Leaning alone in the close bamboos,
I am playing my lute and humming a song
Too softly for anyone to hear --
Except my comrade, the bright moon.
Original Poem:
「竹里馆」
王维
独坐幽篁里， 弹琴复长啸。
深林人不知， 明月来相照。
Interpretation:
This is a famous piece by Wang Wei, which expresses the poet’s idle and peaceful life when he was secluded in Rim River.
In the first two lines, he sits alone in a quiet bamboo forest, playing the zither while singing and wailing.
The poet writes about a fresh and dusty environment in which he adds his own activities – sitting alone and playing the zither. In that late at night, in the quiet of the deep forest, there are a few faint sounds of the zither, or a clear whistling sound breaks through the night sky, it is such a dashing and dusty mood.
The last two sentences: no one knows in the deep forest, only a bright moon quietly with me.
Here the author introduces a new imagery – the bright moon. Here, the bright moon is not only a symbol of high purity of the imagery, the poet’s image; here, it is more like and the poet like-minded a friend, in the forest to accompany the poet. Read this sentence carefully, it seems to be able to glimpse the poet’s feelings: I elegant and dusty feelings in the world can not be understood, but what does it matter? The noble moon understands me, and comforts and accompanies me with its bright moonlight.
This poem consists of four lines, and is very plain and uninteresting in its phrasing. But the beauty of the poem lies in its natural and plain tone, which depicts a fresh and refreshing mood of a moonlit night in a secluded forest.
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.
