Nowadays, you can reach the opposite cities of the world by airplanes, and you can even explore outer space if you have enough funding. The distance was so great, so was her sadness and helplessness. So, for her it seemed that she and he were under the same sky, but at the opposite side of it. Where did the husband go? Not to the town that she could reach by walking for 20 minutes or 2 hours, but to a place that was ten thousand miles away. Remember, in those ancient times there were no invention of phones or computers, so no text massages, no video camera … For the lady in this poem, the saddest thing is her husband had to be away to a far away place, for a job or a business trip, might be? For that reason, she had to stay home and suffer the misery of missing the one she loved. What is the saddest thing on earth? For different person, the answer varies. The first two lines describe the scene of parting - the wife was seeing the husband walking away in a slow motion mode which appeared again and again in her mind’s eye. There are totally nineteen poems of them, and this is the first poem. These poems greatly influence the development of Chinese poetry and also offer us a deeper and truthful view about the living condition and social situation of Han Dynasty. Many poems are written from the view of women, about their longing for their traveling husband or lamenting his infidelity or death. Love between couples, or the desire to live forever also are themes too. Some poems also mention the lavish life of aristocracy and the wealth it possesses. Thus, often we can see the themes portray the hardship of journey, the sorrow of bidding farewell to parents and family, and they also moan about shortness of life and the people’s helplessness in poverty and illness. All nineteen poems are written in the style of five-syllable verses (五言詩 wuyan shi).Ī lot of Nineteen Old Poems describe upheaval political situation brought middle or lower class citizens a lot of miseries in life - separation, sickness, and death. The name 古诗十九首 first appears in 梁 Liang Dynasty (502-557) anthology Wenxuan 文選 (Selections of Literature) by Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–531). It is reasonable to guess they were written by different poets from that period of time. The authorship of Nineteen Old Poems is unknown. Nineteen Old Poems (古诗十九首 Gu shi shi jiu shou) is an anthology of Chinese poems, consisting of nineteen poems collected during 汉 Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). Long ago, 越 Yue was a minority ethic group in southern China.īackground information about Nineteen Old Poems 胡 Hu in ancient times was used to refer to a few “barbarian” groups on the northern and western frontiers of China. (2) The li (里, lǐ) is a traditional Chinese measurement unit of distance, which has varied considerably over times but now has a standardized length of 500 meters or half a kilometer (approx. My longing for you made me old suddenly time has reached the end of the year.Ībandon the thoughts, don’t mention them anymore please try hard to eat more of your meal. We have been away from each other further and further as days go by the belt of my clothes has been getting looser and looser day after day.įloating cloud blocks the white sun traveler is not willing to return.
Xiāng qù rì yǐ yuǎn, yī dài rì yǐ huǎn ； īarbarian horses lean toward the northern wind Yue birds rest on the south facing branches. Hú mǎ yǐ běi fēng, yuè niǎo cháo nán zhī. The road is obstructed as well as long how could we know whether or not we can see each other again? We are ten thousand Chinese miles apart each other is at the opposite side of sky.ĭào lù zǔ qiě zhǎng, huì miàn an1 kě zhī ? Walk and walk, again, walk and walk you and I separate while still alive.
Xíng xíng chóng xíng xíng, yǔ jūn shēng bié lí.
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