At a Snow-storm Night

雪夜宿芙蓉山主人

刘长卿

日 暮 苍 山 远，天 寒 白 屋 贫。

柴 门 闻 犬 吠，风 雪 夜 归 人。

At a Snow-storm Night

Liu Changqing

The green mountains appear far away when they are seen at twilight

His poor straw hut stands in coldness on the hillside.

When hearing a dog’s barks from his twig-made gate,

He knows someone is coming to stay with him at this snow storm night.

  Hi people! I still have many scripts and I found these days always be snow in our JYV, therefore I selected this one “at a snow-storm night”. But if you let me translate the title into English, I`ll never give this name because at a snow-storm night is just a free interpretation. If I translated directly it should be: Accommodation in the host of FuRong Mountains in a snow night.

  Liu Changqing, the author describes a picture of “Returing in snow” in the beginning. In the first piece of poem he says that now it`s twilight and the mountains are really far so looks a bit green in the visual angle. And then he also describes that it`s pretty cold outside and even the house looks totally white but inside the houst, it`s quite worn and not warm enough.

  After introducing the static view, the author starts to narrative: he hears the bark outside the wood door, he feels that the host is backing from the winds and snows.

  The views from this poem are very simple. Mountains, twilight, sky, snow, house, door, dog and a person, maybe it`s the whole life in the village or I mean in this mountain. The lively words, the sentences tend to the life, this poem only consists of 20 characters, but a hostee, a village house, the snowing evening, all of them are in the paper, you even can touch this miserable night from his words.

  The author guess the host is backing home because the home dog is barking.  Maybe it will be induce loudly echo. The barking break the peace of mountains meanwhile it injects the air of life into the inanimate environment. But it also brings more sorrow in this picture. 

A Message to Han Chuo the Yangzhou Magistrate

寄扬州韩绰判官

杜牧 

青山隐隐水迢迢，
秋尽江南草未凋。
二十四桥明月夜，
玉人何处教吹箫。 

A Message to Han Chuo the Yangzhou Magistrate
Du Mu(Author) 

There are faint green mountains and far green waters,
And grasses in this river region not yet faded by autumn;
And clear in the moon on the Twenty-Four Bridges,
Girls white as jade are teaching flute-music.

Note: Twenty-Four Bridges is the most famous scene in Yangzhou. It is composed with twenty-four bridges and there is always girls playing flute-music on these bridges.

  Today I post my favorite poet`s best work in my eyes. It`s a bit long and wired if you only notice on the title, yes I must admit it, but all is just from the translation. The receiver, I hope this word can be found in English dictionary, Han Chuo is Du Mu (the author)`s bosom friend, who was be an procurator at Yangzhou in that current administration. I will give more information and introduction in the following paragraphs.  This poem can be considered a message that the author recalled much distant and wonderful memory meanwhile wanna his old friend know it when he left Yangzhou.

  But this time I only could find one English version of this poem maybe because this one is not as famous as the formers.

  Now, let`s talk about the poem itself.

  The background is that city- Yangzhou, which is a quite important harbor in Asia, and also the almost biggest city in Chinses coast line, meanwhile it`s the window that China communicated with other countries.  The author was appointed by the government to be a magistrate, and Han Chuo is his colleague. They became friends very soon on account of common hobbies and desires of life and literature I guess.  But time flows away easily, it only could be a piece of old good days in their heart. Du Mu, the author sent this poem to Han Chuo when he was appointed to another area.  

  The first sentence describes the view in or out of Yangzhou city. It means you can see the mountains obscurely and the water in the lake seems wanna go a distant place but it`s really far far far away.  The second one says the grass still keep in green even now it`s the end of autumn. I assumed that Du Mu wanna express even though we are not in the same place and I leave Yangzhou right now, but we also have good life in these days and our friendship does not fade.

  Then the third sentence tells a static situation that and clear and beautiful moon and a bridge, I put the explanation below the poem, it`s a well-known bridge in Yangzhou and surrounding area meanwhile now it`s tourist resort within Yangzhou city. The last sentence asks a question that where those beautiful girl teach Xiao? (Xiao is a classical Chinese musical instrument likes flute.)  I think that the author recalled the Yangzhou`s landscape, busting and flourishing. But now he used “all the girls on the bridge are disappearing” to metaphor that “all the things are changing.”

  After analyzing this poem, I love it more. If you read it as Chinese language, you will find it`s in a lively and relaxed tone poem, but in fact the author are telling a sorrow feeling.  He said the plants do not fade in the beginning but he asked where the girls are at last looks like he complains that all the things he knew are different now. 

Meeting a Messenger Going to the Capital

逢入京使

岑参(Cen Shen)

故园东望路慢慢，

双袖龙钟泪不干。

马上相逢无纸笔，

凭君传话报平安。

Verison 1:

Meeting a Messenger Going to the Capital

Looking for my home far and far, far away in the east,

My sleeves have long been wet and are still with tears.

Meeting you while riding a horse I’ve got neither paper nor brush.

I’ll rely on you telling my folks I’m pretty well indeed.

Version 2:

It's a long way home, a long way east.

I am old and my sleeve is wet with tears.

We meet on horseback. I have no means of writing.

Tell them three words: "He is safe."

  Hi people! I have a really long time not updated the blog for you, sorry for making you worried and lost. But now I`m sure that I`m back and will give you more blogs constantly.

  Today it`s a quite simple one. The “SIMPLE” I mean you can read the English version, translator only choose the common words and plain sentence structure. Actually even if in the original version, the chinses one I mean, it also only consists of simple characters and phases. Sometimes you can consider that it`s a vital factor for this poem becoming a well-known one, because nearly all the people can read it and comprehend it.

  I put two distinct versions together in the former part as usual. Each time I just want to give a comparable thing for you that maybe you can understand this appointed poem completely from different translators. But this time I found that they have not any material contributions for you, and as a matter of fact I don’t like either of them. Therefore I do one version by myself.

I look back my home throughout the endless roads

Grief with tears dampening both of sleeves

I have not paper for writing my missing words

Just told them I am on the way but never leaves.

  The author, Cen Shen always be regarded as the symbol of Unconstraint style poetry, I`m not sure about this specialized noun, maybe it should be called Cavalier Poetry in Europe.

  This poem was written in 749AD, the author was promoted by the King to be am ambassador in frontier. He has to leave the hometown to the western area to fulfill his own missions, actually Cen Shen`s hometown was the capital of that time-Xi`an as that city `s current name, still be a significant city in contemporary China. In the ancient China, the transportation situation often be unsatisfied, if you far from your home, the letters become the only thing that you can accessible to your family, and delivering a letter means more than one month. Fortunately, Cen Shen came across a messenger on the road, he told the messenger: I have not anything can write right now, so please just tell my family in the capital, I`m safety.

  We mentioned that this is a simple poem, and now I hope you could understand that the words restricted by the writing condition, he must tell the messenger as simple as possible, so at last the author gave up all the flawless others, just “safety” is enough.

  Sometimes a simple approach is also can express feelings and beauty entirely.