Though our envoy, Su Wu, is gone, body and soul,
This temple survives, these trees endure...
Wildgeese through the clouds are still calling to the moon there
And hill-sheep unshepherded graze along the border.
...Returning, he found his country changed
Since with youthful cap and sword he had left it.
His bitter adventures had won him no title...
Autumn-waves endlessly sob in the river.
Original Poem:
「苏武庙」
温庭筠
苏武魂销汉使前， 古祠高树两茫然。
云边雁断胡天月， 陇上羊归塞草烟。
回日楼台非甲帐， 去时冠剑是丁年。
茂陵不见封侯印， 空向秋波哭逝川。
Interpretation:
Su Wu is a famous hero in Chinese history and has always been admired by people. This poem is a poem of the poet’s visit to the Su Wu Temple.
In the first line, Su Wu imagines the scene when he first met the Han envoys. After nineteen years of hardship in the North Sea and nine deaths, he suddenly met the Han envoys and could not help but feel a mixture of sadness and joy.
The third and fourth sentences outline two pictures. The first one is a picture of looking south and thinking of returning: but see the night, the cold moon in the sky, looking at the geese flying south, disappeared in the sky, Su Wu’s deep longing for his hometown and the pain of the family and the country is difficult to return to the highlights of it. The next picture of the deserted plugs to return to the pasture: deserted and smoky, the grass even the sky, the sheep return to the circle, the pastoral life reproduced.
The neck line follows the first sentence, writing Su Wu’s return to see and hear the feelings: the old pavilions and pavilions remain the same, but Emperor Wu has long been ancient, things are not the same, like a world apart.
In the end, the main character remembers the emperor infinitely. Emperor Zhao of Han gave Su Wu the title of Crown Prince, but Emperor Wu, who had already laid in state at the Maoling Mausoleum, would never see this scene again. Su Wu can only cry to the flowing water in the fall to pay tribute to the late emperor. Here loyalty to the emperor and patriotism merge into one, and the image of a patriotic aspirant with historical limitations jumps out on the paper.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Wen Ting-yun (温庭筠) was a native of Qixian County, Shanxi, circa 813-870 AD. Wen Tingyun was a professional writer of late Tang Dynasty lyrics, whose achievements and influence were greater than that of poetry, and was once known as the “originator of the flowers”.
