An Envoy at the Frontier
使至塞上
Shǐ zhì sài shàng
An envoy’s sparse journey opens into a desert marked by one straight smoke trail and a round setting sun. Read the Chinese, pinyin, word meanings, and original English translation.
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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
- 單車 dān chē single carriage
- 欲 yù intend
- 問邊 wèn biān inquire at the frontier
Word meanings — Line 2
- 屬國 shǔ guó envoy (an official title)
- 過 guò pass
- 居延 jū yán Juyan
Word meanings — Line 3
- 征蓬 zhēng péng traveling windblown plant
- 出 chū go beyond
- 漢塞 hàn sài Han frontier defenses
Word meanings — Line 4
- 歸雁 guī yàn returning geese
- 入 rù enter
- 胡天 hú tiān sky beyond the northern frontier
Word meanings — Line 5
- 大漠 dà mò great desert
- 孤煙 gū yān lone smoke trail
- 直 zhí straight
Word meanings — Line 6
- 長河 cháng hé long river
- 落日 luò rì setting sun
- 圓 yuán round
Word meanings — Line 7
- 蕭關 xiāo guān Xiao Pass
- 逢 féng meet
- 候騎 hòu qí mounted scout
Word meanings — Line 8
- 都護 dū hù protector-general
- 在 zài at
- 燕然 yān rán Yanran
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
單車欲問邊，
屬國過居延。
征蓬出漢塞，
歸雁入胡天。
大漠孤煙直，
長河落日圓。
蕭關逢候騎，
都護在燕然。
Translation
With a single carriage, I go to inquire at the frontier;
the envoy passes Juyan.
A traveling tumbleweed goes beyond the Han defenses;
returning geese enter the northern sky.
In the great desert a lone trail of smoke stands straight;
above the long river the setting sun is round.
At Xiao Pass I meet a mounted scout:
the protector-general is at Yanran.
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?
單車欲問邊，
Pronunciation hint
dān chē
Reveal meaning and translation
單車 — single carriage
With a single carriage, I go to inquire at the frontier;
-
Line 5 · What does the marked word mean?
大漠孤煙直，
Pronunciation hint
dà mò
Reveal meaning and translation
大漠 — great desert
In the great desert a lone trail of smoke stands straight;
-
Line 8 · What does the marked word mean?
都護在燕然。
Pronunciation hint
dū hù
Reveal meaning and translation
都護 — protector-general
the protector-general is at Yanran.
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.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · The official journey
單車 gives the mission a small visible footprint, a single carriage. 欲問邊 gives its purpose as an intention to inquire at the border. 屬國 is read as a reference to the envoy's office, so the translation makes the envoy the one who passes Juyan. The offices and places provide a frame for the journey.
Lines 3–4 · Two ways of traveling
The rootless tumbleweed goes out (出), and the geese come into (入) the northern sky. 征 describes a journey and 歸 suggests a return. One image has the insecurity of being carried off, while the other has a destination implied by its verb. 漢 and 胡 belong to inherited frontier vocabulary. The translation uses “northern sky” to keep the movement across a border legible without assigning a modern ethnic identity.
Lines 5–6 · The view in two shapes
The plain words 直 and 圓 give the smoke a straight line and the sun a circle. 大漠 and 長河 extend in two directions around those shapes. 孤 picks a single thread of smoke out of the space, and 落 names the sun's downward motion while 圓 holds its outline steady. English keeps those shapes at the ends of the lines, where Chinese places them.
Lines 7–8 · A report at the pass
候騎 is the mounted scout the envoy encounters, with 騎 read qí in modern Mandarin. The scout's news locates the protector-general at Yanran. 燕然 carries frontier associations, and the sequence of place names gives no firm basis for reconstructing an itinerary. The poem ends with the destination of the official's attention still elsewhere.
Form and tone
This five-character regulated verse alternates the travel account with paired images. 征蓬 / 歸雁 and 孤煙 / 落日 create correspondences of movement and shape. 延, 天, 圓, and 然 fill the even-line rhyme positions.
See the regulated verse guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; no unverified historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
The title identifies an official mission. Yet the traveler also appears as a rootless plant among migrating birds. The final news puts the commanding officer farther away, so reaching the frontier does not produce a grand meeting scene.
Continue with Wang Wei or the frontier shelf.
Sources
Chinese text compared with 使至塞上, public transcription on Wikisource. Punctuation is editorial; the English translation 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
Wang Wei. “An Envoy at the Frontier” (使至塞上). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/an-envoy-at-the-frontier
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.