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I leave Baidi at dawn through parted rosy clouds.
A thousand li to Jiangling, returning in one day:
While apes upon both banks howl on unceasingly,
My skiff’s already passed ten thousand piled-up mountains.
下江陵 (早发白帝城)
朝辞白帝彩云间，
千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，
轻舟已过万重山。
My base text has the first title, but this is better known by the second. While Li Bai was traveling into exile in the deep south, a rescinding order caught up with him in Baidi at the top end of Qutang, the uppermost of the Three Gorges—thus the “return.” Jiangling is modern Jingzhou, a little downstream the Yangzi from the mouth of the lowest gorge—about 1200 li by river, as it turns out.
—L.
A thousand li to Jiangling, returning in one day:
While apes upon both banks howl on unceasingly,
My skiff’s already passed ten thousand piled-up mountains.
下江陵 (早发白帝城)
朝辞白帝彩云间，
千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，
轻舟已过万重山。
My base text has the first title, but this is better known by the second. While Li Bai was traveling into exile in the deep south, a rescinding order caught up with him in Baidi at the top end of Qutang, the uppermost of the Three Gorges—thus the “return.” Jiangling is modern Jingzhou, a little downstream the Yangzi from the mouth of the lowest gorge—about 1200 li by river, as it turns out.
—L.