Though a shower bends the river-grass, a bird is singing,
While ghosts of the Six Dynasties pass like a dream
Around the Forbidden City, under weeping willows
Which loom still for three miles along the misty moat.
Original Poem:
「台城」
韦庄
江雨霏霏江草齐， 六朝如梦鸟空啼。
无情最是台城柳， 依旧烟笼十里堤。
Interpretation:
This is a poem of nostalgia. During the late Tang Dynasty, the once prosperous Taicheng was already a deserted place.
The spring rain in Jiangnan is dense and fine, and in the falling rain, one can look around in a haze, like a smoke cover, giving people a dreamlike feeling. Jiangnan in the late spring in the rain is more gentle and graceful, and it is easy to evoke people’s confusion and despair.
In the second sentence, in the heavy rain in late spring, such as the blue grass is hidden between a deserted and dilapidated Taicheng. Bird crowing grass Qi, spring color long in, and once in the city of Taicheng to chase the joy of the six dynasties rulers have long become a history of hasty passers-by, luxurious and magnificent Taicheng has become a historical relics for tourists to hang on to.
In the last two lines, the willow is the symbol of spring. Willow branches swaying in the spring breeze, always give a person the feeling of thriving, reminding people of the prosperity of the situation. When the willows of Taicheng, decorated with ten miles of embankment, smoke and fog, is a symbol of Taicheng’s prosperity; today’s Taicheng is already a thousand doors and tens of thousands of homes full of weeds in a dilapidated place, while those willows are still smoke and fog, how “heartless” it seems!
The poet hangs on the monuments of Taicheng, recalling the old events of the six dynasties, can not help but have today’s view of the past, as if after the view of today’s feeling. The ominous premonition of the death of the country, this time has lingered in the poet’s mind.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the Poet:
Wei Zhuang (韦庄), circa 836 – 910 A.D., a native of Xi’an in the southeast of Shaanxi Province, was a scholar and a minister of the Ministry of Revenue. There is a collection of “Raccoon Flower Collections” in circulation.
