Chu River: Meditations on the Past, No. 1
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
微阳下楚丘。
猿啼洞庭树，
人在木兰舟。
广泽生明月，
苍山夹乱流。
云中君不见，
竟夕自悲秋。
English translation
The dew's cold light gathers, the faint sun sinks behind the hills of Chu.
Gibbons cry in the trees of Dongting, a man is in a magnolia boat.
Over the broad marsh the bright moon rises, dark mountains press the racing current.
The Lord within the Clouds I do not see, all night long I grieve for autumn alone.
Meaning
Mist and dew gather in clots of cold that strike into a man, and the sun has already set behind the hills of Chu.
On the trees by Lake Dongting the gibbons cry without ceasing, and I drift at leisure on the lake in a magnolia-wood boat.
The bright moon rises slowly over the broad face of the lake, and the green hills on either side enclose the churning currents.
The lovely goddess of the clouds will never come down, and I think of her all night in anguish, alone with my autumn sorrow.
Background
Read the background
In the early years of the Dazhong era (the reign title of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (Li Chen), 847–859), Ma Dai, who had served as a secretary in the staff at Taiyuan in Shanxi, was demoted for speaking bluntly to be the district defender of Longyang (present-day Changde, Hunan). Coming south from the north, he wandered by the shores of Dongting Lake and along the banks of the Xiang River; moved by the scenery, he looked back to the worthies of old and reflected on his own lot, and wrote the three poems "Meditating on the Past by the Chu River," of which this is one.