My hair had hardly covered my forehead.
I was picking Bowers, playing by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.
...At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.
...Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch'ii-t'ang, of rock and whirling water.
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses...
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.
...Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.
Original Poem:
「长干行」
李白
妾发初覆额，折花门前剧。
郎骑竹马来，绕床弄青梅。
同居长干里，两小无嫌猜。
十四为君妇，羞颜未尝开。
低头向暗壁，千唤不一回。
十五始展眉，愿同尘与灰。
常存抱柱信，岂上望夫台。
十六君远行，瞿塘滟滪堆。
五月不可触，猿声天上哀。
门前旧行迹，一一生绿苔。
苔深不可扫，落叶秋风早。
八月蝴蝶黄，双飞西园草。
感此伤妾心，坐愁红颜老。
早晚下三巴，预将书报家。
相迎不道远，直至长风沙。
Interpretation:
Changgan was an ancient settlement in Nanjing, which had been a lively residential area since the Eastern Wu Dynasty. By the Tang Dynasty, Changgan was famous for its merchants. When there were merchants, there were naturally merchant women. As the number of merchant women in Changgan increased, poems reflecting the life of merchant women also appeared, the most famous of which is this long poem.
This poem describes the love and parting story of a young woman, and expresses her longing for her husband, who went out to do business. The poem is unique in that it begins with the young woman’s childhood.
The first six lines: I remember when my bangs first covered my forehead, I used to fold a branch of flowers and play in front of the door. My husband always rode in on a horse with a bamboo pole, holding a green plum in his hand and scrambling around the chair in hot pursuit. For a long time we lived together in the long trunk, we were innocent and never suspected each other. These lines describe like a set of folk children’s customary paintings, a little girl with bangs on her forehead, holding a flower in her hand, standing in front of the door to play; a little boy with a horn on his head, straddling the bamboo horse, jumping and running on the path ……
Then the poet recounts the scene of the couple’s marriage: at the age of fourteen, I was your wife, and I was so shy that I didn’t dare to raise my face when I got married. I was so shy when I got married that I didn’t dare to lift my face up. I kept my head down and faced the dark corner of the wall, and I didn’t turn my head back even when you called me a thousand times. At the age of fifteen, I smiled happily and vowed to grow old with you until I turned to dust. You always keep the promise like a pillar, how I will not go up to the watchtower.
The portrayal of the naivety of the young bride of only fourteen years of age is exquisite, as if a close-up in a movie. The little bride has finally become an adult, and then wrote the young woman’s own steadfastness until death, and prayed for the couple to stay together forever, not separated, to further express her happiness and longing.
However, the special social structure of Changganli made her afraid of what finally came – her husband and son-in-law went out to do business. When you were sixteen years old, you left home and traveled to the Qutang Gorge. When the water rose in May, the rippling dykes could not touch each other, and the cries of the apes and monkeys on both sides of the river reached the sky. The footprints in front of the door, where you left slowly, grew mossy one by one over time. The moss grows too thick how can not sweep, the autumn wind early to fall leaves have covered it.
Since the main character is from Changgan, of course she knows the story of the Yangtze River, and what worries her most is the harmful rippling Sichuan river and the saddening Three Gorges Monkey. Now that her husband and son-in-law have strayed there, her worries and hang-ups can be imagined. It is not difficult to imagine the scene of the young couple saying goodbye, and it is also not difficult to infer the passage of time.
Then the poet used the butterflies to reflect the loneliness of the girlfriend: the August autumn high pink and yellow butterflies are so wild, flying over the western garden in the grass to play love. How can this scene not call me heartbroken, day-to-day worries too much red face natural premature aging. Sooner or later, if you leave Samba, you should write a letter to report me to send home.
The last sentence, in order to meet you I do not say that the road is long, even if I have to travel 700 miles to get to Changfengsha! is a conception rich in romanticism, for it is impossible for her to travel seven hundred miles by herself to meet her husband and son-in-law, but it appears to be infatuation and very touching.
Li Bai is good at drawing on folk songs, and this poem skillfully combines lyricism and narrative, and is very distinctive, delicate and vivid in characterization, especially in writing the young woman’s thoughts about her husband.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Li Bai (李白), 701 ~ 762 A.D., whose ancestral home was in Gansu, was preceded by Li Guang, a general of the Han Dynasty. Tang poetry is one of the brightest constellations in the history of Chinese literature, and one of the brightest stars is Li Bai.
