No cicadas trill when I first hear wild geese cry;
The high tower overlooks water blending with the sky.
The Moon Goddess and her Maid of Frost are cold-proof;
They vie in beauty in moonlight over frosty roof.
Original Poem:
「霜月」
李商隐
初闻征雁已无蝉，百尺楼高水接天。
青女素娥俱耐冷，月中霜里斗婵娟。
Interpretation:
This poem is about viewing the night view of the frosty moon in the late fall season from a high building near the water.
The first two lines: Just when I began to hear the cries of the geese traveling far to the south, the cicadas had already disappeared, and I climbed a hundred-foot high building and looked out at the water and the sky as far as I could see.
Time in the late fall, so the poem says, when you hear the cries of the geese flying south, you can no longer hear the cicadas chirping, and the frost is already in the late fall. The autumn sky is clear, the moonlight is clarified, the moonlight is like water, and the sky is connected.
The last two lines: the frost goddess Qingnu and Chang'e in the moon are not afraid of the cold, and compete in the cold moon and frost, comparing the beautiful appearance of ice and jade.
Qingnu, the goddess in charge of frost and snow; Su'e, Chang'e, the fairy in the moon. The poet Li Shangyin wrote about the frosty moon, not from the frosty moon itself, but the moon in the frost of the Su'e and the green. Green lady, Su'e is a symbol of frost and moon, their cold spirit is the spirit of the frost moon. In late fall, you can't hear the cicadas, and the geese's mournful cries in the cold come from time to time from the sky. A hundred feet high, the moonlight is like water, and the sky is connected. This is the scenery of reality, clear and ethereal. The realistic environment is the cradle of wonderful and bizarre imagination, which will evoke the poet's idea of detaching from the mundane. The two fairies, Qingnu and Su'e, who are not afraid of the cold and compete with each other in the frosty moon, are the poet's fantasies, which also convey the poet's sentiment of not being afraid of the cold and standing high above the vulgar.
This poem is a harmonious whole composed of fantasy and reality intertwined together, with a tranquil and ethereal mood, cold and elegant, not only with the spirit of the overall style of exquisite, but also showing the cold personality characteristics.
Poem translator:
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
About the poet:
Li Shangyin (李商隐), 813-858 AD, was a great poet of the late Tang Dynasty. His poems were on a par with those of Du Mu, and he was known as "Little Li Du". Li Shangyin was a native of Qinyang, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province. When he was a teenager, he lost his father at the age of nine, and was called "Zheshui East and West, half a century of wandering".
