寒食雨二首 Meditating on a Rainy Cold-Food Festival

寒食雨二首

原作：苏轼

英译+注解：闵晓红

其一

自我來黃州，已過三寒食。 年年欲惜春，春去不容惜。 今年又苦雨，兩月秋蕭瑟。 臥聞海棠花，泥污燕支雪。 暗中偷負去，夜半真有力。 何殊病少年，病起頭已白。

Meditating on a Rainy Cold-Food Festival

Chinese original: Su Shi (1082)

English version: Julia Min (2022)

Poem One

Three years have now elapsed in a flash

since my banishment to this hinterland.

Huangzhou also knows the return of Spring,

yet the spirit’s sapped before the full swing.

On the flooded land, rain pours in torrents,

as cold as dark autumn, the March east wind.

In sickbed, I’m told my dearest begonia tree

has been ripped bare by the dark wind and rain.

like a youth grey-haired by a deadly syndrome,

like a beauty taken at night by invisible hands.

Her rouge-snow petals fall to mud overnight.

As ever, the Creator's plan is beyond mankind.

Notes:

1. Huangzhou, an old town on the Yangtze River, witnessed Su Shi’s greatest stumble – The Poetry Case at the Crows Court, so called because everyone knew it was a set-up against their beloved Su Shi. Yet it was here that he fulfilled his worldview, which gave birth to most of his masterpieces.

2. rouge-snow: the Yanzhi Mountain, where the soil is red. When it snows, the surface looks pink, a detail often used by writers to imply young beauties.

其二

春江欲入戶，雨勢來不已。 小屋如漁舟，濛濛水雲裏。 空庖煮寒菜，破竈燒溼葦。 那知是寒食，但見烏銜紙。 君門深九重，墳墓在萬里。 也擬哭途窮，死灰吹不起。

Poem Two

The Yangtze roars, cresting along the shore.

Sky hangs low, claiming the season’s rainfall.

Barely visible, this small place called home,

floating at ease in the mist, like a fishing boat.

The kitchen is empty, save for some veggies,

and in the broken stove, some damp fire-reeds.

A crow flies past with paper money unburned.

Suddenly, I realise the day’s fire is forbidden.

Out of reach, the Crown in the Forbidden City;

thousands of miles away, the tombs of my kin.

Like Yuan Ji, I weep at the road’s dead end —

I grieve the soaked ash: no flame can rise again.

Notes:

1.     Palace forbidden: the Royal Palace, a metonym for the imperial court and political power, inaccessible to the poet in exile;

2.     Yuan Ji (阮籍): the leading figure of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove during the Three Kingdoms period. Tradition holds that Yuan Ji would often weep upon reaching the end of a road, lamenting his unrecognised talent and unfulfilled ambition—an image Su Shi invokes to mirror his own frustration and political exclusion.

Appreciation:

Dongpo wrote this poem in Huangzhou three years after his release from prison, following the famous Poetry Case at the Crows Court, a false charge lodged by his political rivals. Written during exile, the poem reflects a moment of ritual restraint, political distance, and private grief converging on the Cold Food Festival, when fire was forbidden, and ancestral offerings could not be properly made.

The poem was inscribed on a long handscroll measuring 199.5 cm × 34.2 cm. Its calligraphy, executed in a powerful semi-cursive script, conveys not only the poem’s emotional tension but also the immediacy of Dongpo’s state of mind. Over time, the calligraphic work has eclipsed the poem in fame and is widely regarded as one of the three greatest masterpieces of Chinese semi-cursive script.

The original scroll is now preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, and remains accessible today. It bears handwritten commentaries by Huang Tingjian, Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song dynasty, and numerous distinguished figures throughout history. Together, the poem, calligraphy, and accumulated responses form an irreplaceable cultural artefact—an enduring testament to Su Shi’s artistic, moral, and historical stature.

Reference:

1. picture from google.com

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