永遇乐. 明月如霜 The moon’s frost white

永遇乐. 明月如霜

(彭城夜宿燕子楼，梦盼盼，因作此词)

原文：苏轼

英译：闵晓红

明月如霜，好风如水，

清景无限。曲港跳鱼，圆荷泻露，

寂寞无人见。紞如三鼓，铿然一叶，

黯黯梦云惊断。

夜茫茫, 重寻无处，

觉来小园行遍。

天涯倦客，山中归路，

望断故园心眼。

燕子楼空，佳人何在，

空锁楼中燕。古今如梦，何曾梦觉，

但有旧欢新怨。异时对、黄楼夜景，

为余浩叹。

The moon’s frost white

- to the tune of “Everlasting Joy”

Chinese original: Su Shi ( 11th century)

English version: Julia Min

The moon’s frost white,

the wind, freshly cool.

An endless stillness --

till a fish breaks the winding pool.

Dews slide down lotus leaves.

A loneliness without form.

Three drumbeats from the dark mist;

Then, one leaf falls.

Startled awake from deep sleep,

A familiar sadness seizes me.

Out in the garden I seek:

“Where’re thee, beauty of my dream?”

I feel her everywhere,

yet nowhere can she be seen.

The night stretches long,

here in the far east.

Weary of the world, a traveller

drained his heart’s eye of hope

towards the western mountains,

looking for the sign of home.

The Swallow Pavilion, long empty,

Where’s the beauty?

Dust keeps its promises within;

Only abandoned nests remain.

Past and present,

Just dreams that never cease.

What gathers in the mind --

old memories and new regrets.

Someday, some visitors

will climb my Yellow Pavilion.

Before such a midnight scene,

I wonder, will they sigh for me?

Appreciation:

In the Tang dynasty, the Swallow Pavilion was built by the military governor Zhang Jianfeng in Peng City (present-day Xuzhou) for his newlywed concubine, Guan Panpan, a renowned singer and dancer. The pavilion stood by a lake and soon attracted many swallows to nest there, giving it its name. After Zhang’s death, Guan Panpan lived on, refusing to remarry, remaining faithful to his memory. Her story became a lasting poetic symbol of lost love and unfulfilled happiness.

This ci poem was composed in 1078, shortly after Su Shi completed his own architectural project, the Yellow Pavilion, during his tenure as governor of Xuzhou. One night, Su Shi stayed at the Swallow Pavilion and is said to have dreamed of the brief appearance of the beautiful lady’s spirit. The late-autumn night scene under a full moon—a recurring motif in Chinese poetry—often evokes a sense of love once whole but now irretrievably lost.

Su Shi’s political circumstances deepen the poem’s melancholy at the time. His position at court was increasingly precarious amid fierce factional conflict. Daoist thought offered him solace, turning his mind toward nature and toward his homeland in the western mountains of Sichuan. Throughout his life, this tension persisted: whether to devote himself fully to official service or to withdraw into reclusion. Yet Su Shi was ultimately a man shaped by his age and its currents—deeply engaged with the world, unable to relinquish public responsibility entirely for a Daoist life apart.

A Western analogue may be found in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” where reflection before a familiar landscape becomes a meditation on memory, loss, and the divided self across time.

Reference:

1. 古诗文网https://so.gushiwen.cn/

2. ChatGPT

3. All pictures are selected from google search.

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