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Tang Dynasty Jueju Bai Juyi

Peach Blossoms at Dalin Temple

大林寺桃花

Dàlín sì táohuā

Bai Juyi finds spring flowering where he thought it had vanished: Chinese, pinyin, word gloss, an original English translation, and notes on the poem’s turn.

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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

人間四月芳菲盡，

rén jiān sì yuè fāng fēi jìn

In the world below, the fourth month's flowers are finished;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 人 rén people
  2. 間 jiān world
  3. 四 sì fourth
  4. 月 yuè month
  5. 芳 fāng fragrant
  6. 菲 fēi flowers
  7. 盡 jìn finished
02

山寺桃花始盛開。

shān sì táo huā shǐ shèng kāi

at the mountain temple, peach blossoms are only now opening fully.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 山 shān mountain
  2. 寺 sì temple
  3. 桃 táo peach
  4. 花 huā blossoms
  5. 始 shǐ begin
  6. 盛 shèng fully
  7. 開 kāi open
03

長恨春歸無覓處，

cháng hèn chūn guī wú mì chù

I kept grieving that spring had gone, with nowhere left to find it—

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 長 cháng long
  2. 恨 hèn regret
  3. 春 chūn spring
  4. 歸 guī departs
  5. 無 wú no
  6. 覓 mì seek
  7. 處 chù place
04

不知轉入此中來。

bù zhī zhuǎn rù cǐ zhōng lái

not knowing it had turned aside and come here.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 不 bù not
  2. 知 zhī know
  3. 轉 zhuǎn turn
  4. 入 rù enter
  5. 此 cǐ this
  6. 中 zhōng within
  7. 來 lái come

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

人間四月芳菲盡，

山寺桃花始盛開。

長恨春歸無覓處，

不知轉入此中來。

Translation

In the world below, the fourth month's flowers are finished;

at the mountain temple, peach blossoms are only now opening fully.

I kept grieving that spring had gone, with nowhere left to find it—

not knowing it had turned aside and come here.

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?

    人間四月芳菲盡，

    Pronunciation hint

    yuè

    Reveal meaning and translation

    月 — month

    In the world below, the fourth month's flowers are finished;

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

    長恨春歸無覓處，

    Pronunciation hint

    guī

    Reveal meaning and translation

    歸 — departs

    I kept grieving that spring had gone, with nowhere left to find it—

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

    不知轉入此中來。

    Pronunciation hint

    rù

    Reveal meaning and translation

    入 — enter

    not knowing it had turned aside and come here.

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: two places, two springs

人間 is the human world. Against 山寺, the mountain temple, it suggests the inhabited world below. The English supplies “below” to make that relation visible. 四月 is the fourth lunar month. Notice 盡 and 始 at the ends of the two descriptions: the season’s flowers are spent in one place and the peach blossoms are just now opening fully in another. 芳菲 names flowering growth as a whole, while 桃花 is one plant the speaker can see.

Lines 3–4: the speaker revises where spring went

長恨 gives the regret a duration. 春歸 is spring’s departure, and 無覓處 is how the speaker had understood that loss. 不知 corrects the understanding. The last line puts the movement into 轉入 and ends on 來. Our “turned aside” imagines spring changing route. 此中 puts the observer inside the place spring has come to. The joke depends on the difference between the two places established in the first pair.

Form and tone

This seven-character jueju builds a contrast in its first pair and revises a judgment in its second. The important verbal hinges are 盡 / 始 and 歸 / 來: ending / beginning, departure / arrival.

開 and 來 occupy the even-line rhyme positions. Read 長 as cháng, “long” or “continually,” and 轉 as zhuǎn, “turn.” Our pinyin is modern Mandarin. A historical level/oblique grid is omitted.

Historical context

Bai Juyi lets a specific discovery change the meaning of a season. The title names Dalin Temple; the first line supplies a month, but not a year. The close reading does not depend on reconstructing every stop of the journey.

On the nature shelf, Ru Meng Ling offers another correction about flowers. Li Qingzhao's speaker challenges a report that the blossoms are unchanged; Bai Juyi discovers that his own belief was incomplete. Grass on the Ancient Plain concerns annual return, while this poem finds different stages of spring at the same time.

The translation, gloss, and notes here are original. They preserve the distinction between the calendar's named month and the landscape's uneven flowering.

Sources

《全唐詩》, juan 439, 大林寺桃花, checked against the individual text. 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

Bai Juyi. “Peach Blossoms at Dalin Temple” (大林寺桃花). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/peach-blossoms-at-dalin-temple

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.