Meditations on Ancient Sites: No. 3
English translation and interpretation are being reviewed.
生长明妃尚有村。
一去紫台连朔漠，
独留青冢向黄昏。
画图省识春风面，
环珮空归夜月魂。
千载琵琶作胡语，
分明怨恨曲中论。
English translation
Ranges of hills and ten thousand ravines press toward Jingmen, where the village that bred the Bright Consort still remains.
She left the purple palace and was joined to the northern wastes, only the green tomb remains, facing the evening dusk.
The portrait only half told of her spring-wind face, in vain the jade pendants returned, a spirit beneath the night moon.
For a thousand years the pipa has spoken the Tartar tongue, clearly telling resentment and grief within the tune.
Meaning
Thousands upon thousands of hills and valleys stretch unbroken, as though hastening towards Jingmen; the village where Wang Zhaojun grew up still remains today.
From the Purple Terrace she went straight out to the desert beyond the frontier; in the end only a lonely grave in the waste fields faces the dusk.
The deluded sovereign knew Zhaojun's face only from the painted portrait; in moonlit nights the ringing of jade pendants is Zhaojun's spirit returning.
For a thousand years her Hu pipa songs have been handed down, and what the music plainly voices is a heart full of grief and resentment.
Background
Read the background
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 this poem to express his feelings.