling of an elegant landscape painting. We do not think she took any great liberties by omitting the “thousand” mountains and “ten thousand” trails, as these numbers were really only used as a way of saying “many.” The “not a feather” is a neat way of reproducing a line that says the birds were “absolutely” gone, and “not one soul” is fairly close to the traces of men extinguished. 

 

In the second couplet, however, adel deviates pretty significantly from the original. She omits the grass coat and hat as well as the cold river. Most importantly, She adds the term “drifting” to describe the boat. The grass coat and hat and the cold river may be seen as superfluous since these clothes are what a fisherman would be expected to wear, and if he’s fishing from a boat in the snow, it’s obvious that he is fishing from a cold river. Even so, inclusion of these terms serves to emphasize the man’s inadequate protection from harsh winter weather. 

 

The term “drifting” is not suggested by the original at all. It gives a romantic feeling to the poem, but it might not describe the fisherman. If he has gone out in freezing weather to earn a living or get a meal, he is more likely to be picking his spots carefully rather than to be drifting along. We believe that our more literal translation is harsher, colder, more focused on the fisherman’s plight, than adel’s is. If Du Fu, who was a great champion of the poor, had written the poem, our translation would probably be closer to the poet’s intent. As it is, who can tell? The title, River and Snow, suggests that this is primarily a landscape painting, in which case, Adel’s beautiful translation best captures its true spirit. On the other hand, the poem was written after Liu Zongyuan had been sent into exile, and some scholars have theorized that the persevering fisherman was meant to represent the poet himself. Comparing the two translations helps us to think more deeply about the purpose of the poem.

作者：王昌龄  （Author: Wang Changling, 8th century)

 

昨 夜 風 開 露 井 桃    last night wind open dew well peach
未 央 前 殿 月 輪 高    not  central  front palace moon wheel high
平 陽 歌 舞 新 承 寵    Ping Yang (title) sing dance new receive favor
簾 外 春 寒 賜 錦 袍    curtain outside spring cold give brocade robe

 

Translation:

Last night the wind blew, and the peach trees —
The ones beside the open well — began to blossom.
That’s when the moon rose like a great wheel
High above the Weiyang palace.

Oh, how she danced and sang,
Behind the beaded curtain.
She won new favor from the emperor
A brocade robe for the cold spring air.

Translation Notes:

This was a difficult poem to translate, despite the fact that it’s composed of very concrete images and actions. We had to expand the four lines to eight in order to explain what was happening, and we still omitted a few things. The poem tells us in which of the buildings in the palace complex the actions take place (the front one), but this seemed like a meaningless and clumsy detail in English.  In the original, the wind causes the flowers to open. This 8th century concept of how the seasons change makes little sense to a 21st century reader, and trying to explain it within the context of this poem seemed unnecessarily awkward. We merely implied that the wind could have caused the flowers to blossom with the sequence of events. In doing so, however, we may have also omitted the sense of the wind as a mighty presence that creates a feminine response of flowering in a way that foreshadows the emperor in the second half of the poem. Whether it is taken as a delicate foreshadowing of the sexuality of the next stanza or not, it is important that the masculine, yang wind is juxtaposed with the feminine, yin flowers to create a sense of a full and balanced world.

In the second verse, the dancer is referred to as “she” which we considered more intimate than “the dancer.”  Some translators have assumed that the dancer was the princess herself, but this assumption is incorrect. The dancer referred to in this poem is Wei Zifu, who was working as a palace singer and dancer on Princess Pingyang’s estate. Princess Pingyang was a Western Han Dynasty princess and one of the Emperor Wu of Han’s sisters. We were able to figure out the era of the story through the palace name in the second line — Weiyang Palace which was the main imperial residence of the Han dynasty.  In 139 BC, Emperor Wu of Han paid a visit to his sister Princess Pingyang’s estate.  The princess called in Wei Zifu to dance for the emperor as an entertainment.  As a beautiful young girl talented in singing and dancing, Wei Zifu managed to catch the eye of the emperor.  After that visit, the emperor took Wei Zifu back to his palace as a concubine. Ten years later, following the emperor’s divorce with his empress Chen Jiao, Wei Zifu gave birth to the emperor’s first son and was then made empress.  

