白居易诗
Poems of Bai Juyi
Index
Gazing into the Distance from River Tower, We Made a Strange Noise as a Joke and Someone Reported It to Old Zhang on the Water Board
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澹烟疏雨间斜阳 江色鲜明海气凉 蜃散云收破楼阁 虹残水照断桥粱 |
Calm mist and scattered rain amid the slanting sunlight. River's color strangely bright. Cool wind off the lake. A monster's shout within the clouds cleaves the River Tower. And a rainbow rises on the water to illumine Broken Bridge. |
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风翻白浪花千片 雁点青天字一行 好着丹青图画取 题诗寄与水曹郎 |
Wind rouses lake whitecaps, a thousand petals fly. Geese in the blue spring sky fly off in a vee. It would make a perfect picture for an artist to choose. I write this poem and send it to the Water Board. |
-- 白居易
废话
It is 823. Bai Juyi is fifty-one years old and making strange noises on River Tower that are so loud ... well, you read the poem. Was he up there with Yuan Zhen, who was egging him on? Or with his wife, who was laughing and embarrassed? I wish he'd said who it was.
The long title is probably intended as a preface. They didn't clearly distinguish between the two. And many a poem with a long preface-title has been given a shorter title by later copyists and other meddlers.