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 poem is a poem on the theme of boudoir grudge, depicting a beautiful woman who waits for her beloved but fails to arrive, thus turning her love into grudge and feeling sorrowful and miserable. The poet expresses this theme mainly through the actions, expressions and psychological portrayal of the beauty.
In the first two lines of the poem, the poet writes that the beauty rolls up the pearl curtain and sits for a long time with her moth brows locked. The poet portrays a woman’s sorrowful love psychology in the midst of waiting through her actions and gestures, such as rolling up the curtain, sitting deeply, frowning, etc. The third line describes her tearful and wet face. The third line describes that she is wet with tears. The characterisation is meticulous and vivid, so that the beauty of the emotional changes from love to resentment, love to hate, because the beloved does not come to the pain of a lot of grievances in front of us. However, the eye of the poem is in the last line.
The beauty of the poem because of the beloved person poured all their emotions, in her love after the failure, naturally to give birth to infinite resentment. But the poet says, “I don’t know who I hate”, which is a knowing question. The reader knows very well that the person she hates is the one she loves, the one she has been waiting for. From the objective effect, the last line “I don’t know who I hate” also has the subtext of “I don’t know why I hate”. Although the poet did not raise this question, but left the reader with such imagination space: what is the reason for this woman’s annoyance? Is it because the man has a new love and abandoned her, or is it because the woman is originally unrequited, or is it because the man himself is not free to act and is obstructed by his family? The list goes on and on. The last line also plays another role, that is, by enlightening the reader’s association, expanding the connotation space of the poem, making the poem more implicit and inexhaustible. Therefore, the seemingly straightforward “I don’t know who I hate” plays a considerable role in expanding the meaning of the poem.
In this poem, the poet, with a sympathetic and understanding heart, writes about the beauty of a woman, not only in her eyebrow, but also in her bitter and innocent love for each other. This is the so-called “the scene in front of me in the poem, the words are endless, but the meaning is endless”.
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.
