There seems to be no one on the empty mountain...
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.
Original Poem:
「鹿柴」
王维
空山不见人，但闻人语响。
返景入深林，复照青苔上。
Interpretation:
This poem was written when Wang Wei was living in Lantian Rim River in Shaanxi Province, and it is a masterpiece of Wang Wei’s later landscape poems. The poem shows a quiet scene in the evening in the mountain forest near Luchai. The poem shows a quiet scene in the evening in the mountains near Lu Chai, a place in Rim Chuan where Wang Wei often traveled.
In the first two lines, no one can be seen in the quiet valley, and only the sound of people talking can be heard.
A person in such a silent deep forest, surrounded by no sound, suddenly, far away from the sound of a few voices, and then listen carefully, seems to be no longer, only a long time of silence – that a few voices is not a better reminder of the silence around the person? Here, the poet to sound to contrast the silent, the silent can penetrate the heart. Here is from the point of view of sound.
The last two lines: The light of the setting sun is reflected in the deep forest, and shines on the moss in the dark place.
A beam of the setting sun’s afterglow shines through the gaps in the dense forest and onto the moss in the forest. The deep forest was already dark, and the moss under the trees in the forest emphasized the darkness even more. But while highlighting the darkness, the poet’s pen flashes out a ray of oblique light, projected on the moss. The sunlight is supposed to give people a warm feeling, but this is the afterglow of the setting sun, which no longer has much heat; moreover, in the middle of the dense forest, surrounded by a large area of darkness, does not the small spot of light surrounded by a large area of darkness seem even weaker, thus highlighting the strength of the surrounding darkness even more?
In this poem, with the musician’s perception of sound, the painter’s grasp of light, and the poet’s refinement of language, he has portrayed the quiet and secluded realm that characterizes the moment when the people in the empty valley speak and the slanting light returns to the light, which makes people have a long aftertaste.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Wang Wei (王维), 701-761 A.D., was a native of Yuncheng, Shanxi Province. Wang Wei was a poet of landscape and idylls. His poems of landscape and idylls, with far-reaching images and mysterious meanings, were widely loved by readers in later generations, but Wang Wei never really became a man of landscape and idylls.
