江城子·江景 The River View

The River View

—to the tune of The River Town

（a social game with my friend Zhang Xian where we each compose a song lyric to the same tune on the same theme and same surroundings — the lake, the intermittent zheng music from the distant Qiantang River）

Chinese original: Su Shi (11^th Century)

English version: Julia Min ( Jul. 2026)

Finally, it clears up after rain,

Beneath Phoenix Hill, over the clear lake.

A breeze sails on ripples where sunset glows.

On her prime, one lotus holds, blooming alone.

Raindrops shimmer on her tender petals，

—A nameless grace, untouched, unfolds.

Whence come a pair of white egrets, lingering,

As if to admire such a rare beauty on stream?

Suddenly, a melody floats on a zheng’s strings,

For whose ear—the melancholy of yearning?

When clouds recede, mist lifts her veil,

My eyes follow from the lake till the last note.

Vaguely in the distance, I wonder beyond —

If River Xiang’s spirit visits River Qiantang.

Yet no player in view, no beauty I can see,

Pretending, I turn to count the green peaks.

Notes:

1. Zhang Xian (990–1078): A renowned poet and retired official, thirty-three years Su Shi's senior, with whom he shared a deep literary friendship during his Hangzhou years.

2. Zheng: A traditional Chinese zither with movable bridges, closely related to the qin. While the qin was the instrument of scholar-literati, the zheng was associated with refined elegance, feminine sentiment, and popular entertainment.

3. River Xiang's spirit: The goddess of the Xiang River in Hunan, a mythological figure associated with tragic love and watery lament, often invoked to suggest otherworldly beauty or sorrowful music.

4. Qiantang River: The river east of Hangzhou, separated from West Lake by a ridge of hills. In Su Shi's time, artificial canals connected the two, allowing sound to carry across the water — hence the zheng music is heard "from the river" while the speaker is on the lake.

5. Phoenix Hill (Fenghuang Shan): A hill at the southern edge of West Lake, named for its phoenix-like shape, separating the lake from the Qiantang River.

For Appreciation

Readers familiar with Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper will find a kindred spirit in Su Shi's The River View — though Su Shi's 11th-century poem predates its Western counterpart by some seven hundred years. Both capture a moment when an unseen musician fills the landscape with song: Wordsworth's Highland girl in a Scottish valley, Su Shi's zheng player somewhere on the distant Qiantang River. The music is heard, yet its meaning remains mysterious. Wordsworth is haunted by a "melancholy strain" he cannot understand; Su Shi by a "melancholy of yearning" he cannot trace. Both turn at last to the landscape for consolation. Where Wordsworth carries the song in his heart long after it fades, Su Shi finds only silence, green peaks, and a heart quietly pretending not to care.

The poem is structured around absences: the rain has cleared, the player has vanished, the goddess is only a vague suggestion. Yet these absences are not empty — they are filled with wonder, longing, and the fragile beauty of a world that refuses to be fully known. A key line — "For whose ear — the melancholy of yearning?" — captures the original's haunting openness, asking a question that never receives an answer.

In the end, the speaker is left not with answers, but with a gesture: turning away, counting peaks. My decision to add "pretending" to the final image brings to the surface the internal tension implicit in Su Shi's original: the quiet performance of composure in the face of loss. The speaker pretends not to care, while the reader understands that they do. But here's the real question: is the poet pretending for the benefit of their companion Zhang Xian, for themselves, or for us, the readers? And does it matter, when the green peaks — indifferent, eternal — refuse to play along with any of it?

What makes Su Shi's poem enduring is its refusal to resolve. The zheng music could be human or divine; the goddess could be real or imagined; the speaker's composure could be genuine or performed. The poem holds these possibilities in balance, trusting the reader to linger in the uncertainty. My translation aims to honour this openness while adding a quiet psychological depth — never betraying the original, but enriching it for the English reader. Whether it succeeds is, of course, for you to decide.

Chinese original:

江城子·江景.凤凰山下雨初晴

(湖上与张先同赋，时闻弹筝）

苏轼

凤凰山下雨初晴，水风清，晚霞明。一朵芙蕖，开过尚盈盈。何处飞来双白鹭，如有意，慕娉婷。忽闻江上弄哀筝，苦含情，遣谁听！烟敛云收，依约是湘灵。欲待曲终寻问取，人不见，数峰青。

Reference:

1. baike.baidu.com