Tang poetry: 山居秋暝 – Autumn Evening in the Mountain by Wang Wei

I’ve been posting so many long, arduous reads for advanced students, today I thought I’d keep it short and sweet. Today’s post is a Tang Dynasty poem written by Wang Wei (王维, c. 701–761), also known as Mojie. During his lifetime, Wang was a prolific poet, and also traveled widely as a civil servant / official, working for the emperor. I picked up this poem from Phil H.’s Tang Poetry Substack, which you should absolutely subscribe to if you want to practice reading the classical poets, but I made a different translation of the text.

Some language stuff

In my view, the first two couplets are quite simple, while the next two become increasingly difficult. The line 竹喧归浣女 is a little difficult to untangle, so I’ll go word-by-word:

竹 – Bamboo
喧 – Makes a sound
归 – Return
浣女 – Washer-woman

You might translate this as, “The bamboo rustles with the sound of washer-women returning [to the village].” Notice the way the word order works here:

竹 – Bamboo (single-character noun)
喧 – Makes a sound (single-character verb stating what the first noun does)
归 – Return (single-character verb stating what the second noun does)
浣女 – Washer-woman (double-character noun)

With this understood, the next bit is easier to untangle. In this style of Tang poetry, paired lines often match each other in terms of word order / types of words used. So the next part, 莲动下渔舟, follows this pattern:

莲 – Lotus (single-character noun)
动 – Moves (single-character verb stating what the first noun does)
下 – Go down (single-character verb stating what the second noun does)
渔舟 – Fishing boats (double-character noun)

This translates to, “The lotus moves (or sways) as the fishing boats go down [the river].”

OK, now onto the final line, which is the hardest of the bunch: 王孙自可留。There are two reasons this is difficult. First is the use of 王孙. This literally translates to “son of a king / prince”, and can also mean “nobleman”. But in this case, the author is actually referring to himself, so this could translate to something like, “This noble person.” The entire line translates to “This noble person may stay [here]”, or “I might just choose to stay here.”

The second reason this is difficult is because the line contains a hidden literary meaning. Wang Wei is actually making a subtle reference to another poem written by someone else about 600 years earlier. That other poem, called《招隐士》(Summoning the Recluse), describes the hardship and peril of the mountains and urges the reclusive “王孙” (prince/nobleman) to come down from the mountain and back into civil service and society, ending with the line “王孙兮归来，山中兮不可久留” (“Prince, return! The mountains are no place to linger long”). Wang Wei deliberately inverts the original meaning, basically saying that the mountains in autumn are so lovely, that the “prince” (in this case, himself) need not leave at all. Though phrased as if advising someone else, the line really expresses Wang Wei’s joy in returning to nature and his distaste for the world of officialdom.

Key vocab