Finch-notes and swallow-notes tell the new year... But so far are the Town of the Horse and the Dragon Mound From this our house, from these walls and Han Gardens, That the moon takes my heart to the Tartar sky. I have woven in the frame endless words of my grieving. Yet this petal-bough is smiling now on my lonely sleep. ...Oh, ask General Tou when his Bags will come home And his triumph be carved on the rock of Yen-jan Mountain!
Original Poem:
「春思」
皇甫冉
莺啼燕语报新年，马邑龙堆路几千。
家住层城邻汉苑，心随明月到胡天。
机中锦字论长恨，楼上花枝笑独眠。
为问元戎窦车骑，何时返旆勒燕然。
Interpretation:
This is a poem of a thinking woman who misses her husband who has gone on an expedition. The description and rendering of the spring scenery in the poem shows her longing for her husband even more.
The New Year is here, and birds such as warblers and swallows are crowing happily, but my husband is thousands of miles away at the border. The contrast between the joyful and lively spring and the solitude of the thinking woman in her bosom and her husband’s being far away from the border shows the loneliness of the thinking woman.
The last two lines specifically write out the thinking woman’s home in the capital, and with the palace as a neighbor, but the thinking woman’s heart with the bright moon to the northern border of the husband’s war place.
Woven in the machine back to the brocade characters in the expression of a long time can not see their husbands deep longing, upstairs window open flowers seem to laugh at my sleeplessness. The last two lines of the poem directly express the heartfelt feelings of the woman in her bosom, when will she be able to defeat the Xiong Nu like Dou Xian did, so that her husband can come back home and the family can enjoy the happiness of heaven!
The poem not only expresses the longing of the woman for her husband, who has been fighting for years, but also expresses her hope for an early end of the war, as well as her dissatisfaction with the war and her anti-war sentiment.
About the poet:
Huangfu Ran (716-769 AD) was a native of Jingchuan North in Gansu. In 756 A.D., he received his bachelor’s degree and was authorized as a lieutenant of Wuxi. One of the “ten geniuses of the Dali”, like to travel with the foreigners, the poems are mostly written in the eunuchs wandering feelings and the leisure of the landscape.
