A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day;
The mourner's heart is going to break on his way.
Where can a wine shop be found to drown his sad hours?
A cowherd points to a cot amid apricot flowers.
Original Poem:
「江南春」
杜牧
千里莺啼绿映红，水村山郭酒旗风。
南朝四百八十寺，多少楼台烟雨中。
Interpretation:
This is a very famous poem about scenery, a small piece that paints a vast picture. It does not take a specific place as the object, but focuses on the unique scenery of the whole Jiangnan.
In the first two lines, the warblers and swallows are singing and dancing everywhere in the vast Jiangnan, and the wine flags are fluttering everywhere in the villages, cottages and towns at the foot of the mountains.
At the beginning of the poem, the poet liberalizes his vision and imagines the whole Jiangnan land from the spring scenery in front of him. The thousands of miles of rivers and mountains are filled with warblers and swallows, red peaches and green willows, a scene of spring. Then, in the villages near the water and the cities on the mountains, there are wine flags waving in the wind everywhere.
The last two lines: Many ancient temples left behind by the Southern Dynasty, how many of them are now covered in the misty rain.
The Southern Dynasty refers to the four dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen before the Sui Dynasty after the Eastern Jin Dynasty, all of which had their capitals in Jiankang. The Southern Dynasty left behind more than 480 ancient temples and countless buildings all shrouded in smoke and rain. Here, the poet through the combination of reality and reality, there is in front of the history, the heart is incomparable emotion - history is always evolving and changing, the change of dynasties is also inevitable. Here, the poet with an aesthetic eye, enjoying the natural beauty of the spring of Jiangnan; the poet with a profound thinking, through time and space, to realize the aesthetic significance of history and culture.
This poem reflects that the aesthetics of Chinese poetry and painting is beyond time and space, indifferent and free, with the idea of “epiphany” of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and what they express are mostly thoughts of the old and nostalgia for the faraway, reclusion, and the poetic mood.
Poem translator:
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
About the poet:
Du Mu (杜牧), 803-853 AD, was a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Among the poets of the Late Tang Dynasty, he was one of those who had his own characteristics, and later people called Li Shangyin and Du Mu as "Little Li and Du". His poems are bright and colorful.
