Good rain knows its time right,
It will fall when comes spring.
With wind it steals in night;
Mute, it wets everything.
Over wild lanes dark cloud spreads;
In boat a lantern looms.
Dawn sees saturated reds;
The town's heavy with blooms.
Original Poem:
「春夜喜雨」
杜甫
好雨知时节，当春乃发生。
随风潜入夜，润物细无声。
野径云俱黑，江船火独明。
晓看红湿处，花重锦官城。
Interpretation:
This is Du Fu's masterpiece depicting the rainy spring night scene and expressing his joyful mood. At that time, with the help of his relatives and friends, as well as his own painstaking management, Du Fu had basically completed his Raccoon Flower Cao Tang. After a long period of displacement and suffering, Du Fu's life was finally stabilized for the time being, so he had the time to make in-depth observation and careful consideration of the natural scenery in Chengdu, and based on this, he composed a number of poems to sing about them.
The first two lines: The good rain knows that it rains at the right time of the season, when plants sprout and grow in the spring.
At the beginning of the poem, Du Fu praises the rain that falls on a spring night as “good rain”, why is it “good rain”? Why is it “good rain”? Because in the spring, crops need rain very much to be moisturized. The rain falls when it is needed, and here it is depicted by anthropomorphism, treating the spring rain as if it is sentient.
The third and fourth sentences:: With the spring wind falling quietly in the night, silently moisturizing all things in the spring.
Because the rain falls at night, the poet focuses on depicting the rain scene from the “sense of hearing”. The rain is fine and cannot be sudden, and gradually disappears with the color of the night. It comes quietly, silently, unnoticed by people, so it is called “sneaking into the night”, but also appropriately expresses its valuable spirit.
The fifth and sixth sentences: the rainy night in the field paths in the dark, only the lights on the river boat alone flickering.
Further depicting the night rain scenery. Since it is raining at night, the clouds are thick, and the sky and the ground are a dark mass, which just shows that the rain is thick. In a world of blackness, only the boat on the river radiates a ray of light, and it seems particularly bright. This is an extremely vivid picture of a night scene in the rain.
The last two lines: when the day dawned, I looked at the rain-wetted flowers, beautiful and red, the whole city of Jin Guan has become a world of blossoming flowers.
Finally, the poet imagines that if the rain falls all night long, everything will get enough water to grow and prosper, and one of the flowers, the flower that best represents the color of spring, will also open up with the rain, and the red color will be dripping. If you don't believe me, wait until dawn and take a look! The whole city of Chengdu is a sea of flowers, how beautiful and spectacular ah!
This poem is so delicate and moving that one can breathe a delightful spring breath between the lines.
Poem translator:
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
About the poet:
Du Fu (杜甫), 712 - 770 AD, was a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, known as the "Sage of Poetry". Born into a declining bureaucratic family, Du Fu had a rough life, and his turbulent and dislocated life made him keenly aware of the plight of the masses. Therefore, his poems were always closely related to the current affairs, reflecting the social life of that era in a more comprehensive way, with profound thoughts and a broad realm. In his poetic art, he was able to combine many styles, forming a unique style of "profound and thick", and becoming a great realist poet in the history of China.
