Though a shower bends the river-grass, a bird is singing,
While ghosts of the Six Dynasties pass like a dream
Around the Forbidden City, under weeping willows
Which loom still for three miles along the misty moat.
Original Poem:
「台城」
韦庄
江雨霏霏江草齐， 六朝如梦鸟空啼。
无情最是台城柳， 依旧烟笼十里堤。
Interpretation:
During the late Tang Dynasty, the once prosperous Taicheng was already a deserted place, where the poet touched the scene, and through this poem, he hangs on to the past, letting the readers savor the poet's feelings through this vague curtain of feelings.
The first two lines: March in late spring, the spring rain in Jiangnan, dense and fine, in the falling rain, the riverside green grass, smoke and mist, like a dream. In the rain, the green grass along the riverside is as green as grass, covered with smoke and mist, like a dream. The trees are lush and green, the grass is long and the warblers are flying, showing the vitality of nature everywhere.
The spring rain in the south of China's Jiangnan region is dense and fine, such as smoke and mist, giving people a dreamlike feeling, which can easily evoke people's confusion and despair. The rulers of the six dynasties who once chased pleasure in the city of Taicheng have long since become passers-by in the rush of history, and the luxurious and magnificent city of Taicheng has become a historical relic for the tourists to pay homage to. Three hundred years, six short-lived dynasties one after another to decline and fall, change rapidly, would have given people a sense of dream; plus the contrast between nature and personnel, deepening the author's “six dynasties, such as a dream” feeling.
The last two sentences: the most ruthless is that the Taicheng willow, it does not care about the rise and fall of personnel and dynastic changes, the luxuriant willow is still in the smoke shrouded ten miles of long embankment side of the wind, can still give a person a feeling of euphoria, let a person recall when the situation of prosperity and prosperity.
Willow is the symbol of spring. Willow branches swaying in the spring breeze, always give people a feeling of euphoria, reminiscent of the prosperous situation. The willows of Taicheng were decorated with ten miles of long embankment, surrounded by smoke and mist, symbolizing the prosperous scene of Taicheng; nowadays Taicheng is a dilapidated place with thousands of doors and tens of thousands of houses covered with weeds, while those willows are still surrounded by smoke and mist, which seems to be how “unfeeling”!
The whole poem implies the vicissitudes of the world with the “still” natural scenery, and contrasts the pain of people with the “heartlessness” of things.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the Poet:
Wei Zhuang (韦庄), circa 836 - 910 A.D., a native of Xi'an in the southeast of Shaanxi Province, was a scholar and a minister of the Ministry of Revenue. There is a collection of “Raccoon Flower Collections” in circulation.
