踏莎行
姜夔
自沔东来，丁未元日至金陵，江上感梦而作。

燕燕轻盈，莺莺娇软。分明又向华胥见。夜长争得薄情知？春初早被相思染。别后书辞，别时针线。离魂暗逐郎行远, 淮南皓月冷千山。冥冥归去无人管。

To the tune of” Walking on nut grass”

Poem by Jiangkui
Translation by yang zhiming
I got on a boat at the east of Mian and my destination was Jinling. When I arrived there it was already the Chinese New Year’s day of 1187. During this journey I had a dream and the following verse is the sentiment aroused in me afterwards:


You fly into my dream like a supple swallow,
And your voice soft is as of an oriole:
“Do you know that I am so sad in this endless night?”
“Oh, dear I had the same feeling even in early spring!”

As your letter caressed my broken heart after our parting,
I still feel the warmth of the coat you put on me while leaving,
I know your soul silently follows me,
Over the mountains cool, under the moon so bright.
But when your soul is away from me,
Alas, no one cares where you will be!





Translator’s Notes:

1.沔（mian3）, a name of a prefecture in Tang and Song Dynasties, called Hanyang at present.
2.华胥(hua2xu4) from the article on Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) in writings of Lietze. It says, “When the Yellow Emperor was sleeping during the daytime he dreamt of visiting the Kingdom Huaxu.” In this lyric it is used as an allusion meaning: a dream.
3.离魂（ Parting Soul）,another allusion used here is from the Soul of a Beautiful Girl written by Chen xuanyou of Tang Dynasty. The story is like this; Master Zhang yi had a daughter, named Qianniang (or Beautiful Girl) who fell in love with her cousin named Wang zhou. But Master Zhang married his daughter, Qianniang to another boy. When Qianniang heard of this fact she was so sad that her soul left her body and followed Wang zhou wherever he went.


Commentary:

As a Chinese saying goes; what you think of during daytime you may dream of it at night, this love lyric was based on a dream the poet had. When the poet was 20 he had a girl friend who lived in Hefei. They were seldom staying together. Therefore it was quite natural that he would miss his truelove when he was wandering in a strange land.
Assumingly in this lyric it shows how deeply they love each other.

In the first stanza he meets his sweetie in a dreamland where she is trying to complain of his possibly being not aware of the parting grief she suffers. And he tells her that he misses her all the time after they bid farewell. In this scene a reader may feel that the joy of meeting prevails though it is interweaved with some melancholy mood for in reality the two lovers are away from each other but in the dream this distance is annihilated. So they are happy indeed! To achieve an artistic effect the poet here leaves a foreshadow for the next stanza.

In the second stanza through what the poet sees when he is awake from the dream his lovesickness becomes serious that how he wants her always be with him like Qianniang wherever he will be. But the actuality is that she is faraway and he is alone in a lonely boat with only her letters in hand and the coat she sewed on him. Nothing but a broken heart and tears would prevail. Even then he is still worrying about her for at this moment she is sad and lonely too. What a striking contrast between the reverie and the real life!

Despite of the shortness of this love lyric the profound emotions of the personae are circuitously depicted in a rather implicit way for an experienced reader can always find something more in between the lines as he takes a closer look at this lovely piece.
Jan.29, 2005 Beijing
Yang zhiming


About the poet
Jiang Kui (1155-1221)
He was a native of Panyang, Prefecture Rao (in present-day Jiangxi province). His literary name was Yaozhang and style name Baishidaoren (literarily Whitestone Taoist). In his early days he moved from place to place with his father and later he stayed in Hebei for some time, where his father was a district magistrate. From 1186 he spent most of his life in the urban cultural centers in the lower Yangtze region. He never served in the civil service for he sat in the imperial examinations for several times but all failed. As a matter of fact this famous scholar had lived a life of a poet- recluse. In terms of his material life he was so poor that he could hardly support himself. Even when he died he had no money for the funeral.
However his spiritual life was full and brilliant because of his outstanding achievements in poem, lyric, calligraphy and the music. Among all his artistic accomplishments his lyric is best known. And most remarkable characteristic in composing his lyrics is the way he used allusions. As he was a great master of metrics his lyrics are highly imaginatively crafted. Yang wanli, a contemporary scholar, one of his best friends once said:” the wonderful conception of his line is like tailoring the moon and the cloud, while the unique sound of his words is as sonorous as heavily beating gongs and gently knocking jade.”