江城子 (note 1)
jiāng chéng zǐ
(Tune to) River Town
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乙卯正月二十日夜記夢 (note 2)
Yǐ mǎo Zhēngyuè èrshí rìyè jì mèng
Recalling a dream in the night of the twentieth of the first lunar month of Yi- Mao Year
蘇軾
Sū Shì
十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘。
shí nián shēng sǐ máng máng , bù sī liàng , zì nán wàng .
Ten years, life and death both have been vast and boundless. Even I don’t intentionally think of you, my missing for you is spontaneous.
千里孤墳，無處話淒涼。
qiān lǐ gū fén , wú chù huà qī liáng .
Away ten thousand miles, your lonely grave, I have no place to talk to you about all the desolation ( I feel).
縱使相逢應不識，塵滿面，鬢如霜。
zòng shǐ xiāng féng yīng bù shí , chén mǎn miàn , bìn rú shuāng .
Even if we see each other again, you probably wouldn’t be able to recognize me – my face is (now) full of dust, and the hair on my temple is like frost (quite different from the I ten years ago).
夜來幽夢忽還鄉，小軒窗，正梳妝。
yè lái yōu mèng hū huán xiāng , xiǎo xuān chuāng , zhèng shū zhuāng .
In the night, in a remote and dim dream, suddenly you returned hometown. By the window of the pavilion, you were combing your hair and getting dressed up.
相顧無言，惟有淚千行。
Xiāng gù wú yán , wéi yǒu lèi qiān háng .
We looked at each other (in the eyes) without saying any words, only to stream down thousand rows’ tears.
料得年年腸斷處，明月夜，短松岡。
liào de nián nián cháng duàn chǔ , míng yuè yè , duǎn sōng gāng .
I know that year after year, I will be overwhelmed with grief in the bright moon light, at the newly grown pine trees by your grave mound.
Translated by Shu
Note:
(1) 江城子 is the tune of the poem. For the tune of Ci, it is also called Cipai 词牌. We can see a lot of Ci with the same tune, however, their topic is different. Thus, there are a lot of Ci named 江城子, for they all use the same form and regulation of it — such as, how many characters in each line, the tone rules, and rhyming requirement etc.. The topic of this Ci is 乙卯正月二十日夜記夢 – Recalling a dream in the night of the twentieth of the first lunar month of Yi- Mao Year.
(2) 乙卯: Since thousand years ago, Chinese people use 干支 to record days and years. The way they use the 10 heavenly stems 十天干 and 12 earthly branches 十二地枝 to record days and years forms sexagenary cycle -a cycle of sixty terms. In 60-cycle term, 乙卯 yǐ-mǎo is 52 of 60. It is in the year of 1075.
Poem Analysis:
This Ci poem is written to the tune of 江城子 River town / Riverside city. 蘇軾 Su Shi (1037-1101) married young at age 19, and his wife, 王弗 wáng fú (1039–1065), was 16. Wang Fu was young, pretty, gentle and kind, and Su Shi loved his wife deeply. Unfortunately, his wife died of illness at the age of 27. Since then, Su Shi remained in grief and never forgot about her. Even after ten years, he was still dreaming about his beloved dead wife. When he woke up, he wrote the poem to express the love and missing he had for Wang Fu. True love lasts forever, doesn’t it?
Line by line analysis:
十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘。
shí nián shēng sǐ máng máng , bù sī liàng , zì nán wàng .
In those ten years, Su Shi and Wang Fu were at different worlds. The alive one was in the human world, the dead one was in the heaven or the unknown world. There were boundless and vast distance between them. However, did he forget about her because a long time, ten years, had passed and the great distance was between them? No, he did not. Forever love is not out of sight, out of mind one. It goes beyond life and death.
So, even she died for so long, she was still on his mind a lot. He did not need to think of her, however, the thought of her came spontaneously. It is like Wang Fu was engraved in his mind. It is good in one way, but sad in the other way. Good is that he was able to have her forever on his mind, sad is she would not be able to be there for him anymore. Thus, the thought of her, only brought him sorrow again and again till the day he died. Haunting love it is, isn’t it.
千里孤墳，無處話淒涼。
qiān lǐ gū fén , wú chù huà qī liáng .
