Jiāng XuěRiver Snow 江雪
One old fisherman in an empty, snow-covered world.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
千山鸟飞绝
qiān shān niǎo fēi jué
万径人踪灭
wàn jìng rén zōng miè
孤舟蓑笠翁
gū zhōu suō lì wēng
独钓寒江雪
dú diào hán jiāng xuě
Simplified characters; traditional title: 江雪.
English translation
From hill to hill no bird in flight;
From path to path no man in sight.
A lonely fisherman afloat
Is fishing snow in lonely boat.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
The first two lines erase the world: a thousand mountains and ten thousand paths, all empty. Against that vast whiteness the camera closes in on one boat, one man, one fishing line. The huge numbers make the single figure feel even smaller — and even more resolute. Read in the light of Liu's exile, the fisherman is a self-portrait: isolated, cold, but unbending. The first characters of the four lines (千, 万, 孤, 独) trace the movement from multitude to solitude.
Background
Written during Liu Zongyuan's exile in Yongzhou (in today's Hunan) after the failed Yongzhen reform of 805.
Key words
- 绝 jué
- cut off, vanished
- 人踪 rén zōng
- human footprints
- 蓑笠 suō lì
- straw rain cape and bamboo hat
- 翁 wēng
- old man
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).