惠崇春江晚景 On “The Spring River, Breathing into Evening”

惠崇春江晚景 (第一首)

原作: 苏轼（字子瞻, 号东坡居士; 11世纪北宋）

旧版英译:戈登.奥赛茵, 闵晓红, 黄海鹏(1990)

新版修改及赏析: 闵晓红(2023)

竹外桃花三两枝，

春江水暖鸭先知。

蒌蒿满地芦芽短，

正是河豚欲上时。

On “The Spring River, Breathing into Evening” (1/2)

--an inscription for the painting by Monk Hui Chong

Chinese original by Su Shi (11th AC, social name 'Dongpo')

old En. version by G. Osing, J. Min & H. Huang (1990)

revised En. version+ annot. by Julia Min (2023)

When old bamboos set off a few peach blooms

And a lone wild duck calls out: “The water’s fine.”

And asparagus and wormwood show green shoots,

Then surfaces the globefish, in the nick of time.

Appreciation:

Hui Chong (965–1017, Song dynasty) was a Buddhist monk and painter, best known for his landscape works of mountains and water, often animated by geese, ducks, and other birds, scenes of rural life and everyday vitality, which modern scholarship might describe as a form of early humanism. A collector of Hui Chong’s painting likely sought an inscription from Su Shi, whose literary authority would have further elevated the work.

Regrettably, as with so many artworks of the period, the painting itself did not survive. It was most likely lost during the invasions of the Jin and Liao, or in later upheavals. Yet the artwork has breathed through Su Shi’s poem, which has been celebrated ever since. Today, nearly every school student in China can recite it, and its second line in particular is frequently quoted in literary and cultural discourse.

In this poem, Su Shi gives voice to the precise moment when nature awakens—when disparate sensations of sight, sound, and movement are subtly compressed into the single plane of a painting. The painting delights the eye as poetry delights the ear and the imagination, rendering the image in rhythmic motion. As the Song thinkers would have it, poetry may be painted, and painting, in turn, may be composed with words.

For your interest, the western landscape painting genre didn’t emerge as a distinct genre until a few hundred years later, during the Renaissance and peaking in the Industrial Revolution.

Reference:

1. Blooming Alone in Winter by Gordon Osing, Julia Min, and Huang Haipeng, published by the People's Publication House Henan Province in 1990 (《寒心未肯随春态》戈登.奥赛茵，闵晓红，黄海鹏) (“Spring Dawn at the Hui Chong River” --“When old bamboo sets off a few peach blooms/And one wild duck calls out, “The water is fine!”/And onion tips and asparagus shoot green--/Then surfaces globefish, in the nick of time.”)

2. picture from baidu