Due to Su Shi’s official career, he had to move from place to place. The place where his wife’s grave was was thousand miles away from where he lived at that time. If someone we love died, sometimes, we would like to go to the grave site and talked to the dead just like before when they were still living. However, it is pretty sad that Su Shi did not even have a grave to go to, to cry on or to touch upon the dirt or grass of the tomb where his loved got buried. So, so much grieve and sorrow whom could he share with? None! All the desolation he could only bury it in himself. We should give the poor Su Shi a hug.
縱使相逢應不識，塵滿面，鬢如霜。
zòng shǐ xiāng féng yīng bù shí , chén mǎn miàn , bìn rú shuāng .
Then Su shi thought and thought. He thought at that moment, if he and his wife meet again, probably she would not be able to recognize him. For after these tormenting ten years, he aged a lot due to his eventful life and his grieving for her. Dust on face 塵滿面 is a metaphor, just to say that his life was always on the move because of numerous unfortunate events or job relocation. When people live without worries, it says they don’t tend to get grey early unless they got immature genes. Most people aged badly due to life calamity, and one of the obvious sign is grey hair growing rapidly. Frost-like hair on the temple, it made Su Shi looked wise, but also ancient.
夜來幽夢忽還鄉，小軒窗，正梳妝。
yè lái yōu mèng hū huán xiāng , xiǎo xuān chuāng , zhèng shū zhuāng .
In that night, he dreamed his wife suddenly came back to their hometown of ten years ago. His pretty young wife was sitting by the window of the pavilion where they lived at that time, and she was combing and grooming herself. Su Shi definitely loved gazing at her a lot, so all those little moments of her filled in his mind’s eyes like a digital camera, vividly and with great details. The way how she tilted her head and combed the hair ….
相顧無言，惟有淚千行。
Xiāng gù wú yán , wéi yǒu lèi qiān háng .
Was this a happy reunion? No it was not. For all they could do was looking at each other in the eyes and crying, letting the emotion flow, crying their heart out, and getting their hearts broken again once more. Think of thousand streaming rows of tears … Have you ever cried a lot for a person you love? If so, you might know how it feels – endless sadness …
料得年年腸斷處，明月夜，短松岡。
liào de nián nián cháng duàn chǔ , míng yuè yè , duǎn sōng gāng .
Maybe the wetness on Su Shi’s face woke him up, ended his brief reunion with his wife. The tormenting grieve he experienced in the dream, he expected that would continue reliving year after year, in the bright moon light, at the short pine trees grown grave mound of his wife. Moon is a magical symbol in Chinese culture. Before, when Chinese people missed their loved ones, they liked to gaze at the moon, and they thought their loved ones would be watching the moon and missing them at the same time. Through the moon, they got connected in a way in those old years of no phones, no video chats …
About the poet – Su Shi 蘇軾 / 苏轼
Su Shi ( 蘇軾 /苏轼 / Sū Shì) (January 8, 1037 – August 24, 1101), was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher, pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman of the Song Dynasty (9960 – 1279). His courtesy name was 子瞻 Zizhan and his pseudonym was 東坡居士 Dongpo Jushi, and he is often referred to as 蘇東坡 Su Dongpo. (Jushi is a noun which means a person who lived a reclusive life after resigning from work in the government in ancient time. )
Su Shi held many official positions during his life and was well liked by the people whom he served. However, for his writing poem to criticize prime minister 王安石 Wang Anshi’s reform measures, he was banished from the mainland. When he was in exile, although he holding a nominal title, he had no stipend and lived in poverty. Due to the difficulty of life, he began Buddhist meditation. He later built a small house on 東坡 Dongpo (Eastern Slope), from which he took his literary pseudonym. Su Shi was the best scholar of his time. His writings are creative and impressive for their variety in form. He also painted very well and wrote wonderful calligraphy with changeable, artless and immense style.
There is an interesting biography article about Su Shi, if you are interested:
Su Shi – One of Chinese Greatest Genius
http://history.cultural-china.com/en/59History147.html
There is an all Chinese version of explanation about this poem, you might want to try to understand the Chinese interpretation of this poem, now that you know the fundamental concept of this Ci poem:
十年生死兩茫茫，不思量，自難忘
海鸣威 Hai ming wei 你的承诺 Ni de cheng nuo Your promise
For lyrics, pinyin, and English translation, see http://www.chinesetolearn.com/?p=2952
