Meditations on Ancient Sites: No. 2
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
风流儒雅亦吾师。
怅望千秋一洒泪，
萧条异代不同时。
江山故宅空文藻，
云雨荒台岂梦思。
最是楚宫俱泯灭，
舟人指点到今疑。
English translation
Seeing the leaves fall, I know full well Song Yu's grief, his grace and learning make him my master too.
Sadly I gaze across a thousand autumns and shed one tear, desolate, a different age, not the same time.
His old house by river and hill keeps only empty words, cloud and rain, the ruined terrace, how can it be but dream-thought?
Most of all, the Chu palaces have all perished, boatmen point them out, and to this day men doubt.
Meaning
In autumn, when the leaves are falling, I read your lines and enter deeply into your sorrow. Your brilliant grace, your scholarly and refined bearing, truly deserve to be called my teacher.
Facing the events of a thousand years I am filled with melancholy and let fall tears; though born in different ages, our desolation is the same.
The land of Chu has long since perished, leaving only your old dwelling and your elegant writings. That cloud and rain of Mount Wu, that Gao Tang of Yunmeng, are surely a dreamland of nothing at all.
Most moving of all: the palace of Chu is now no more; yet because this tale has been handed down through later ages, even today when boats sail past, the boatmen still point to these ruins in voices of half belief.
Background
Read the background
These poems sing of ancient sites and commemorate men of old, and thereby give voice to the poet's own feelings. In 766, the first year of the Dali era of Emperor Daizong of Tang, the poet left Kuizhou, passed through the Three Gorges, and reached Jiangling, visiting in turn the house of Song Yu, the old dwelling of Yu Xin, Zhaojun Village, Yong'an Palace, the Temple of the Late Lord, and the Temple of the Marquis of Wu. Profoundly reverent toward the men of talent, the great beauties, the heroes, and the famous ministers of antiquity, he wrote "Meditations on Ancient Sites" in five poems to express his feelings; this poem is one of them.