[ca_audio url=”http://www.chinesetolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/old-poem.mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player”]
古诗十九首
gǔ shī shí jiǔ shǒu
Nineteen old poems
Poem One
行行重行行
xíng xíng chóng xíng xíng
Walking again and again
行行重行行，与君生别离。(1)
xíng xíng chóng xíng xíng, yǔ jūn shēng bié lí .
Walk and walk, again, walk and walk; you and I separate while still alive.
相去万余里，各在天一涯； (2)
xiāng qù wàn yú lǐ , gè zài tiān yī yá ；
We are ten thousand Chinese miles apart; each other is at the opposite side of sky.
道路阻且长，会面安可知？
dào lù zǔ qiě zhǎng , huì miàn an1 kě zhī ?
The road is obstructed as well as long; how could we know whether or not we can see each other again?
胡马倚北风，越鸟朝南枝。(3)
hú mǎ yǐ běi fēng , yuè niǎo cháo nán zhī .
Barbarian horses lean toward the northern wind; Yue birds rest on the south facing branches.
相去日已远，衣带日已缓；
xiāng qù rì yǐ yuǎn , yī dài rì yǐ huǎn ；
We have been away from each other further and further as days go by; the belt of my clothes has been getting looser and looser day after day.
浮云蔽白日，游子不顾返。
fú yún bì bái rì , yóu zǐ bù gù fǎn .
Floating cloud blocks the white sun; traveler is not willing to return.
思君令人老，岁月忽已晚。
sī jūn lìng rén lǎo , suì yuè hū yǐ wǎn .
My longing for you made me old; suddenly time has reached the end of the year.
弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭。
qì juān wù fù dào , nǔ lì jiā cān fàn .
Abandon the thoughts, don’t mention them anymore; please try hard to eat more of your meal.
Notes
(1) 重 chóng means again.
(2) The li (里, lǐ) is a traditional Chinese measurement unit of distance, which has varied considerably over times but now has a standardized length of 500 meters or half a kilometer (approx. 1640 feet).
(3) 胡马倚北风，越鸟朝南枝
胡 Hu in ancient times was used to refer to a few “barbarian” groups on the northern and western frontiers of China. Long ago, 越 Yue was a minority ethic group in southern China.
Background information about Nineteen Old Poems
Nineteen Old Poems (古诗十九首; Gu shi shi jiu shou) is an anthology of Chinese poems, consisting of nineteen poems collected during 汉 Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). The authorship of Nineteen Old Poems is unknown. It is reasonable to guess they were written by different poets from that period of time. The name 古诗十九首 first appears in 梁 Liang Dynasty (502-557) anthology Wenxuan 文選 (Selections of Literature) by Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–531). All nineteen poems are written in the style of five-syllable verses (五言詩 wuyan shi).
A lot of Nineteen Old Poems describe upheaval political situation brought middle or lower class citizens a lot of miseries in life — separation, sickness, and death. Thus, often we can see the themes portray the hardship of journey, the sorrow of bidding farewell to parents and family, and they also moan about shortness of life and the people’s helplessness in poverty and illness. Some poems also mention the lavish life of aristocracy and the wealth it possesses. Love between couples, or the desire to live forever also are themes too. Many poems are written from the view of women, about their longing for their traveling husband or lamenting his infidelity or death. These poems greatly influence the development of Chinese poetry and also offer us a deeper and truthful view about the living condition and social situation of Han Dynasty.
There are totally nineteen poems of them, and this is the first poem. The titles of these nineteen poems are:
《行行重行行》、《青青河畔草》、《青青陵上柏》、《今日良宴会》、《西北有高楼》、《涉江采芙蓉》、《明月皎夜光》、《冉冉孤生竹》、《庭中有奇树》、《迢迢牵牛星》、《回车驾言迈》、《东城高且长》、《驱车上东门》、《去者日以疏》、《生年不满百》、《凛凛岁云暮》、《孟冬寒气至》、《客从远方来》、《明月何皎皎》。
[ xíng xíng chóng xíng xíng] , [ qīng qīng hé pàn cǎo ] , [ qīng qīng líng shàng bǎi ] , [ jīn rì liáng yàn huì ] , [ xī běi yǒu gāo lóu ] ,
[ shè jiāng cǎi fú róng] , [ míng yuè jiǎ yè guāng ] , [ rǎn rǎn gū shēng zhú ] , [ tíng zhōng yǒu qí shù ] , [ tiáo tiáo Qiān niú xīng ] ,
[ Huí chē jià yán mài ] , [ dōng chéng gāo qiě cháng ] , [ qū chē shàng dōng mén ] , [ qù zhě rì yǐ shū ] , [ shēng nián bù mǎn bǎi ] , [ lǐn lǐn suì yún mù ] , [ mèng dōng hán qì zhì ] , [ kè cóng yuǎn fāng lái ] , [ míng yuè hé jiǎ jiǎ ] .
