Frost and Moon
霜月
Shuāng yuè
An autumn night becomes a contest between frost and moonlight. Follow the poem's transformation of cold brightness into a meeting of celestial women.
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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
- 初 chū first
- 聞 wén hear
- 征雁 zhēng yàn migrating geese
- 已 yǐ already
- 無 wú no
- 蟬 chán cicadas
Word meanings — Line 2
- 百尺 bǎi chǐ a hundred chi
- 樓 lóu tower
- 高 gāo high
- 水 shuǐ water
- 接 jiē joins
- 天 tiān sky
Word meanings — Line 3
- 青女 qīng nǚ Qingnü, the frost goddess
- 素娥 sù é the moon goddess
- 俱 jù both
- 耐 nài endure
- 冷 lěng cold
Word meanings — Line 4
- 月 yuè moon
- 中 zhōng within
- 霜 shuāng frost
- 裏 lǐ inside
- 鬥 dòu compete
- 嬋娟 chán juān loveliness or grace
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
初聞征雁已無蟬，
百尺樓高水接天。
青女素娥俱耐冷，
月中霜裏鬥嬋娟。
Translation
The first migrating geese are heard; the cicadas have already gone quiet.
From a tower a hundred chi high, I see water meet the sky.
The frost goddess and the white moon goddess both withstand the cold;
in moonlight and frost they vie in loveliness.
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?
初聞征雁已無蟬，
Pronunciation hint
zhēng yàn
Reveal meaning and translation
征雁 — migrating geese
The first migrating geese are heard; the cicadas have already gone quiet.
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Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
青女素娥俱耐冷，
Pronunciation hint
qīng nǚ
Reveal meaning and translation
青女 — Qingnü, the frost goddess
The frost goddess and the white moon goddess both withstand the cold;
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
月中霜裏鬥嬋娟。
Pronunciation hint
chán juān
Reveal meaning and translation
嬋娟 — loveliness or grace
in moonlight and frost they vie in loveliness.
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 — Hearing a season and seeing its scale
初聞 and 已無 mark two different moments within the same listening. The first migrating geese are now audible and the cicadas are already gone. The shift in season can be heard before the tower and water give it a view. 百尺 gives the tower its height in chi, the unit kept in the English. 高 and 接 then carry the gaze outward until water appears to meet sky.
Lines 3–4 — Two figures in the cold
青女 is the goddess of frost, and 素娥 evokes the moon goddess. 俱 puts both under the same condition, 耐冷, withstanding cold. 月中 and 霜裏 give the two kinds of brightness their settings. The last verb 鬥 makes loveliness something the figures vie in. The gloss keeps 嬋娟 together in its sense of grace or beauty. The still, cold view can thus become a competition without changing what the observer sees.
Form and tone
This seven-character quatrain shifts from seasonal observation to mythic animation. The parallel divine names in line three prepare the paired spaces 月中 and 霜裏 in line four. The last verb, 鬥, gives the apparently still scene its unexpected movement.
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
Li Shangyin’s mythological names belong to a poetic vocabulary of moonlight and frost. The translation identifies their roles so that the comparison remains legible. It does not turn the poem into a claim about an actual supernatural encounter.
Continue with Li Shangyin and the moon reading path. Compare Chang’e and Looking at Lake Dongting using the reading connections below.
Sources
霜月 (李商隱) — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The main reading 樓高 is retained. The older graph 鬭 is normalized to 鬥. 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
Li Shangyin. “Frost and Moon” (霜月). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/frost-and-moon
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.