Beyond the Sword Gate, far I go to war;
No one to send me clothes from home any more.
At the Pass, three feet of snow cold as the grave;
I dream of your loom I could not save.
Original Poem
「悼伤后赴东蜀辟至散关遇雪」
李商隐
剑外从军远，无家与寄衣。
散关三尺雪，回梦旧鸳机。
Interpretation
This poem is a work of profound grief and exquisite temporal-spatial layering, standing out among Li Shangyin’s poems of mourning and travel. It was composed shortly after the death of his wife, Lady Wang, while he was answering the summons of Liu Zhongying, the military governor of Dongchuan, and en route to his post. The poet forges the triple anguish of bereavement, distant exile, and the hardships of a cold journey into twenty characters. Through the two core images of "San Pass snow" and "the old lovebird-embroidery loom," and amidst the violent rending between dream and wakefulness, distance and proximity, cold and warmth, he achieves a heart-piercing portrayal of the essential solitude of life.
First Couplet: 剑外从军远，无家与寄衣。
Jiàn wài cóng jūn yuǎn, wú jiā yǔ jì yī.
To a post beyond Sword Gate, I join the army, far away;
No home is left me now, no one to send me winter gowns.
Explication: The opening ten words strike like two heavy blows, hammering out a dire human predicament. "To a post beyond Sword Gate… far away" is a double banishment in space and fate—geographically, a distant journey to the southwestern frontier; in the sense of life's journey, a forced embarkation onto a lonely official path. "No home is left me now, no one to send me winter gowns" is a double deprivation of emotion and livelihood: "No home" signifies not just the loss of a physical dwelling, but the utter obliteration of emotional bonds and life’s ultimate harbor; the negation in "to send me" particularizes the absence of daily care. The winter garment here becomes the final symbol of his wife’s warm, nurturing care in life; its absence means the poet is henceforth exposed to all the world’s bitter cold. These two lines establish the poem’s icy tone of utter isolation and desolation.
Final Couplet: 散关三尺雪，回梦旧鸳机。
Sàn guān sān chǐ xuě, huí mèng jiù yuān jī.
At Mount San Pass lies snow three feet deep;
I dream myself back to the old lovebird-embroidery loom.
Explication: This couplet juxtaposes the extremity of present hardship with the illusion of memory, generating an emotion that wrenches heart and liver. "At Mount San Pass lies snow three feet deep" is the objectively perilous environment before his eyes: a strategic pass, a road sealed by heavy snow—both a physical impediment to travel and a cold metaphor for life’s desperate straits. "I dream myself back to the old lovebird-embroidery loom" is the sole source of warmth and pain within: in sleep, at consciousness’s most vulnerable, memory automatically returns to the warmest scene—"the old lovebird-embroidery loom." The loom is a tool for weaving, and more, the central symbol of conjugal affection in daily life and the wife’s diligent household management. "Dream myself back" expresses not only the involuntary nature of dreaming but also the heart’s stubborn retrospection. Yet, the warmer and more vivid the dream, the colder and more illusory the awakening. Dream and snow, one internal, one external; one warm, one cold; one illusory, one real—they tear the poet between the beauty of memory and the cruelty of reality.
Holistic Appreciation
This is a "chart of the heart in extremity," its structure like an ice blade splitting the heart, its emotion like a lone lamp in a snowy night. The poem follows a simple yet devastating comparative structure: "present extremity—memory’s reflection." The first two lines exhaust the "now" of "absence" (no home, no gowns, no sender); the last two lines, within the extreme cold of the "now" (three-foot snow), suddenly flash back to the "past" of "presence" (her presence, the loom, the warmth). However, this "presence" exists only within the "dream myself back"—an illusory salvation and, thereby, a doubled torment.
Li Shangyin’s ultimate agony lies in not directly wailing his sorrow. Instead, through two extremely simple, highly personal details of daily life—"sending winter gowns" and the "lovebird-embroidery loom"—he anchors the immense facts of death and parting to the minutest needs of survival and the most intimate domestic scenes. Having no one to send gowns signifies the collapse of life’s system of warmth; dreaming of the loom is the counterattack of the emotional memory system. Together, they reveal: his wife’s departure took not only a beloved but destroyed an entire, integral system of emotion and daily living upon which he relied. The bitter cold of "snow three feet deep" is both an external trial for the body and a true reflection of the desolate, frozen inner world after that system’s collapse.
Artistic Merits
- The Cruel Poetics of Numbers and Space: The distance of "beyond Sword Gate," the depth of "snow three feet deep"—using concrete numbers and spatial concepts to transform abstract sorrow into a palpable, physical oppression, achieving immense expressive power.
- The Emotional Implosion of Private Imagery: "Sending winter gowns" and the "lovebird-embroidery loom" are not public symbols but highly personal, familial fragments of memory. It is precisely this privacy that makes the emotional impact they carry more direct and violent, able to shake the heart without relying on allusions.
- The Paradoxical Function of the Dream: "Dream myself back" should be a harbor for escaping reality; here, it becomes an instrument of torture that intensifies present pain. The dream’s warmth reflects reality’s bitter cold; the dream’s brevity highlights the loss’s permanence. The dream accomplishes a revisiting and confirmation of the pain.
- Extreme Linguistic Sparseness and Extreme Emotional Density: The poem uses no obscure words, no complex syntax, approaching plain description. Yet, words like "no home," "send me winter gowns," "lovebird-embroidery loom" become weightier than a thousand pounds due to their specific emotional context. The sparse linguistic form and the dense emotional content create tremendous tension.
Insights
This is a requiem for all souls who have experienced the pain of loss and desolation. It reveals that the most profound loss often manifests in the absence of specific life-sustaining functions and the interruption of daily rituals (no one to send gowns), while the deepest longing often lies dormant within the most ordinary old objects and scenes (the old loom). Pain is not abstract; it is composed of countless tiny "no longers."
In the fluid, changing modern society, we may less frequently experience such extreme bereavement and solitary travel, yet we still encounter various forms of "loss" and "exile." This poem reminds us to notice those moments of "no home… no one to send me winter gowns"—when former support systems (family, relationships, routines) fail, how do we face life’s "snow three feet deep"? Simultaneously, it urges us to cherish those memory-scenes like the "old lovebird-embroidery loom." They may be the only undying glimmer and source of warmth within us as we traverse life’s bitter cold. Written with blood and tears, this poem by Li Shangyin ultimately tells us: the warmth of life, once having existed, becomes eternal evidence against the eternal cold.
Poem translator
Xu Yuanchong (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".
