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.