Welcome to the fifth lesson of this series of guide on Traditional Chinese Poetry. Today, we are going to study the poem “Thoughts on a Tranquil Night” written by 李白 Li Bai (701-762 CE) of the Tang Dynasty.

Text and Background

静夜思 jìng yè sī

床前明月光， chuáng qián míng yuè guāng ，
疑是地上霜。 yí shì dì shàng shuāng 。
举头望明月， jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè ，
低头思故乡。 dī tóu sī gù xiāng 。

Meaning for each character

bed before bright moon light
doubt be ground on frost
raise head view bright moon
lower head think (hometown)

() indicates two or more Chinese characters forming a single phrase, and therefore translated together

A translation by Xu Yuanchong:

Before my bed a pool of light—
O can it be hoar-frost on the ground?
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I’m drowned.

This poem is generally thought to be written by Li Bai when he was 26. At that time, he was travelling in Yangzhou, almost 2000 kilometres away from his home in Sichuan. It follows one of the literary tropes of Chinese poetry, in that the act of viewing a bright full moon is used as a figurative device to express one’s homesickness. Various cultural reasons exist for such a connection. The term “圆月yuán yuè “(round moon) used to describe the perfect circle of a full moon is often associated with another term “团圆tuán yuán” meaning reunion with families. Moreover, the fact that people always see the same bright moon no matter how far apart they may be is another reason for relating the act of cherishing its beauty with thinking about one’s distant friends and families.

Senses and Imagery

Lines 1&2 – 床前明月光 chuáng qián míng yuè guāng
                         疑是地上霜 yí shì dì shàng shuāng

Similar to the last poem “For Wang Lun”, Li Bai begins his poem with a plain and simple setting. We get some basic information on the time, the location, the environment and the general vibe of the poem from the first two lines.

The time is night, as the moonlight is shining on the ground. The season is probably autumn because the poet mistakes the moonlight for the autumn frosts. We also get that the moon of this night is pretty bright, so much so that it resembles the clear and crystalline frosts. The poet himself is a bit drowsy either from a lack of sleep or from drinking too much liquor (Li Bai is known for drinking before composing poems). And he can’t help but wonder at the beauty of the lights on the ground.

The location is a bit tricky. As much as five explanations have been given to the possible meaning of the character “床chuáng” in this poem, ranging from the more modern sense of it meaning “bed”, to “chair”, “window” or even “well” or “fences around a well”. Although it is still debated where the poet might have viewed this moonlight on the ground, it doesn’t really affect our appreciation of the poem. So just choose whichever version you like the most.

One thing to note about these seemingly simple lines. The second line ends with the word “霜shuāng” used here as a metaphor for the moonlight. While it tells us about the time of the year and the brightness of the shining moon, it also delivers another sensual feeling, a sense of coldness in autumn midnight. When we consider the background of the poem, that the poet is sitting alone watching the moonlight and thinking how it looks like not porcelain, rice or milk but frosts, we even get a feeling of loneliness just from the metaphor.

Lines 3&4 – 举头望明月 jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè
                         低头思故乡 dī tóu sī gù xiāng

We get a feeling that with the progression of the poem, the poet’s mind is clearing up, because he is starting to think about things more important than the similarities between moonlight and white frosts. 

He first raises his head and gazes upon the bright moon. Notice the verb “望wàng” here, which generally means to gaze into the distance. The poet does not simply look at the moon(that would probably be “视”shì), or notice its existence(again, “见”jiàn would be a better fit for such an observation), he is actively looking for this remote source of light. It is natural for him to search for the moon in the night sky considering how amazed he was at just its light on the ground.

However, we could also argue that he is seeking something more than the bright moon itself. He may be seeking the comforts often linked to the act of viewing a bright full moon: a hope for a family reunion. As mentioned in the background section, this poem follows a cultural custom of relating the moon to friends and families afar. This is especially true for Li Bai, who often views the moon as his best friend forever who always shows up when he is feeling lonely at night. He once even wrote that he would like to invite the moon to drink with him, so that he, the moon and his shadow on the ground would form a trio together (that’s “举杯邀明月，对影成三人”jǔ bēi yāo míng yuè ，duì yǐng chéng sān rén). I know it’s weird, but that’s why we love him, right?

The last line proves our guesses that the poet is thinking about not just the moon, but also the things embodied in it. There is a feeling of sadness and loneliness in the image of the poet lowering his head while pondering about his hometown. While the sceneries of the natural world may be beautiful, he cannot help but feel uninspired because there is no one with whom to view it. Unlike most of the lyrics written by Li Bai, this one ends with a downer. People familiar with Li Bai’s often up-lifting verses might find it weird that in this particular poem, the depressing vibe of homesickness stretches from the start to the very end, without ever finding a cure or remedy. However, that may be why this poem is so inspirational and famous, because it is an honest and plain expression of one’s sorrow and loneliness. It does not seek to find or fake a way out of the problem. It just paints the picture for its readers to sympathise with.

Language Tips

Traditional Chinese Version

靜夜思 jìng yè sī

床前明月光， chuáng qián míng yuè guāng ，
疑是地上霜。 yí shì dì shàng shuāng 。
舉頭望明月， jǔ tóu wàng míng yuè ，
低頭思故鄉。 dī tóu sī gù xiāng 。

This poem is perfect for recapping two language practices we studied during previous poems. First, we need to pay attention to the usage of prepositional words. In both the phrases of “床前明月光chuáng qián míng yuè guāng” and “地上霜dì shàng shuāng”, the directional prepositions are placed after the object used as a reference. So instead of “the ground above the frost”, we should interpret the latter as “the frost above the ground”.

Another thing to note also concerns the first line of the poem. This is a somewhat extreme example of the practice of long pre-modifiers in Chinese. Basically, the whole line is a noun phrase, with the first four characters modifying the last one, “光guāng”, light. More specifically, it’s “a light delivered by the bright moon above and shone unto somewhere before the bed” (or window, well, or fences, depending on how you interpret the word “床chuáng”).

Remember when we said in the last lesson that Li Bai broke conventions when he put his and his friend’s names in the poem? Well, this poem is another demonstration that Li Bai doesn’t care much about rules. Usually, a traditional Chinese poem should avoid having the same character appear twice or more. Because traditional Chinese verses are so short, having a character repeated would often lead to redundancy and a cluster of similar senses and images.

However, Li Bai here boldly repeats not one but three characters in a 20-character-long poem, and the end result is surprisingly good. The repetition of the phrase “明月míng yuè” in the third line serves to re-focus our attention back onto the central image of the poem, the moon (after the poet’s jest about moonlight and frosts). And the recurrent characters of “头tóu”(head) at the same positions in the last two lines form a linguistic link between these two lines. It draws the actions of gazing at the moon and thinking about one’s hometown closer together, creating a unified theme across them.

That’s all for this week. In the next lesson, we are going to take a look at what a famous poet thinks about the season of spring.