Why won't you stay on Southern River any more?
Why leave its water clear, sand bright and mossy shore?
You cannot bear the grief revealed in the moonlight
By the Princess' twenty-five strings, so you take flight.
Original Poem:
「归雁」
钱起
潇湘何事等闲回，水碧沙明两岸苔。
二十五弦弹夜月，不胜清怨却飞来。
Interpretation:
Qian Qi was working in northern China for a long time at that time. When he saw the geese returning from the south, he was touched by his feelings and wrote this poem.
The first two lines: Why did you come back so easily from such a beautiful place as the Xiaoshui Xiangshui? The water there is clear, the sand is clean, and there is moss on the bank for you to forage, why do you refuse to stay?
Geese as a migratory birds, whenever spring, from the south back to the north is a very normal natural phenomenon, but the poet wants to ask questions, even with two lines of questioning, intentionally on the return of the geese expressed puzzlement, asking why the return of the geese to leave that beautiful environment, abundant grass and water Xiangjiang River and come back.
In the last two lines, the geese replied: the god of Xiang Ling played the tune of Cer in the moonlight night is too sad, I can't bear that sad tune, and I had to leave Xiaoxiang and flew back to the north.
The third and the fourth lines answer for the geese: the goddess of Xiangjiang River played the zither under the moonlight night, and the sound of the zither was so sad that the geese couldn't bear to listen to it any more, so they flew back to the north. These two lines use the legend of Xiangling's drumming. According to the legend, the goddess of Xiangshui is good at drumming the qin. The qin originally had fifty strings, but because of the goddess's mournful sound, God changed it to twenty-five strings. The poet plays a rich imagination and uses the beautiful myth to show the readers the sadness of Xiang Ling's drumming, which intentionally shapes the image of the geese, who are sentimental and know music well.
When the geese hear Xiang Ling's sad sound full of homesickness, they are filled with nostalgia, and they can't bear the thought of being detained, so they leave the beautiful and affluent Xiangjiang River and fly back to the north. With the help of geese full of traveler's sadness, the poet euphemistically expresses the traveler's sadness of living in another country.
The poem is skillfully conceived, rich in imagination and meaningful. With its unique artistic characteristics, it has become one of the most famous poems about geese.
Poem translator:
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
Qian Qi (钱起, 722-780 A.D.)was a poet of the Tang Dynasty, Han nationality, and a native of Wuxing (now Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province), who was one of the “Ten Talents of the Dali” and the “Champion of the Ten Talents of the Dali”. In his early years, he was unsuccessful in several examinations, but finally he was admitted as a scholar in 751 AD.
