I dismount from my horse and I offer you wine,
And I ask you where you are going and why.
And you answer: "I am discontent
And would rest at the foot of the southern mountain.
So give me leave and ask me no questions.
White clouds pass there without end."
Original Poem:
「送别」
王维
下马饮君酒， 问君何所之。
君言不得意， 归卧南山陲。
但去莫复闻， 白云无尽时。
Interpretation:
This is a poem about sending a friend back to his hometown.
In the first two lines, the poet takes wine and invites his friend to drink. The first two lines are about inviting you to drink wine and saying goodbye. The question leads to the following. This line also expresses the poet’s concern for his friend.
The third and fourth lines are the friend’s answer to the question, explaining the future direction – “to return to the southern mountain”, and explaining the reason for going back to seclusion – “not to be satisfied “. These two lines seem to be plain, but they imply his disillusioned dissatisfaction and helplessness. At the same time, also from the side implies that the poet’s sympathy for friends and the reality of the indignation of the feelings of injustice.
The fifth and sixth lines are the poet’s words of comfort to his friend. You just go on, I won’t ask any more. The world of those “unhappy” things have nothing to do with it, do not put on the heart, living in the mountains is enough to enjoy, enough to entertain themselves, see, the white clouds in the mountains endless. Here, the white clouds have become a symbol of seclusion, the poet himself is tired of the ups and downs of the civil service disputes, but also aspire to like the white clouds, free and carefree life. Here, the poet’s usual feelings of returning to his hermitage are also vaguely revealed.
This poem writes about his own ambition to go back to his hometown, to downplay the fame, express the intoxication of the white clouds, to find their own happiness. The first four lines are relatively plain, seems to be very meaningless, to the end of the last two lines, the poetic meaning suddenly thick, the rhyme suddenly increased, the meaning of endless overflowing.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Wang Wei (王维), 701-761 A.D., was a native of Yuncheng, Shanxi Province. Wang Wei was a poet of landscape and idylls. His poems of landscape and idylls, with far-reaching images and mysterious meanings, were widely loved by readers in later generations, but Wang Wei never really became a man of landscape and idylls.
