Amber
詠琥珀
Yǒng hǔ pò
Amber preserves the imagined history of an ancient pine. Read a miniature poem that joins changing matter, hidden life, and the survival of small traces.
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Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 曾 céng once
- 為 wéi was
- 老 lǎo old
- 茯神 fú shén fushen, a pine-root fungus
Word meanings — Line 2
- 本 běn originally
- 是 shì was
- 寒 hán cold
- 松 sōng pine
- 液 yè sap
Word meanings — Line 3
- 蚊蚋 wén ruì mosquitoes and gnats
- 落 luò fall
- 其 qí its
- 中 zhōng inside
Word meanings — Line 4
- 千 qiān thousand
- 年 nián years
- 猶 yóu still
- 可 kě can
- 覿 dí see
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
曾為老茯神，
本是寒松液。
蚊蚋落其中，
千年猶可覿。
Translation
Once, it was aged fushen;
at its beginning, cold pine sap.
Mosquitoes and gnats fell into it,
and a thousand years later can still be seen.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
曾為老茯神，
Pronunciation hint
fú shén
Reveal meaning and translation
茯神 — fushen, a pine-root fungus
Once, it was aged fushen;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
蚊蚋落其中，
Pronunciation hint
wén ruì
Reveal meaning and translation
蚊蚋 — mosquitoes and gnats
Mosquitoes and gnats fell into it,
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
千年猶可覿。
Pronunciation hint
yóu
Reveal meaning and translation
猶 — still
and a thousand years later can still be seen.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
Line-by-line notes →Self-check at your own pace. No score or progress is saved. Open only the answers you want included when printing.
Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · Two ways of looking backward
曾為 points to what the amber once was said to be, and 本是 takes the account farther back toward an origin. 茯神 is fushen, a traditional substance associated with poria and pine roots. Keeping the name in the English allows the note to supply that material association. The next line reaches back to 寒松液, sap of a pine, within the poem's inherited account of change around the tree.
Lines 3–4 · What remains visible
蚊蚋 singles out two small kinds of insect. 落其中 presents them at the moment they fall into the material. The following line jumps an immense span of time in 千年. 猶, “still,” keeps that moment connected to the present act of looking. 覿 can mean to see or meet face to face, a surprisingly direct word for something trapped inside a substance. The thousand years give the encounter scale. The reader can see something minute and imagine the vast interval the poem puts between its fall and our looking.
Form and tone
The five-character quatrain has two linked pairs: what the substance is said to have been, and what it still allows one to see. 曾, 本, and 猶 organize time. The last verb moves the reader from an origin story back to present looking.
See jueju for the larger formal pattern. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; a historical level/oblique grid is not inferred from those modern tones.
Historical context
The poem is an example of writing about an object through inherited knowledge and direct appearance together. Its value does not depend on claiming that every part of its natural history anticipates modern science. The preserved insect is also a literary way to make a vast duration suddenly visible.
Continue with Wei Yingwu and the nature reading path. Compare A Dewdrop and Red Cliff using the reading connections below.
Sources
詠琥珀 — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The displayed traditional text follows this reading. Punctuation and line breaks are editorial. Translation, glosses, and reading notes are original to PoemWell.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Wei Yingwu. “Amber” (詠琥珀). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/amber-wei-yingwu
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.