You ask me when I am coming. I do not know.
I dream of your mountains and autumn pools brimming all night with the rain.
Oh, when shall we be trimming wicks again, together in your western window?
When shall I be hearing your voice again, all night in the rain?
Original Poem:
「夜雨寄北」
李商隐
君问归期未有期，巴山夜雨涨秋池。
何当共剪西窗烛，却话巴山夜雨时。
Interpretation:
In 848 A.D., Li Shangyin was stranded in Bashu, and wrote this popular poem to send to his wife in the north, pouring out his feelings of longing.
The first two lines: You ask me the date of my return home, I have not yet set a date, at this moment the night rain of Bashan is pattering, the rain has risen to fill the autumn pool.
The ardent expectation of relatives in the hometown, the inexorability of being detained in a foreign land, and the depression and despair of the undetermined date of return are all fused in this question and answer. Because of the Sichuan Basin, surrounded by mountains on all sides, the Bayu area more night rain, Bashan night rain is a unique landscape of Chongqing in the fall, often clear skies in the daytime, the night pattering drizzle as expected, when all the music is silent when dancing in the night sky of the Bashan drizzle, touched the heart of countless sentimental, but also evoke the wandering outside the wanderer how much homesickness sorrows. The poet seized the characteristics of the local scenery, to the fine and dense autumn rain filled with autumn pond to give people the feeling, to express the detained traveler's bleak loneliness.
The last two lines: when can we talk together by candlelight and tell each other how much we miss each other this night in the rain of Bashan night.
These two lines envision the future. When will we be able to sit under the west window and cut the candles together? At that time, we will talk about tonight's rain in Bashan. At this time, the rain in Bashan is not the actual scene in front of us, but the topic to be talked about when we meet in the future, and the pain of today's lovesickness is emphasized by the beautiful scene in the imagination.
The language of the poem is simple and concise, and the “night rain of Bashan” combines the remoteness of the mountains, the serenity of the night, the lingering rain and the long-lasting flavor of lovesickness, which can be said to be distinctive and evocative.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Li Shangyin (李商隐), 813-858 AD, was a great poet of the late Tang Dynasty. His poems were on a par with those of Du Mu, and he was known as "Little Li Du". Li Shangyin was a native of Qinyang, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province. When he was a teenager, he lost his father at the age of nine, and was called "Zheshui East and West, half a century of wandering".
