Wang Wei floats down the river

With a song

Photo by Kuruman on Flickr

Greenbrook
Wang Wei

If you sail the Yellowflower,
Drift on Greenbrook every time,
Through a thousand wandering hillsides
Winding just a-thirty miles.
Its sound is babbling in the pebbles,
The sight is quieting the pines,
Ripples sway the sedge and sweet flag,
Glassy depths reflect the reeds.
Crystal sweep of tranquil water,
As my heart has always been,
Leave me fishing on this boulder
All the da-ays left to me.


王维  青溪
言入黄花川，每逐青溪水。
随山将万转，趣途无百里。
声喧乱石中，色静深松里。
漾漾泛菱荇，澄澄映葭苇。
我心素已闲，清川澹如此。
请留磐石上，垂钓将已矣。

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The Yellowflower: A river in Feng County, Shanxi.

This is Wang Wei in musical mode, with a boating song that swings. The third couplet is the most beautiful, where the parallel phrasing in the lines highlights the sound that babbles and the sight that quiets.

Edit:

Inspired by a comment below, I went searching for a recital in reconstructed Tang Chinese, and found one!

I don’t know who this poster is, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy. But it’s fun to listen and imagine that this might be closer. In particular, listen to the rhyming words at the end of each couplet. In Modern Chinese, the rhyme is gone, but in this version, every line rhymes, and moreover it has quite a striking singsong high-pitched rhyme syllable. It makes the whole thing sound more musical, which is very much as it should be.

I think this enhances the experience of the poem quite nicely, so thank you to that commenter for giving me a prod!