Stopped Under Beigu Mountain, Wang Wan (Tang Shi #97)

[lnhammer]

By travel routes beyond blue mountains
My boat moved forward through green waters,
Tide level with the two wide banks
And wind behind my hanging sail.
Sun’s born from sea into darkest night—
The Yangzi spring starts during New Years.
Where will letters from home arrive?
Geese have returned outside Luoyang.

次北固山下
客路青山外，
行舟绿水前。
潮平两岸阔，
风正一帆悬。
海日生残夜，
江春入旧年。
乡书何处达？
归雁洛阳边。

Beigu is in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, overlooking the Yangzi in its delta. Geese were sometimes fancifully used to send letters (another thing taken up by Japanese poetics) but with them already north, they’re unavailable. The “where” is literal—we’re to understand it as “where in my travels.” And as an aside, it took more work than usual to confirm that 次 (now meaning “next” or “same as previous”) had a classical sense of “no longer move forward”; given context, a better rendering might be “Moored.”

---L.

Comments

[sartorias]

Another visually tight one, rich with mood.

[larryhammer]

Yup. This form has good potentials — I’m starting to see why it became so popular.