Its massive height near the City of Heaven
Joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea.
Clouds, when I look back, close behind me,
Mists, when I enter them, are gone.
A central peak divides the wilds
And weather into many valleys.
...Needing a place to spend the night,
I call to a wood-cutter over the river.
Original Poem:
「终南山」
王维
太乙近天都， 连山接海隅。
白云回望合， 青霭入看无。
分野中峰变， 阴晴众壑殊。
欲投人处宿， 隔水问樵夫。
Interpretation:
Written in 741 A.D. when Wang Wei was secluded at Zhongnan Mountain, the poem aims to marvel at the grandeur and magnificence of Zhongnan Mountain.
The first two lines: The lofty Zhongnan Mountain is high into the sky, close to the residence of the Emperor of Heaven. The endless mountains extend to the distant shores of the great sea.
Here the technique of hyperbole is used. The mountains are so high that they are close to the heavenly abode, which is of course extremely high; the mountains are so stretched out that they can extend from the vicinity of Chang’an to the coast of the sea, which is of course extremely far away. The mountains are so high that they are close to heaven, and the mountains stretch from Chang’an to the sea.
The third and fourth lines: looking back at the mountain white clouds rolled into one, the green mist into the mountain are not seen.
Write around the scenery, write in the mountains of what you see, the clouds are wonderful. The clouds and mists are synthesized into a single piece when you look back, but you can’t see them when you get closer. Wang Wei’s simple cross evokes the impression of someone who has traveled in the mountains.
Sentences 5 and 6: Zhongnan Mountain stretches out and covers a wide area, the divisions on both sides of the peak have changed, and the weather in the valleys is also changing, different from each other.
Still writing scenery. The author based on the peak, looking around the feeling – the greatness of Zhongnan Mountain, so that the peak of the separation, the division of the field has changed; due to the mountains have a cover, the strength of the sunlight of the mountains are not the same, this side of the sunshine, the other side is a dark cloud.
The last two lines: I want to find a home in the mountains to stay, across the water to ask the woodcutter can be convenient?
In the last line, the poet suddenly changed his mind and stopped writing about the scenery and wrote that he wanted to stay in a house in the mountains and asked the woodcutter across the water, which added a kind of dynamic beauty to the whole poem.
And the reason why this poem can be in forty words all-inclusive, the key is the poet is not heavy on the detailed drawing of the various forms of the mountain, but the extreme rendering of the charm of the mountain, and ultimately to the strong force of the pen, the majestic momentum for the large one Zhongnan Mountain for a divine portrayal of the Zhongnan Mountain, written Zhongnan Mountain’s tall, majestic, deep.
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.
