A girl of the Lu Clan who lives in Golden-Wood Hall,
Where swallows perch in pairs on beams of tortoise shell,
Hears the washing-mallets’ cold beat shake the leaves down.
The Liaoyang expedition will be gone ten years,
And messages are lost in the White Wolf River.
Here in the City of the Red Phoenix autumn nights are long,
Where one who is heart-sick to see beyond seeing,
Sees only moonlight on the yellow-silk wave of her loom.
Original Poem:
「独不见」
沈佺期
卢家少妇郁金堂，海燕双栖玳瑁梁。
九月寒砧催木叶，十年征戍忆辽阳。
白狼河北音书断，丹凤城南秋夜长。
谁为含愁独不见，更教明月照流黄。
Interpretation:
This poem is about a young woman’s nostalgia for her husband who has been away for a long time. The poet describes the young woman’s loneliness and sorrow in the autumn night with cold anvils and falling leaves, in the middle of a gorgeous house, but her heart is miles away, tossing and turning, unable to sleep at night.
The poet expresses the feelings of separation and lovesickness, and uses the seagulls to express the lonely mood of the thinking woman. Heavy color and thick ink exaggeratedly depicted the young woman’s boudoir of the gorgeous, even the seagulls also flew to the double perch. The young woman sees the tenderness of the seagulls and their flights, and hears the sound of the west wind blowing the leaves and the frequent sound of pounding clothes, which further evokes the young woman’s sadness in her heart, as her husband and son-in-law are far away in Liaoyang, and have been gone for ten years. Her bitter memory, also has been a full ten years! In this anxiety, the sound of cold anvil, autumn leaves, how to sleep? What’s more, that round of annoying bright moon, even came to make fun, through the window screen to flow yellow tent illuminated brightly dazzling people’s eyes, to the sadness on the sadness.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the Poet:
Shen Quanqi(沈佺期) was a native of Neihuang, Henan Province, circa 656-714 AD. He and Song Zhiwen were both important poets in the early Tang Dynasty, and were known as “Shen and Song”. He and Song Zhiwen not only had similar life experiences, but also had similar poetic tendencies, mostly in response to the systematic poems of whitewashing and promotion, but also in some works with a more life-like flavor.
