In the Mountains
山中
Shān zhōng
A rainless mountain path seems to wet the traveler through the density of its green. 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
- 荊谿 jīng xī Jing Stream
- 白石 bái shí white stones
- 出 chū emerge
Word meanings — Line 2
- 天寒 tiān hán weather cold
- 紅葉 hóng yè red leaves
- 稀 xī sparse
Word meanings — Line 3
- 山路 shān lù mountain path
- 元 yuán in fact
- 無雨 wú yǔ no rain
Word meanings — Line 4
- 空翠 kōng cuì green in the air
- 濕 shī dampen
- 人衣 rén yī a person's clothes
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
荊谿白石出，
天寒紅葉稀。
山路元無雨，
空翠濕人衣。
Translation
White stones emerge in Jing Stream;
the weather is cold, the red leaves sparse.
There is in fact no rain on the mountain path,
yet the green filling the air dampens one's clothes.
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?
荊谿白石出，
Pronunciation hint
jīng xī
Reveal meaning and translation
荊谿 — Jing Stream
White stones emerge in Jing Stream;
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Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
山路元無雨，
Pronunciation hint
shān lù
Reveal meaning and translation
山路 — mountain path
There is in fact no rain on the mountain path,
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
空翠濕人衣。
Pronunciation hint
kōng cuì
Reveal meaning and translation
空翠 — green in the air
yet the green filling the air dampens one's clothes.
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 · What cold makes visible
荊谿 names Jing Stream, with 谿 a graph for a stream. The opening relies on its last word 出 to make the white stones come into view. The next line gives two conditions, cold air and scarce red leaves. 稀 makes the red appear in separated patches, an effect the English “sparse” keeps distinct from an abundant red canopy.
Lines 3–4 · Color reaches the walker
元無雨 says there is in fact no rain on the mountain path. The English adds “yet” at the start of the next line because the relationship between the two statements is carried by their juxtaposition in Chinese. 空翠 is green color suffusing the surrounding air or open space. 濕 gives that color an action on the walker’s clothing. The line asks the reader to feel a green landscape as something as enveloping as moisture.
The cited collection prints 元 and the page keeps it. Many readers know 原 in this phrase. Both can support the sense “in fact,” while keeping 元 records the particular text being read here.
Form and tone
This five-character quatrain makes its turn through a negative statement. 稀 and 衣 close the even lines. The final line replaces the anticipated cause of wetness, rain, with an immersive quality of the mountain itself.
See the quatrain guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; no unverified historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
The familiar title 山中 describes the scene, while the cited collection transmits it as an untitled piece. We preserve that distinction in the source note. The poem’s attention is tactile as well as visual.
Continue with Wang Wei or the nature shelf.
Sources
Chinese text compared with 山中, public transcription on Wikisource. The cited collection places this under 闕題二首, first poem, and prints 元無雨. We retain 元 (“originally; in fact”), rather than silently replacing it with the common 原. 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. “In the Mountains” (山中). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/in-the-mountains-wang-wei
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.