The curfew drum halts people’s movements.
A border autumn—one goose calls.
Begins tonight the term White Dew,
With bright on my hometown the moon.
I’ve younger brothers, split and scattered,
But no home to ask if dead or alive.
I’ll send a letter, though it’ll take long—
It will stay thus till soldiers rest.
月夜忆舍弟
戍鼓断人行,
秋边一雁声。
露从今夜白,
月是故乡明。
有弟皆分散,
无家问死生。
寄书长不达,
况乃未休兵。
Written in 759 in Qinzhou, now Tianshui, Gansu, some 200 miles west of Chang’an. At the time, his hometown of Luoyang, equally far to the east, was still held by rebel forces. The drum is literally that of a “garrison,” understood as belonging to the night watch, signaling the start of curfew. Overtone that foreshadows the conclusion: wild geese are associated with letters sent over long distances. White Dew is the name, in the little-known solar calendar used alongside the lunisolar one, of the two-week solar term starting c. September 8th. The name is, in an example of Du Fu’s dislocated poetic syntax, radically split apart: the line is literally “Dew begins tonight White.” He does something similar with the bright moon in the next line, and I’ve tried to imitate the effect in English.
—L.
A border autumn—one goose calls.
Begins tonight the term White Dew,
With bright on my hometown the moon.
I’ve younger brothers, split and scattered,
But no home to ask if dead or alive.
I’ll send a letter, though it’ll take long—
It will stay thus till soldiers rest.
月夜忆舍弟
戍鼓断人行,
秋边一雁声。
露从今夜白,
月是故乡明。
有弟皆分散,
无家问死生。
寄书长不达,
况乃未休兵。
Written in 759 in Qinzhou, now Tianshui, Gansu, some 200 miles west of Chang’an. At the time, his hometown of Luoyang, equally far to the east, was still held by rebel forces. The drum is literally that of a “garrison,” understood as belonging to the night watch, signaling the start of curfew. Overtone that foreshadows the conclusion: wild geese are associated with letters sent over long distances. White Dew is the name, in the little-known solar calendar used alongside the lunisolar one, of the two-week solar term starting c. September 8th. The name is, in an example of Du Fu’s dislocated poetic syntax, radically split apart: the line is literally “Dew begins tonight White.” He does something similar with the bright moon in the next line, and I’ve tried to imitate the effect in English.
—L.