Wang Wei bids farewell to someone...
Wang River Collection no. 11
Lake Qi Wang Wei My flute song pierced to Lake Qi's furthest quarter; You took your leave beneath the setting sun. I cast back one look, as I crossed the water, The purple hills and wreaths of white cloud spun. 王维 欹湖 吹箫凌极浦，日暮送夫君。 湖上一回首，山青卷白云。
Wang Wei (699-759) was a successful writer and politician. He bought a piece of land outside the city that he could use during the periods when he was not busy in office - an estate already made famous in a poem by Song Zhiwen, who had previously owned it.
Wang wrote this classic series of whimsical, lightly fantastical landscape poems with his friend Pei Di. They published 40 poems together, each writer contributing one verse for each of 20 interesting locations they identified on the estate. Here I translate Wang’s poems and provide Pei Di’s in prose translation for reference.
The authorities in Shaanxi Province believe that they have located the site of the Wang River estate (the name of the river 辋 is not the same as Wang Wei’s surname 王, they just transcribe the same in English), but over the 1000 years since the writing of these poems, many of the interesting sights that the poets admired have disappeared.
In this poem, Wang is saying goodbye to someone; he chooses not to tell us who. He’s not interested in the specifics of the relationship here, just in the feeling of a parting in epic scenery. In the 20th century, I think the film makers who shot great westerns had the same idea. If John Wayne trots away into iconic mountains, you don’t need to do much more than let the camera absorb the natural majesty of the scene to deliver all the heightened emotion a viewer needs.
Pei Di's poem at the same location (prose translation):
Empty expanse, the lake is wide; luminous blue just like the sky.
We moor the boat at the bank, and give a long trill; a clear breeze blows in from all around.
Previous installments in this series:
Wang River Collection (1) The Dip by Meng Wall 辋川集（一）孟城坳
Wang River Collection (2) Glory Ridge 辋川集（二）华子冈
Wang River Collection (3) Pavilion of Rich-grained Apricot Wood 辋川集（三）文杏馆
Wang River Collection (4) Bamboo Loggers' Forest 辋川集（四）斤竹岭
For those interested in Chinese poetry there is an interesting translation of 千家詩 by Red Pine called Poems of the Masters. The Chinese and English are side by side.
So for the last line how about, “Verdant hills by wreaths of white clouds spun.”