The north wind rolls the white grasses and breaks them;
And the Eighth-month snow across the Tartar sky
Is like a spring gale, come up in the night,
Blowing open the petals of ten thousand peartrees.
It enters the pearl blinds, it wets the silk curtains;
A fur coat feels cold, a cotton mat flimsy;
Bows become rigid, can hardly be drawn
And the metal of armour congeals on the men;
The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice,
And darkness masses its endless clouds;
But we drink to our guest bound home from camp,
And play him barbarian lutes, guitars, harps;
Till at dusk, when the drifts are crushing our tents
And our frozen red flags cannot flutter in the wind,
We watch him through Wheel-Tower Gate going eastward.
Into the snow-mounds of Heaven-Peak Road....
And then he disappears at the turn of the pass,
Leaving behind him only hoof-prints.
Original Poem:
「白雪歌送武判官归京」
岑参
北风卷地白草折， 胡天八月即飞雪；
忽如一夜春风来， 千树万树梨花开。
散入珠帘湿罗幕， 狐裘不暖锦衾薄。
将军角弓不得控， 都护铁衣冷犹著。
瀚海阑干百丈冰， 愁云黪淡万里凝。
中军置酒饮归客， 胡琴琵琶与羌笛。
纷纷暮雪下辕门， 风掣红旗冻不翻。
轮台东门送君去， 去时雪满天山路；
山回路转不见君， 雪上空留马行处。
Interpretation:
This poem is Cen Shen's farewell poem to send his predecessor back to the capital. The whole poem is unusually majestic in its imagery and strange in its imagery, making it one of the best poems about snow.
First to fourth lines: The north wind swept over the land and broke the grass, and the snow fell in August in Hu Di. Suddenly like a night of spring wind blew, as if a thousand trees of pear blossoms in full bloom.
With the blooming pears to compare the tree full of snowflakes, a magnificent north of the snow and ice scenery is suddenly displayed in front of the reader. The bland northern country after a night of silver, so that the poet who woke up early to enjoy the snow recalled the good mood of viewing the spring pear blossoms in full bloom. Pear blossom is slowly waiting in the open, and snowflakes in the northern part of the country is a night that is made, the feeling of joy is naturally better! This kind of imagination and how magical.
The fifth to eighth lines: snowflakes scattered into the pearl curtain and wet the curtain, the fox fur can not wear warm brocade quilt also earn too thin. The general's hands are so cold that he can't draw his bow, and the guard's iron armor is still cold.
With the specific see and hear to describe the snowy days of ice cold, read kindly and naturally. From the expedition general's own feelings to write the cold outside the plug, let a person empathize.
Ninth to tenth sentence: the desert iced over a hundred feet longitudinal cracks, Miles of sky cohesion of the bleak clouds of sadness.
Exaggerated, not realistic, although it is imagined but also seems reasonable, the vastness of the desert, glaciers, coupled with miles of sad clouds, just like the panoramic lens inside the current movie, giving the reader a new perspective experience.
The eleventh to twelfth lines: The commander-in-chief sets up wine in his tent to bid farewell to the returning guests, and the huqin, pipa, and qiang flute play together to cheer them up.
Describing the farewell scene, the use of “huqin”, “pipa” and “qiang flute”, which are very typical instruments of the Western regions, figuratively rendered the scene and atmosphere of the farewell, which made people feel that it was quite different from the frontier send-off in the Chinese mainland. The thirteenth to fourteenth lines: in the evening, the
The thirteenth to fourteenth lines: In the evening, the snow falls incessantly in front of the regulator gate, and the red flag freezes hard and the wind can't pull it.
Write camp outside the door of the snow and cold wind, the weather is very cold, this is a wonderful scene that can only be felt outside the plug, even the red flag is frozen, in the gale motionless, and not moving the red flag and the gale of snowflakes fluttering just become a wonderful contrast.
Fifteenth to eighteenth sentence: Luntai East Gate to send you back to the capital, you go when the snow covered the Tianshan Road. The snow covered the Tianshan Mountain Road when you left. You could no longer be seen on the circuitous mountain road, leaving only a string of hoof prints on the snow.
Write the scene of farewell at the east gate of Luntai. From the magnificent snow scene back to the main theme of sending off, the feelings are sincere and touching.
The whole poem is full of snowy scenes, four different scenes of snowy scenes before, after and after the farewell, with magical imaginations. It is a representative masterpiece of Tang Dynasty's Border Poetry, and also a representative masterpiece of snowy poems in Chinese classical poetry.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Cen Shen(岑参), 715-770 AD, was a native of Jingzhou, Hubei Province. He studied at Mt. Songshan when he was young, and later traveled to Beijing, Luoyang and Shuohe. Cen Shen was famous for his border poems, in which he wrote about the border scenery and the life of generals in a majestic and unrestrained manner, and together with Gao Shi, he was an outstanding representative of the border poetry school of the Sheng Tang Dynasty.
