Given the Topic “Evening Rain,” Seeing Off Li Zhou, Wei Yingwu (300 Tang Shi #141)

[lnhammer]

River from Chu within the rain of Wei—
A Nanjing bell tolls out the time of sunset—
In heavy mist, the sails are thickly layered—
Through gathering dusk, the birds slowly depart.
Haimen is far, we cannot see it from here.
Trees on the distant bank have nourishment.
We say farewell, our feelings without limit
And collars soaked just like in this fine rain.

赋得暮雨送李胄
楚江微雨里，
建业暮钟时。
漠漠帆来重，
冥冥鸟去迟。
海门深不见，
浦树远含滋。
相送情无限，
沾襟比散丝。

Variant texts give the friend’s name as Li Cao and Li Wei, but under any name we know nothing about the guy. The Chu river is the Yangzi, which flows downstream to the territory of the rival Warring State kingdom of Wei, where it is raining. Haimen (“sea gate”) is at the mouth of the Yangzi, far enough away you wouldn’t expect to see it anyway, so I don’t get the point of that line. The 6th line clunks up as well—the rain does nourish them, but still. Idiom: fine rain is literally “scattered silk,” a reference to a line by Jin Dynasty poet Zhang Xie. The last line is comparing the wetness of their tears to that of the rain, with an implied comparison of clothing to the river’s surface, which is a lot more deft than the previous couple lines.

—L.

Comments

[sartorias]

Allowing for the clumsiness of the beginner who poetically has a tin ear to begin with, that word "shen" is so powerful, with so many connotations, and "han2" with its connotations of cherish, seems to me there's some powerful what the Germans call "Sehnsucht" going on here.

[lnhammer]

You have a point. I may have been underreading this.