When those red berries come in springtime,
Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.
Original Poem:
「相思」
王维
红豆生南国， 春来发几枝。
愿君多采撷， 此物最相思。
Interpretation:
This poem was written before the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion. It is a poem that sends out the love of a friend with the help of an aria.
In the first two lines, the red bean grows in the sunny south of the country, and every spring, I don’t know how many new branches grow.
The southern part of the country is also the place where your friend is, and when you think of red beans, you also think of your friend. The next line is to ask how many branches of red beans have sprouted, but secretly it is to say how much you miss each other.
The last two lines: I hope that the people who miss you will pick more, because it is the best way to support the feelings of longing.
Still conversing with friends. An earnest exhortation is to imply that friendship is valued. On the surface, it seems to tell friends not to forget their lovesickness, but in the back, it deeply implies the weight of one’s own lovesickness; not to say that one is lovesickness, but to tell others to be lovesickness, so the weight of lovesickness is another weight to add to it.
This poem skillfully uses the red bean as a metaphor to euphemistically and implicitly express the deep and long feelings of longing for each other.
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.
