Home › Poems › The Old Fisherman
Yú WēngThe Old Fisherman 渔翁
Liu Zongyuan on a fisherman at dawn on the Xiang River.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
渔翁夜傍西岩宿
yú wēng yè bàng xī yán sù
晓汲清湘燃楚竹
xiǎo jí qīng xiāng rán chǔ zhú
烟销日出不见人
yān xiāo rì chū bú jiàn rén
欸乃一声山水绿
āi nǎi yī shēng shān shuǐ lǜ
Simplified characters; traditional title: 漁翁. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.
Note on the text: This page presents a well-known excerpt; the full poem is longer in the traditional corpus.
English translation
The old fisherman sleeps by the western cliff at night;
at dawn he draws water from the clear Xiang and burns Chu bamboo.
The mist melts, the sun comes out, and no one is in sight —
one creak of the oar, and hills and water turn green.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
Liu Zongyuan on a fisherman at dawn on the Xiang River. The scene stays with you.
Background
Liu Zongyuan on a fisherman at dawn on the Xiang River.
Key words
- 烟销 yān xiāo
- mist clearing away
- 欸乃 āi nǎi
- ai-nai — the creak of oars; boatman's chant
About the poet: Liu Zongyuan
Liu Zongyuan was a statesman and prose master who, after a failed political reform, spent the rest of his life in exile in the south. His landscape essays and austere poems turn solitude into strength. He is counted among the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song."
Lifetime: 773–819. Other famous works: River Snow (江雪); The Old Fisherman (渔翁); Eight Records of Excursions in Yongzhou (永州八记).