I sit here alone, mourning for us both.
How many years do I lack now of my threescore and ten?
There have been better men than I to whom heaven denied a son,
There was a poet better than I whose dead wife could not hear him.
What have I to hope for in the darkness of our tomb?
You and I had little faith in a meeting after death-
Yet my open eyes can see all night
That lifelong trouble of your brow.
Original Poem:
「遣悲怀 · 其三」
元稹
闲坐悲君亦自悲， 百年都是几多时？
邓攸无子寻知命， 潘岳悼亡犹费词。
同穴窅冥何所望？ 他生缘会更难期。
惟将终夜长开眼， 报答平生未展眉。
Interpretation:
Yuan Zhen's wife, Wei Cong, is the youngest daughter of the crown prince, Wei Xiaqing, who married Yuan Zhen at the age of twenty, and after their marriage, they had a very good relationship, and Wei died seven years later, which made the poet extremely sad. This group of poems was written in Wei's death about a year after the supervision of the imperial censor, this is the third, write the poet's grief.
The first two lines: sitting idly with nothing to do for you to grieve for me to sigh, life is short, a hundred years and how long it is!
Carry on the previous and start the next, with “sadness” to summarize the content of the first two poems, why self-pity? Why do you feel sorry for yourself? Because even if you live a hundred years, the time is too little.
The third and fourth lines: Deng You's lack of progeny is an arrangement of fate, Pan Yue's mourning for his late wife is just a futile lamentation.
Cite two allusions to Deng You and Pan Yue. Deng You, a Jin man, gave up his son to save his nephew in the war, so kind-hearted, but lifelong childless, is this the arrangement of fate? Pan Yue's poem is well written, but what is the use for the dead, a waste of effort!
The fifth and sixth lines: even if they can be buried together, they can not talk about their feelings, and how illusory is the hope of bonding in the next life.
Then a turn of phrase, from despair out of hope, but hope that after death can be buried together as husband and wife, in the next life as husband and wife again. But calmly thought, this is only a vain fantasy, and thus more desperate: the dead long gone, the past can never be made up for everything.
The last two lines: only with sleepless nights, tossing and turning in thought, to repay you for the pain of my labor in life.
The poet seems to be confessing his heart to his deceased wife: I will think of you forever, infatuated and grieving, saddening.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Yuan Zhen (元稹), 779-831 A.D., was a native of Luoyang, Henan Province, who was poor in his early years, but later became an official and finally died of a violent illness. He was friendly with Bai Juyi and often sang with him, and was known as “Yuan Bai”.
