江城子·十年生死两茫茫 It's ten years you're gone and I'm living

江城子·十年生死两茫茫

（乙卯正月二十日夜记梦）

苏轼

十年生死两茫茫，

不思量，自难忘，

千里孤坟 无处话凄凉。

纵使相逢应不识，

尘满面，鬓如霜。

夜来幽梦忽还乡，

小轩窗，正梳妆，

相顾无言，唯有泪千行。

料得年年肠断处，

明月夜，短松冈。

It's ten years you're gone and I'm living

- to the tune of Jiangchengzi

(my dream on January 20th,1075)

Chinese original: Su Shi ( 11th Century)

old English version: G. Osing, J. Min & H. Huang(1991)

new English version: Julia Min (2025)

It’s ten years you’re gone, and I’m living,

in two worlds apart, and wearing.

I’ve tried to feign a numb forgetting,

Yet memory lives in death, forever staying.

A thousand miles away lies your resting place;

To whom can this loneliness be confessed?

You would not know me by now:

Time has silvered my temples

and laid its dusty trace across my brow.

In the hush of night when dreams run deep,

you return to me, still young, still fair;

-- by the latticed window, poised in grace,

soft hands adorning your long hair.

Our eyes meet and freeze, --

a silent speech softening into tears.

Then the dream shatters, leaving only thin air.

Where ur small pines cried in cold moonlight,

my heart grows thinner year on year.

Picture retrieved from Google

Notes:

1. ‘It's ten years …’: Su Shi's wife Wang Fu died in 1065 and was buried in Pengshan County, Sichuan Province, quite far from Mizhou where Dongpo wrote this poem.

2. ‘ridge of pines’: the site of her burial was within Su Shi’s family burial yard where Dongpo planted, as the legend has it, 3000 pine trees for her and his father as they were buried there at the same time.

For Appreciation:

This poem is widely regarded as one of the earliest and most touching elegies written in the ci form. Unlike the grand, rhetorical mourning poems of earlier times, this ci is characterised by a quiet intimacy with a brief tender moment they once shared.

When Su Shi composed this poem in 1075, ten years had passed since the death of his first wife, Wang Fu. During that decade, he himself had experienced major political ups and downs, with dramatic shifts in various official posts. Yet the loss that remained most vivid—perhaps the one untouched by time—was the memory of his wife.

The poem’s second stanza is particularly admired: a dream of domestic simplicity, free from flowering rhetoric. It recalls a small, private scene: her small, crafted window, her dressing table, her loosened hair, and two people gazing at each other as if words had no play. In the understated authenticity of this memory, scholars find an enduring tenderness rarely matched in classical literature.

What gives the poem its lasting effect is its subtlety. Dongpo does not lament loudly; instead, he preserves love through ordinary details —gestures, familiar postures, unspoken emotions. This demonstrates the unique ability of ci poetry to express subtle, deeply human feelings: grief without despair, longing without excess, memory without artifice.

This elegy stands today not only as a testament to Su Shi’s personal sorrow but also as a masterpiece that enriches the expressive possibilities of Song-dynasty literature, illuminating how love, even in loss, can transcend the boundaries of time.

You may also compare this elegy with a dream-vision counterpart in the West, where you’ll find similar sentiments in John Milton’s sonnet: “Methought I saw my late espoused saint” written after the death of Milton’s second wife. The wife appears in a dream, radiant, silent, unreachable. The poem ends with awakening—loss renewed: “I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.”

Reference：

1. old English version: Blooming Alone in Winter by Gordon Osing, Julia Min and Huang Haipeng，published by the People's Publication House Henan Province in 1991 (《寒心未肯随春态》戈登.奥赛茵，闵晓红，黄海鹏) – “January12,1075: My Dream – to the tune of jiangchengzi”(It’s ten years now you’re gone and I’m living, worlds apart and fading./If I’ve tried hard not to miss you, I say also I can’t forget./It’s a thousand miles to your tomb; to whom can I tell my loneliness?/You’d not know me now, my face so lined, my temples frosted.//In the mist of my dream-world at night I go home once again/And watch you adorning yourself carefully in your dressing room./Our eyes meet, we’re together in silence, the dream ends in tears./I swear my heart breaks further each year/where the moon brightens your ridge of little pines.)

Pinying and Word -For-Word Translation:

jiāng chéng zǐ （yǐ mǎo zhèng yuè èr shí rì yè jì mèng ）- to the tune of Jiangchengzi --- a night dream on January 20 in 1075 ( 3 days after the first full moon, Chinese calendar)

shí nián shēng sǐ liǎng máng máng – ten years the alive and the dead both distant apart.

bú sī liàng ，zì nán wàng – not always think about you but difficult to forget.

qiān lǐ gū fén - thousand li desolate tomb,

wú chù huà qī liáng – nowhere to tell loneliness.

zòng shǐ xiàng féng yīng bú shí - even if we meet again, should not recognize,

chén mǎn miàn ，bìn rú shuāng – dust covers my face, temples like frost.

yè lái yōu mèng hū hái xiāng – at night gloomy dream suddenly return my native place.

xiǎo xuān chuāng ，zhèng shū zhuāng - by small room window, she is making up.

xiàng gù wú yán - face each other no word,

wéi yǒu lèi qiān háng - only there are tears thousand lines.

liào dé nián nián cháng duàn chù -guess year by year heart-broken place;

míng yuè yè ，duǎn sōng gāng - bright moon night, short pine tree ridge

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