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夜雨寄北
唐 - Táng （618-907）
李商隐 – Lǐ Shāngyǐn (813-858)
君问归期未有期-- Jūn wèn guīqī wèi yǒu qī,
巴山夜雨涨秋池-- Bāshān yèyǔ zhàng qiū chí。
何当共剪西窗烛-- Hé dāng gòng jiǎn xī chuāng chú,
却话巴山夜雨时-- Què huà Bāshān yèyǔ shí。
君问归期未有期-- Jūn wèn guīqī wèi yǒu qī,
巴山夜雨涨秋池-- Bāshān yèyǔ zhàng qīu chí。
何当共剪西窗烛-- Hé dāng gòng jiǎn xī chuāng chú,
却话巴山夜雨时-- Què huà Bāshān yèyǔ shí。
夜雨时-- Yèyǔ shí。
|#|By Li Shangyin (813-858)
Tang Dynasty (618-097)
You ask when I will return I do not know.
Tonight’s rain in the Ba Mountains will brim the autumn pool.
When, together, will we trim the candle by the west window (again)?
While I tell you how I missed you on this rainy night.
You ask when I will return I do not know.
Tonight’s rain in the Ba Mountains will brim the autumn pool.
When, together, will we trim the candle by the west window (again)?
While I tell you how I missed you on this rainy night.
on this rainy night.
|#|Li Shangyin (813-858) was one of the greatest poets in the later period of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
He was a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations when he was 25 years old. But he fell over oneself for polity and some innovation. Then in the cruel political struggle, he was excluded and his political dream could not come true. He died from a poor life, chill and depressed heart at only 45 years old..
However, due to these hard life experiences, Li Shangyin became a famous representative poet in the later period of the Tang Dynasty; he had not only the same reputation as Du Mu and was known as "Little Li Du" (The big “Li Du” was Li Bai and Du Fu) but also he had more and bigger effect on the poets and poetry of the later Chinese poetry tradition.
In their content, Li Shangyin’s poems mainly talked about politics, history, nature, loving feeling, friendship and so on. He carried forward the traditions from history, mainly learning from Du Fu (712 – 770) and Li He (790 - 817). From these traditions he developed his own style. He enjoyed using many idioms or allusions to write lǜshī - a poem of eight lines, each containing five or seven characters, with a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme – writing poems with a deep feeling, lingering, gorgeous and exquisite artistic style.
Now there are about 600 poems by him in the world. The highest accomplishment of his love poem with the Lǜ Shi style.
|#||#|This is a Jueju (a poem of four lines, each containing of five or seven characters, with a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme; it is also a half of lǜshī which we mentioned earlier) that Li Shangyin wrote to his wife or friend who was in Changan (today's Xian, Shanxi Province) when he was in the Ba Mountains area in Shu , today's Sichuan Province.
Because the title does not say whom the poem was written to, so, someone thought it was written to his wife, the others thought it was written to his friend, because when he wrote this letter, his wife had passed away already.
So then, let us read the poem at the first, then to guess whom he wanted to write to.
The first line -- 君问归期未有期 - Jūn wèn guīqī wèi yǒu qī: 君Jūn, means gentleman, monarch; call someone respectfully; here means: you; 问wèn, means ask; 归guīmeans return, come back, 期qī means time, date;归期 guījī means the time I come back; 未有期 wèi yǒu jī, do not know yet, 未wèi means no, not, 有yǒu means there is, 未有 wèi yǒu, there is no. This line means: you ask me when I will come back / return, I don't know about it yet. Via a question and an answer, expresses the light sadness of detaining in the travel.
Then, Why?
The second line -- 巴山夜雨涨秋池 - Bāshān yèyǔ zhàng/zhǎng qīu chí: 巴山 Bāshān , means Ba Mountains, 山shān means mountain, 夜 yè means night; 雨 yǔ means rain; 涨 zhàng /zhǎng means brim, swell, rise; 秋qiū means autumn, fall; 池chí means pool; 秋池 qiū chí means the pool in the autumn. This line means: Tonight's rain in the Ba Mountains will brim the autumn pool.
