Leaving White Emperor City at Dawn
早發白帝城
Zǎo fā Báidì chéng
Li Bai’s White Emperor City departure, with pinyin and English notes on the return to Jiangling, continuing gibbon cries, swift passage, and textual variants.
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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
- 朝 zhāo at dawn
- 辭 cí leave
- 白帝 bái dì White Emperor City
- 彩雲 cǎi yún colored clouds
- 間 jiān among
Word meanings — Line 2
- 千里 qiān lǐ a thousand li
- 江陵 jiāng líng Jiangling
- 一日 yí rì one day
- 還 huán return
Word meanings — Line 3
- 兩岸 liǎng àn both banks
- 猿聲 yuán shēng gibbons' cries
- 啼 tí cry
- 不盡 bú jìn without end
Word meanings — Line 4
- 輕舟 qīng zhōu light boat
- 已 yǐ already
- 過 guò pass
- 萬重山 wàn chóng shān countless layers of mountains
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
朝辭白帝彩雲間，
千里江陵一日還。
兩岸猿聲啼不盡，
輕舟已過萬重山。
Translation
At dawn I leave White Emperor City among bright clouds;
a thousand li to Jiangling, I return in a single day.
The gibbons' cries along both banks have not run out—
already the light boat has passed mountain after mountain.
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.
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Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
朝辭白帝彩雲間，
Pronunciation hint
bái dì
Reveal meaning and translation
白帝 — White Emperor City
At dawn I leave White Emperor City among bright clouds;
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Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
兩岸猿聲啼不盡，
Pronunciation hint
liǎng àn
Reveal meaning and translation
兩岸 — both banks
The gibbons' cries along both banks have not run out—
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
輕舟已過萬重山。
Pronunciation hint
qīng zhōu
Reveal meaning and translation
輕舟 — light boat
already the light boat has passed mountain after mountain.
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
A journey compressed into two lines
朝 is zhāo, morning, rather than cháo, court. 白帝 and 江陵 are the journey’s named places. The first line places departure among colored clouds; the second brings a thousand li and a single day together. The numbers give a sense of scale and speed, not enough information to calculate a reliable boat velocity.
還, huán, means return. Our English keeps the act of returning but supplies a speaking traveler so that the line does not sound like an incomplete timetable. The four lines themselves do not explain the whole history behind that return.
Sound continues while the view has passed
不盡 describes the gibbons’ cries as unexhausted. 已, “already,” then puts the boat beyond mountain after mountain before that sound seems finished. The comparison is between continuing perception and accomplished motion, not a claim that one particular animal remains audible for the entire route.
重 in 萬重山 is chóng: layers or successive ranks of mountains. It is not zhòng, heavy. The boat is 輕, light, which suits the ease of movement without specifying how much cargo it carries.
This edition prints 啼不盡. Many familiar versions use 啼不住, “cry without stopping”; the source records both. Compare Sitting Alone on Jingting Mountain, where the person stays and moving things leave. Here the traveler passes through what seems almost unable to end.
Notice where the poem places 千里 and 萬重. Line two gives the whole route as a single distance. Line four makes the mountains successively pass the light boat. The English moves from “a thousand li” to “mountain after mountain” to keep that change from one measure of length to repeated encounters.
Form and tone
The four seven-character lines move from a departure to an accomplished passage. 間, 還, and 山 occupy the rhyme positions. The second line compresses a day; the fourth seems to compress that duration still further through 已, “already.”
See the quatrain guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; no unverified historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
The place-names belong to a downstream Yangtze journey. The poem is often read in relation to release from exile, but its exhilaration is also present in the verbs and distances without a biographical reconstruction.
Continue with Li Bai or the nature shelf.
Read this poem alongside the contrasting selections in our mountain poetry guide.
Sources
Chinese text compared with 早發白帝城, public transcription on Wikisource. This reading has 啼不盡, “cry without end”; the cited text also records 啼不住. Other familiar editions print the latter. 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
Li Bai. “Leaving White Emperor City at Dawn” (早發白帝城). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/early-departure-from-white-emperor-city
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.