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Tang Dynasty Jueju Jia Dao

Seeing Spring Off on the Last Day of the Third Month

三月晦日送春

Sān yuè huì rì sòng chūn

On the last day of the third month, a sleepless speaker tries to keep spring company. Read how one night briefly delays the feeling of departure.

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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.

01

三月正當三十日，

sān yuè zhèng dāng sān shí rì

The third month has reached its thirtieth day;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 三 sān third
  2. 月 yuè month
  3. 正 zhèng exactly
  4. 當 dāng at
  5. 三 sān three
  6. 十 shí ten
  7. 日 rì day
02

春風別我苦吟身。

chūn fēng bié wǒ kǔ yín shēn

the spring wind takes leave of me, this laboring poet.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 春 chūn spring
  2. 風 fēng wind
  3. 別 bié leaves
  4. 我 wǒ my
  5. 苦 kǔ painstaking
  6. 吟 yín chanting
  7. 身 shēn self
03

共君今夜不須睡，

gòng jūn jīn yè bù xū shuì

You and I need not sleep tonight:

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 共 gòng with
  2. 君 jūn you
  3. 今 jīn this
  4. 夜 yè night
  5. 不 bù not
  6. 須 xū need
  7. 睡 shuì sleep
04

未過曉鐘猶是春。

wèi guò xiǎo zhōng yóu shì chūn

before the dawn bell has passed, it is still spring.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 未 wèi not yet
  2. 過 guò passed
  3. 曉 xiǎo dawn
  4. 鐘 zhōng bell
  5. 猶 yóu still
  6. 是 shì is
  7. 春 chūn spring

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

三月正當三十日，

春風別我苦吟身。

共君今夜不須睡，

未過曉鐘猶是春。

Translation

The third month has reached its thirtieth day;

the spring wind takes leave of me, this laboring poet.

You and I need not sleep tonight:

before the dawn bell has passed, it is still spring.

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.

  1. Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?

    三月正當三十日，

    Pronunciation hint

    dāng

    Reveal meaning and translation

    當 — at

    The third month has reached its thirtieth day;

  2. Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?

    共君今夜不須睡，

    Pronunciation hint

    yè

    Reveal meaning and translation

    夜 — night

    You and I need not sleep tonight:

  3. Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?

    未過曉鐘猶是春。

    Pronunciation hint

    zhōng

    Reveal meaning and translation

    鐘 — bell

    before the dawn bell has passed, it is still spring.

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 →

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Line-by-line notes

Lines 1–2 — The season as a friend leaving

晦 in the title is the last day of a lunar month. 正當 makes the opening exact: the speaker has reached day thirty of the third month. Then 春風別我 turns that calendar fact into a parting, with the spring wind the one taking leave. 苦吟身 names the speaker through the work of painfully composing verse. “This laboring poet” keeps the self-description inside the farewell.

Lines 3–4 — A little time before the bell

共君 gives the proposed vigil to two people. 不須睡 sounds like an invitation to stay awake together. The last line makes the proposal intelligible through 未過 and 猶是. Before the dawn bell has gone by, it is still spring. A sound now marks the boundary that the number in the first line seemed to settle already. The pair can spend that last interval in attention even as the season is ending.

Form and tone

This seven-character quatrain has a numerical opening and a temporal condition at the end. 別 turns a seasonal transition into a farewell. The last two lines form one proposal and its reason, giving the poem an intimate conversational pace.

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

The poem is also circulated under titles addressing a friend, but this page follows the title and readings in the cited Qianjia shi tradition. Its third month belongs to the traditional seasonal calendar. A modern March date should not be substituted for that calendar without explanation.

Continue with Jia Dao and the nature reading path. Compare Late Spring: Grass and Trees and After Writing a Poem using the reading connections below.

Sources

三月晦日送春 — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. Follows the Qianjia shi text with 春風 and 未過; the source records 風光 as a variant of 春風. 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

Jia Dao. “Seeing Spring Off on the Last Day of the Third Month” (三月晦日送春). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/last-night-of-spring-jia-dao

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.