This line answers why he does not know which day he would be back home. Because it is a rainy season, he is just staying in the Ban Mountains of Sichuan by the heavy and cold autumn rain. The word 涨 zhàng/zhǎng: brim, rise, tells the rain is heavy; the word 秋 qiū, autumn brings us the cold feeling. Just the continuous autumn rains, he has been caught in the wet, cold and far away Ba Mountains, so that he does not know when he can start off and go back home at all.
Until now, via writing the wet Ba Mountains, the cool autumn, the rainy night, we have felt how the lonely the poet was in the sadness in the far away Sichuan. Maybe people usually continue to write how bad the situation is. However, here, instead of writing the sadness, the poem enters another totally different and warm view:
何当共剪西窗烛-- Hé dāng gòng jiǎn xīchuāng chú: 何当Hédāng means when, when can; 共gòng means together; 剪jiǎn means trim, cut; 西窗xīchuāng means west window; 西xī means west, western; 窗chuāng means window; 烛chú means candle. This line means when, together, we can trim the candle by the west window (again).
却话巴山夜雨时-- Què huà Bāshān yèyǔ shí: 却 Què means while, again, also; 话 huà means say, talk about; 巴山 Bāshān means Ba Mountains, 夜 yè means night, 雨 yǔ means rain, 时shí means time. This line means: again or while I will tell you how I missed you on this rainy night. Or: while we will talk about how we missed each other on the rainy night.
With a softly fragrant and romantic picture, replaces the bitter winds and miserable rains in the first two lines. Right now, the cold autumn rain night, has become a far away memory to serve as a foil to the warm red candles, the sounds of the rain in the Ba Mountains has been changed to be a wonderful light music to accompany the whispers.
When the views of rainy night and the alone feelings have become the content of the talking of them. Then the same cool autumn, the rainy night and the wet Ba Mountains suddenly changed some warm, tender and wonderful memory.
Via comparing between the realistic distress and the happiness in his imagination, this poem has brought the poet himself and his far away wife or friend so much happy feelings soon.
Even though now, the poet himself is still in the Ba Mountains in the autumn rainy night, the happiness in the future has brought him so much happiness and the current mountain in the autumn rainy night and the water in the pool has been colored a beautiful poetry. :-)
Then now, do you have any idea whom this letter was written to? His wife or a friend?
About this, someone's textual research shows, this poem was written in the July to September, 851, when Li Shangyi was a secretary of the Dongchuan (today's Santai of Sichuan Province) Governor -- Liu Zhongyin and Li’s wife passed away during the summer or the autumn. Therefore, they thought this poem was written to a friend, instead of his wife.
However, this poem was also collected into the Ten Thousands of Tang Dynasty JueJu with the title: Ye Yu Ji Nei, Nei, means wife. So, people also thought it is a poem that was written to his wife.
I am thinking that the period the poem was written coincided with the death of his wife. Putting together the difficulties in travelling in ancient times and the bad weather, the poet would not have known of the death of his wife and while looking forward to his future happiness together in his hometown in the far away northern place, his wife had passed away already. This poem is really a double sad work indeed.
Anyway, when we read the poem now, no matter what would happen to the poet, he has really told us a possibility: Happiness sometimes can be gotten from the imagination, dream or a hope. .
This poem is an outstanding original creation with a wonderful composition and language; it breaks the conventionality of the traditional poems, creates a unique artistic switchover and cycle of the feeling, time, room and the writing structure and the tones of the poem.
Usually, a “modern style” poetry, referring to innovations in classical poetry during the Tang Dynasty (618 -- 907), marked by strict tonal patterns and rhyme schemes should avoid the repeat of the same word, this poem intentionally breaks the conventionality and creates its unique but beautiful artistic style.
For example:
-- In the first line, 君问归期未有期-- Jūn wèn guīqī wèi yǒu qī, the word 期 appears twice, one is the question from his wife, the other is the answer of the poet. You ask me when I will come back/ return? I do not know about the it yet, there is strong representability. The sadness as a traveler who cannot go back home has vividly revealed on the paper naturally.
