白居易诗

Poems of Bai Juyi


Index

夜筝

Night Music


紫袖红弦明月中
自弹自感暗低容
弦凝指咽声停处
别有深情一万重

Purple sleeves, red silk strings, full moon's light.
I play alone and lonely in the dark.
Strings stop, fingers stop, voice stops, too.
My deepest feelings overwhelm them all.

-- 白居易


废话

This song was probably written after Bai Juyi was forty and had taken up playing music. Pronouns are not very explicit in Chinese poetry, though. Maybe someone else is playing the zheng here. I say in the timeline that Bai Juyi played the qin. But he could have played the zheng as well, or both. They are basically the same. One has moveable bridges and one does not.

Index