Welcome to the fourth lesson of this series of guide on Traditional Chinese Poetry. Today, we are going to study the poem “For Wang Lun” written by 李白Li Bai (701-762 CE) of the Tang Dynasty.

• Text and Background

赠汪伦 zèng wāng lún 

李白乘舟将欲行，lǐ bái chéng zhōu jiāng yù xíng ，
忽闻岸上踏歌声。hū wén àn shàng tà gē shēng 。
桃花潭水深千尺，táo huā tán shuǐ shēn qiān chǐ ，
不及汪伦送我情。bù jí wāng lún sòng wǒ qíng 。

Meaning for each character

Li Bai ride boat will [about to] travel
suddenly hear shore on stamp sing sound
peach blossom pool water deep thousand feet
(less than) Wang Lun [see off] me love

[] indicates a Chinese character translated into two or more words in English
() indicates two or more Chinese characters forming a single phrase, and therefore translated together

Here’s a translation by Xu Yuanchong:

Li Bai sit aboard a ship about to go,
when suddenly on shore your farewell songs o’erflow.
However deep the Lake of Peach Blossoms may be,
it is not so deep, O Wang Lun, as your love for me.

The author of this poem, Li Bai, is considered to be one of, if not the, best poet of China. He lived during the most prosperous period of the Tang Dynasty and earned favours from the emperor Xuan Zong, becoming the poet laureate of his time. His most famous poems are full of powerful languages, grand images, creative metaphors and romantic messages. His nickname, 诗仙shī xiān (fairy poet), comes from his excellency in poetry and his wild personality.

This poem is one of the first 七言qī yán (heptasyllabic) verses learnt by Chinese students in elementary school. It is a poem about seeing off one’s friend. In ancient China, when the country was so big yet common ways of travelling around were just by boat, wagon or on your feet, saying goodbye to a friend could mean never seeing him or her in a lifetime. Although the wordings of this poem may seem plain and simple, the friendship it cherishes certainly is not. 

• Senses and Imagery

Line 1 – 李白乘舟将欲行 lǐ bái chéng zhōu jiāng yù xíng
The first line gives us the background information of the poem. Li Bai is on a boat, and he is about to travel afar. We do not sense anything grand or magnificent in the build-up, and the wording of this starting line is so simple that it almost reads like prose. But that’s just common practice in Li Bai’s works, which tend to start with ordinary images but end with sublime verses.

One more point about this line: Usually, a poem shouldn’t have people’s names in it, because it can be deemed rude to call people by their names and too many names filling the limited length of a traditional Chinese poem makes it prosaic. If they are to refer to someone, it is more appropriate to address them in nicknames or metaphors. However, we see Li Bai here boldly starting the poem with his name (and proceeds to end it with that of his friend, Wang Lun). Conventions don’t mean much to Li Bai, it seems.

Line 2 – 忽闻岸上踏歌声 hū wén àn shàng tà gē shēng

So something is at hand. The poet is suddenly hearing sounds of people stamping and singing on the shore. We do not know the nature of these sounds, as the line does not present enough information for us to deduct its significance. As far as we know, it could be just some local people having fun singing and dancing. 

And if you are wondering, the act of stamping the ground while singing described here is often interpreted as a way to keep the beats of the song. Just like how you would tap your feet while playing the guitars or other instruments.

Line 3&4 – 桃花潭水深千尺 táo huā tán shuǐ shēn qiān chǐ 
                       不及汪伦送我情 bù jí wāng lún sòng wǒ qíng 

Here comes the revelation of this poem. Not only do we learn about the nature of these sounds, but we also get a great simile. 

The sound, as it turns out, is that of the poet’s friend seeing him off. This friend, whose name is mentioned twice in this poem both in the title and in its body, maybe isn’t much of a rich guy or literary genius, but he is definitely a model of a friend, going all the way to the dock to say goodbye.

So much so that Li Bai decides to compare the love of his friend to the depth of the water above which his boat floats, and he deems that the love wins. The cleverness of this simile exists in its structure. Instead of focusing on the friendship, the third line starts by exalting the depth of the peach blossom pool. The poet then states that however deep it may be, it stills pales in front of the deepness shown by my friend’s love. By addressing the pool instead of his friend, the poet is able to avoid directly praising the love of Wang Lun for him, which would be more of a cliche and much less poetic.

Overall – 

We get a complete package of stories, actions and emotions within just four heptasyllabic lines of poetry. Plus, there is an original and creative simile by the end.

• Language Tips

Traditional Chinese Version

李白乘舟將欲行， lǐ bái chéng zhōu jiāng yù xíng
忽聞岸上踏歌聲。hū wén àn shàng tà gē shēng
桃花潭水深千尺，táo huā tán shuǐ shēn qiān chǐ 
不及汪倫送我情。 bù jí wāng lún sòng wǒ qíng 

Two linguistic practices are of some interests in this poem. The first one concerns the expression of 千尺qiān chǐ (thousand feet) found in the third line. Now, before you start wondering how long a thousand feet is in today’s measures, the problem here is not about converting Chinese feet into modern day metres. Usually, when ancient Chinese poets use numbers in their works, they are using them as 虚数xū shù (vague number) to indicate that something is just plentiful. What it means is that the peach blossom pool is not really a thousand feet deep (what a bummer!). It’s just really deep.

This practice is also common in other forms of literature. One of the greatest epigrams by Confucius, 三人行, 必有我师焉sān rén xíng bì yǒu wǒ shī yān (by characters: three people walk, definitely have my teacher [in it]), does not mean specifically that when “three” people walk together, one of them is able to be my teacher. It’s just saying that when “many” people meet each other, chances are you can learn something from at least one of them.

Another interesting phrase structure in this poem can be seen in the expressions of 踏歌声tà gē shēng and 送我情sòng wǒ qíng, located at the end of the second and fourth line respectively. What we have here are noun phrases that have multiple pre-modifiers set before the head noun. Whereas in English, pre-modifiers usually tend to be a single adjective, particle or noun (as in “a beautiful sound” or “a broken love”), in Chinese, and especially in ancient Chinese, clauses can be put before a noun to serve as a pre-modifier. As a result, we get “people stamping and singing sound” instead of “sound of people stamping and singing”, as well as “seeing me off love” instead of “love of seeing me off”.

This structure can be most commonly found in the names of scenic spots in China. For example, 回雁峰huí yàn fēng (by characters: back goose peak) in Hengyang, Hunan Province is “the peak where wild geese [stop their southward migration and] go back [to the north]”.

• That’s all for this week. Next week, we are going to study another great poem written by Li Bai. Similar to this week’s poem, it also mentions one of Li Bai’s BFFs. The only difference is that this friend of his is not really a human.