How beautiful she looks, opening the pearly casement,
And how quiet she leans, and how troubled her brow is!
You may see the tears now, bright on her cheek,
But not the man she so bitterly loves.
Original Poem
「怨情」
李白
美人卷珠帘，深坐蹙蛾眉。
但见泪痕湿，不知心恨谁？
Interpretation
This boudoir-plaint poem by Li Bai explores a lovelorn woman's melancholy within inner chambers—a conventional Tang genre depicting feminine devotion and sorrow. Though renowned for his heroic abandon, Li Bai here adopts delicate brushwork to portray subtle emotional nuances, revealing an uncharacteristically restrained facet of his genius.
First Couplet: "美人卷珠帘，深坐蹙蛾眉。"
měi rén juǎn zhū lián, shēn zuò cù é méi.
The beauty rolls up beaded drapes; Sits deep with moth-eyebrows in crepe.
The poet captures her pensive gestures with economical precision. The act of rolling up curtains suggests oscillating between hope and resignation, while "sitting deep" implies emotional submersion. The "moth-eyebrows"—a conventional metaphor for feminine beauty—here appear crumpled (蹙), externalizing inner turmoil.
Second Couplet: "但见泪痕湿，不知心恨谁？"
dàn jiàn lèi hén shī, bù zhī xīn hèn shuí?
Only tear-streaks glisten clear— Whom does her heart's resentment sear?
The visible tears contrast with the rhetorical question's ambiguity. Li Bai's strategic "unknowing" (不知) creates interpretative space: Is her undefined resentment directed at an absent lover, societal constraints, or love's inherent pain? This calculated opacity universalizes her experience.
Comprehensive Analysis
Through minimalist scenes—a curtain adjusted, a seated figure, tear-stained cheeks—Li Bai constructs an entire emotional cosmology. The first couplet's restrained actions (roll, sit, frown) escalate into the second's visible sorrow (tears) and metaphysical inquiry (恨谁). This progression from concrete to abstract invites readers to project their own experiences onto the poem's lacunae.
Artistic Innovations
- Gestural symbolism: Each movement (rolling, sitting, frowning) encodes emotional states, substituting psychological exposition with physical poetry.
- Strategic ambiguity: The unanswered question transcends specific narrative to explore love's universal paradox—its simultaneous sweetness and torment.
- Perspective play: The observer's detached "unknowing" contrasts with the subject's intense feeling, creating dramatic tension.
Insights
Beyond romantic melancholy, the poem meditates on emotion's inscrutability. The woman's undefined "resentment" mirrors how love often resists rational parsing—it simply is. Li Bai suggests that profound feelings, like great poetry, thrive in ambiguity. Modern readers might discern feminist undertones: her enclosed space (珠帘, 深坐) symbolizes patriarchal constraints, while her silent tears become subversive testimony. Ultimately, the poem celebrates emotional complexity as proof of our shared humanity—a message transcending dynasties.
Poem translator
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet
Li Bai (李白), 701 - 762 A.D., whose ancestral home was in Gansu, was preceded by Li Guang, a general of the Han Dynasty. Tang poetry is one of the brightest constellations in the history of Chinese literature, and one of the brightest stars is Li Bai.
