Mooring below North Solid Hill
次北固山下
Cì Běigù shān xià
Wang Wan’s boat reaches a river landscape where daylight and spring arrive before night and the old year have quite ended.
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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
- 客 kè traveler
- 路 lù road
- 青 qīng green
- 山 shān hills
- 外 wài beyond
Word meanings — Line 2
- 行 xíng moving
- 舟 zhōu boat
- 綠 lǜ green
- 水 shuǐ water
- 前 qián ahead
Word meanings — Line 3
- 潮 cháo tide
- 平 píng level
- 兩 liǎng two
- 岸 àn banks
- 闊 kuò wide
Word meanings — Line 4
- 風 fēng wind
- 正 zhèng steady
- 一 yì one
- 帆 fān sail
- 懸 xuán hangs
Word meanings — Line 5
- 海 hǎi sea
- 日 rì sun
- 生 shēng born
- 殘 cán remaining
- 夜 yè night
Word meanings — Line 6
- 江 jiāng river
- 春 chūn spring
- 入 rù enters
- 舊 jiù old
- 年 nián year
Word meanings — Line 7
- 鄉 xiāng home
- 書 shū letter
- 何 hé what
- 處 chù place
- 達 dá reach
Word meanings — Line 8
- 歸 guī returning
- 雁 yàn geese
- 洛 luò Luo
- 陽 yáng yang
- 邊 biān toward
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
客路青山外，
行舟綠水前。
潮平兩岸闊，
風正一帆懸。
海日生殘夜，
江春入舊年。
鄉書何處達，
歸雁洛陽邊。
Translation
The traveler's road runs beyond the green hills;
my boat proceeds over the green water ahead.
The full tide spreads the banks apart;
a steady wind holds one sail aloft.
The sea's sun is born in what remains of night;
river spring enters the old year.
Where can my letter home find its way?
Returning geese, go toward Luoyang.
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?
客路青山外，
Pronunciation hint
qīng
Reveal meaning and translation
青 — green
The traveler's road runs beyond the green hills;
-
Line 5 · What does the marked word mean?
海日生殘夜，
Pronunciation hint
shēng
Reveal meaning and translation
生 — born
The sea's sun is born in what remains of night;
-
Line 8 · What does the marked word mean?
歸雁洛陽邊。
Pronunciation hint
luò
Reveal meaning and translation
洛 — Luo
Returning geese, go toward Luoyang.
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 · A route beyond the stopping place
次 in the title means a stop or lodging on a journey. 客路 is the traveler’s continuing route, which stretches beyond the hills. 行舟 moves the boat through the water immediately ahead. 外 and 前 give the reader two relations to the journey, beyond the present view and straight in front of it.
Lines 3–4 · What fills the view and what steadies it
潮平 makes the full tide seem level with the banks, whose distance appears wider. 風正 gives the sail a favorable steady wind. 懸 is hanging, so the sail can hold its single clear shape in all that openness. The English keeps 一帆 as one sail rather than opening the scene to a fleet.
Lines 5–6 · A new time begins within an old one
生 makes sunrise something born while night is still 殘, partly remaining. 入 makes river spring something already entering the old year. Read 生 and 入 side by side. Each new condition begins before the one it replaces has entirely passed. The English keeps those overlapping transitions.
Lines 7–8 · Where the letter wants to go
鄉書 is a letter home, and 何處達 asks where it can reach its destination. The English addresses the returning geese as if they could carry the wish toward Luoyang. The closing bird flight gives the letter a direction without narrating a delivery. This is the eight-line 次北固山下 text. The cited collection also preserves a substantially different poem version titled 江南意.
Form and tone
Eight five-character lines form a lushi. The middle couplets pair shore with sail and dawn with spring; 前, 懸, 年, and 邊 occupy the even-line rhyme. The last question brings the wide view back to correspondence. Pinyin is modern Mandarin; no historical tone grid is invented.
Historical context
Wang Wan is represented in the source by a received text and a distinct early anthology version, so the source note matters to the entire poem. This reading joins homesickness to seasonal passage. Compare Mooring on the Jiande River, and the valued family news in Spring View.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 115, checked in the Wikisource transcription. The main reading is followed; variant graphs 爲、却 are normalized to 為、卻. Punctuation is editorial.
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 Wan. “Mooring below North Solid Hill” (次北固山下). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/below-north-solid-hill
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.