When I write here, I cannot help thinking, in the reality, he did not know when he would be able to go back home, not only because of the weather, maybe also because he was serving as an officer and he could not decide the time when he could go back home, but maybe he did not want his wife or friend to worry about him too much, then he just wrote the reason related to the weather.
Now let us go back to the poem itself:
-- In whole of the poem, the phrase 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ “tonight's rain in the Ba Mountains” appears twice in the second line and the fourth line, is the strongest image of the poem. The first 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ writes the realistic scenery, it is the reason why I cannot make sure when I would come back; the second 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ is the content that the poet would talk with his wife or friend after he goes back home with his wife together in his imagination. The first is a fact, the second is a faerie dream.
From the current 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ, “ tonight's rain in the Ba Mountains” that is surrounding the poet, to the future’s 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ, in his recalling, as the object of the talking with his wife or friend, is connected by the third line: 何当共剪西窗烛-- Hé dāng gòng jiǎn xīchuāng zhú - when, together, we can trim to candle by the west window (again)? The repeated words has connected the fact and the imagination.
With the wonderful writing style, repeating of the two 期- qī and the two 巴山夜雨 -- Bāshān yèyǔ, one hand, it connects the place near 巴山-- Bāshān – the Ba mountains to the place far away 西窗-- xīchuāng – the west window, the fact near and the afar place in his imagination; on the other hand, it connects a true tonight and the other night in the imagination, creates a pretty of cycle of the feeling, room, time, tone, meets the perfect combination no matter no matter what content or the form is.
|#|1. Happiness is not only from well-off materially, but also it can come what people are thinking, dreaming and pursuing.
When I wrote in the middle of this articles, I could not help standing up and smiling to myself, maybe I should write an article names gaze out / look up into the happiness, or dream of happiness? Because, sometimes, happiness is not from the reality, but it can be gotten from the imagination or a dream.
Many people always live and work in a happiness, not because they have a rich life, good working condition and a happy family, but because they have a beautiful dream, hope, imagination in their hearts.
To long for a happy day to come, will certainly bring people happiness. Living with a happy dream, people feel happy when they are doing anything hard, difficult and even cruel in the others' eyes.
2. Happiness is from comparison. Comparatively speaking, to a person who is hungry, can have a meal, it is happiness; to a person who is sick, health is happiness; to a person who has experienced death, sees the sun is happiness. Therefore, we should have to cherish what we have had, and to live and to work with a grateful heart and positive life attitude for we are lucky enough to have food, health, and work opportunity, then we will be very happy every day.
3. A true master, a great artist is someone who is good at learning from the tradition and does not be limited by the tradition, but can create something new basing on the studying tradition. Management is same. We have to learn something good from the ready experience, lesson and model every day, we must work with an opening mind to face and to make innovation and to create something new base on the ready-made experiences, models and regulations, otherwise, this world and our work would not be able to make progress.
To create, to innovation is something that an artist and a manger must think and inspires by example. This is more and especially important for us in the Internet Times.
For sharing something more relates to Chinese culture with you, I translated this poem and created a piece of music to match it in China in 2006. Then, in my travel in the USA Dec, 2013, I re-translated it and re-wrote the music and painted a new painting to match the music and the painting. In 2016, my music coach Prof. Meng Weiye corrected my music and directed me to make a record in the professional sounding studio; Mr. Ray Heaton from Britain and Mrs. Zhang Xiaogang from China corrected my writing; Mr. Charlie Quan Zhang fixed the vocabulary.
I do hope what we have don can be of some help with you to learn Chinese culture, art and language.
If you have any questions, comments and suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn and you are welcome to publish your opinions in the Message Board on the web site www.ebridge.cnas well.
Shirley Yiping Zhang
Nov 30, 2017 in China
Nov 6, 2016 in the USA.
April 16, 2006 in China
Dec 23, 2013, in the USA
March 10,2006 in China
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