Poem analysis:
行行重行行，与君生别离。(1)
xíng xíng chóng xíng xíng, yǔ jūn shēng bié lí .
The first two lines describe the scene of parting — the wife was seeing the husband walking away in a slow motion mode which appeared again and again in her mind’s eye. Walk and walk, again, walk and walk. What is the saddest thing on earth? For different person, the answer varies. For the lady in this poem, the saddest thing is her husband had to be away to a far away place, for a job or a business trip, might be? For that reason, she had to stay home and suffer the misery of missing the one she loved. Remember, in those ancient times there were no invention of phones or computers, so no text massages, no video camera …
相去万余里，各在天一涯； (2)
xiāng qù wàn yú lǐ , gè zài tiān yī yá ；
Where did the husband go? Not to the town that she could reach by walking for 20 minutes or 2 hours, but to a place that was ten thousand miles away. So, for her it seemed that she and he were under the same sky, but at the opposite side of it. The distance was so great, so was her sadness and helplessness.
道路阻且长，会面安可知？
dào lù zǔ qiě zhǎng , huì miàn an1 kě zhī ?
Nowadays, you can reach the opposite cities of the world by airplanes, and you can even explore outer space if you have enough funding. However, during those old old time, they had only horses and their own two feet.
The road to where he was, ten thousand Chinese miles away, was not only long but also obstructed, so she could not help but wondered would she be able to see him again?
胡马倚北风，越鸟朝南枝。(3)
hú mǎ yǐ běi fēng , yuè niǎo cháo nán zhī .
In ancient time, Hu were ethic groups lived on the north or west frontiers of China. Compared to the refined culture of Han people, the Hu people were considered as barbarians. Yue is the minority group in the south of China. These two lines explain that not only people who are living in foreign land miss their hometown, even the animals do. So, the horses from the north, they like to lean toward the northern wind, and the south birds like to rest on the branches that are facing the south – where they come from. However, how about the husband of her? Did he miss his hometown and remember that he had a wife waiting for him to come home?
相去日已远，衣带日已缓；
xiāng qù rì yǐ yuǎn , yī dài rì yǐ huǎn ；
As days went by, as the husband kept walking toward his travel destination, the distance between she and her husband was getting further and further. How did she feel? She felt pretty sad, the misery did not bring she normal appetite. As a result, she was losing weight quickly. How we know that? The belt of her clothing was getting looser and looser. People of these days might jump up and down about the success of weight loss, however, at that time of chaotic political situation, food was scanty and so she was not healthy fit as we portray in our mind, more likely, severe under weight.
浮云蔽白日，游子不顾返。
fú yún bì bái rì , yóu zǐ bù gù fǎn .
Why the traveling husband did not want to come back? The poem doesn’t directly tell us why. However, from the floating cloud blocks white sun, we can guess that the floating cloud is something like omen, something that blocks the warm sunshine. Who was her sunshine? The traveler was. However, the sunshine got blocked by the cloud. The cloud can be a bad situation that hindered her husband’s returning home. What the cloud implies here? A worse health condition? A job dilemma? Or another woman ?
The possibilities were many, and these made her mind spin and spin, think and think…
思君令人老，岁月忽已晚。
sī jūn lìng rén lǎo , suì yuè hū yǐ wǎn .
Longing for someone can make people grow old fast, and then she suddenly realized time flew so quickly — it was almost the end of the year. It had been a long long time since he left …
弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭。
qì juān wù fù dào , nǔ lì jiā cān fàn .
There were a lot of questions about why the traveler had not yet come home. So many thoughts and worries made her depressed, worried and sad. Therefore, she told herself : don’t think about those things; what good to think about them? Then, she focused her thoughts on the well being of the person she loved and wished him eat more and take very good care of himself more….
潘越云 – 浮生千山路
Pan yue yun – Fu sheng qian shan lu Thousand mountains road of floating life
[ca_audio url=”http://www.chinesetolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player”]
I love this song since I was little, and I think it is one of the most poetic and beautiful Chinese songs, for it’s lyrics, pinyin and translation, please see
http://www.chinesetolearn.com/?p=661