作者：徐祯卿 （by Xu Zhenqing, 15th or 16th century)

深山曲路见桃花，Deep mountain twist road see peach blossom
马上匆匆日欲斜。horse up hurry, hurry, sun will slanting
可奈玉鞭留不住，however helpless jade whip stay not stop
又衔春恨到天涯    again carry spring sadness arrive sky edge

 

Translation:

Deep in the mountain, the road bends — I see peach blossoms.
But the sun will soon set; I hurry my horse onward
Oh, I would stop time if I could, with my jade-handled whip.
Once again I carry the sadness of spring, all the way to the edge of the sky.

 

Translation Notes:

The poet Xu Zhenqing is famous writer in the Ming Dynasty and one of the four great talents in the South of the Ming Dynasty during that time.  He is also renowned for his achievements in calligraphy. The first two lines are translated in a deliberately choppy manner to reflect the suddenness of the peach blossoms, the poet’s hesitation, and then his onward rush. The words in the second line, “sun will slanting,” tell us that the sun is going down and that it’s near enough to the horizon to send slanting rays. The poem is not specific as to what the poet wishes to stop, but in the context of the setting sun and the sadness of spring, we thought that “time” best expressed his intent. 

作者：杜甫    （Author:  Du Fu, 8th Century)

国破山河在   nation ruined mountain river exist
城春草木深   city springtime grass tree deep
感时花溅泪   feel time flower splash tear
恨别鸟惊心   hate goodbye bird startle heart
烽火连三月   beacon fire last three months
家书抵万金  home letter worth 10000 gold
白头搔更短  white hair scratch more short
浑欲不胜簪   hardly can hold hairpin

 

Translation

Spring View

Our nation is defeated; the mountains and rivers remain.
In spring, the city lies deep in grass and trees.
Feeling the times, I cry at the sight of flowers.
Grieving over separation, my heart is startled by birds.

The signal fires have burned for three months now,
And a letter from home is worth a thousand pieces of gold.
I scratch my thinning white hair.
It can barely hold a hairpin anymore. 

 

Translation Notes

This is one of the most famous of the Tang dynasty poems, and perhaps the most widely translated. Our translation differs from many others in two significant ways. In the first line, we say that the nation is “defeated” while most of the translations we’ve seen have described China as “ruined” or “broken.” We prefer “defeated” because the words guo po in the original are generally used to refer to military defeat, and we try to be as true to the original as possible. We also just like the word better. “Ruined” has been described as more poetic, but we believe that the specificity of a military defeat rather than the amorphous “ruined” is the stronger image and more in keeping with the Tang poets’ use of clear, concrete terms.

We have also seen a number of translations that have the flowers crying and the birds being startled. We think these translations may have come about through a misunderstanding of the grammatical structure of the poems. Poets frequently wrote in the first person, omitting the word “I” which the readers were expected to understand. Because most lines follow a subject/verb format, “feel time” is best understood as “I, feeling the time,” followed by what I do (cry at the sight of flowers). Similarly, “hate goodbye” is best understood as the subject “I, hating goodbye,” also followed by what I do (feel startled by birds). The result of the more grammatically correct translation is a poem that describes a man so undone by grief that even the sight of flowers and birds causes him pain. The alternate translations yields the awkward images of weeping flowers and birds who don’t like saying goodbye. 

And here is a little bit of a historical background of this poem:  This poem was written by Du Fu in the late spring of 757 AD during the An Lushan Rebellion. An Lushan was a regional military commander in the northern part of the then Tang Dynasty, and he rebelled against the Tang Dynasty at the end of 755. In July of 756, An’s rebel forces captured Chang’an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. The city was looted and burned by the rebel forces. Du Fu arranged for his wife to stay at the Lu Province, a place north of Chang’an, while Du Fu himself continued his journey north to Ling Wu to join the new emperor Su Zong.  However, he was caught by the rebel forces during his journey north, and was taken back to Chang’an as a prisoner. It is said that Du Fu wrote this poem when staying in Chang’an as a prisoner of the rebel forces.