No cicadas trill when I first hear wild geese cry;
The high tower overlooks water blending with the sky.
The Moon Goddess and her Maid of Frost are cold-proof;
They vie in beauty in moonlight over frosty roof.
Original Poem
「霜月」
李商隐
初闻征雁已无蝉，百尺楼高水接天。
青女素娥俱耐冷，月中霜里斗婵娟。
Interpretation
This poem depicts a late autumn night scene observed from a waterside tower, where frost and moonlight create sublime beauty. Through this crystalline nocturnal imagery interwoven with mythological allusions, the poet expresses transcendental yearning for luminous purity while conveying detachment from worldly concerns.
First Couplet: "初闻征雁已无蝉，百尺楼高水接天。"
Chū wén zhēng yàn yǐ wú chán, bǎi chǐ lóu gāo shuǐ jiē tiān.
First cries of southbound geese replace dead cicada's song, From hundred-foot tower, water merges with sky along.
The seasonal transition is marked acoustically - the cicadas' cessation (无蝉) and geese's arrival (征雁) create an aural timeline of autumn's progression. The vertical perspective from the lofty tower enables the transcendent vista where water and sky dissolve into one continuous plane (水接天), foreshadowing the poem's later dissolution of natural and supernatural realms.
Second Couplet: "青女素娥俱耐冷，月中霜里斗婵娟。"
Qīng nǚ sù é jù nài lěng, yuè zhōng shuāng lǐ dòu chánjuān.
Frost Goddess and Moon Maiden, both cold-endearing, In lunar glow and icy rime, their beauty competing.
The personified Frost Goddess (青女) and Moon Maiden (素娥) embody natural phenomena as celestial beings whose cold-resistant grace symbolizes spiritual transcendence. Their aesthetic rivalry transforms winter's harshness into a divine spectacle, reflecting the poet's aloof elegance.
Holistic Appreciation
The poem interlaces observational precision with mythological imagination to construct a realm of sublime detachment. The opening couplet's panoramic view (vanishing cicadas, boundless water-sky) gives way to microscopic mythological drama in the closing lines. This shift from macrocosm to microcosm mirrors the poet's journey from earthly perception to spiritual ideation, where frost and moonlight become celestial maidens in eternal, luminous competition.
Artistic Merits
- Mythic Transfiguration: The seamless fusion of meteorological phenomena (frost/moonlight) with divine femininity (青女/素娥) creates layered symbolism
- Thermal Paradox: The celebration of cold's aesthetic potential subverts traditional autumn melancholy
- Dimensional Fluidity: The vertical movement from tower to celestial sphere enacts spiritual ascent
Insights
Beyond seasonal depiction, the poem formulates an existential stance where adversity (embodied by cold) becomes the very condition for sublime beauty. The Frost Goddess and Moon Maiden demonstrate how rigorous environments may cultivate rather than diminish grace - a metaphor for intellectual independence amidst political frost. Their eternal "competition" suggests that true excellence thrives not through worldly recognition but in self-contained perfection.
Poem translator
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
About the poet
Li Shangyin (李商隐), 813 - 858 AD, was a great poet of the late Tang Dynasty. His poems were on a par with those of Du Mu, and he was known as "Little Li Du". Li Shangyin was a native of Qinyang, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province. When he was a teenager, he lost his father at the age of nine, and was called "Zheshui East and West, half a century of wandering".
