Presented to Hua Qing
贈花卿
Zèng Huā qīng
Music in Chengdu seems divided between river wind and clouds, too rare for ordinary earthly hearing. 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
- 錦城 jǐn chéng Brocade City (Chengdu)
- 絲管 sī guǎn strings and pipes
- 日 rì daily
- 紛紛 fēn fēn abundant and intermingled
Word meanings — Line 2
- 半 bàn half
- 入 rù enter
- 江風 jiāng fēng river wind
- 半 bàn half
- 入 rù enter
- 雲 yún clouds
Word meanings — Line 3
- 此曲 cǐ qǔ this music
- 秪 zhǐ only
- 應 yīng ought to
- 天上 tiān shàng in heaven
- 有 yǒu exist
Word meanings — Line 4
- 人間 rén jiān human world
- 能得 néng dé can obtain the chance
- 幾回 jǐ huí how many times
- 聞 wén hear
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
錦城絲管日紛紛，
半入江風半入雲。
此曲秪應天上有，
人間能得幾回聞。
Translation
In Brocade City, strings and pipes sound thickly every day;
half enters the river wind, half enters the clouds.
Such music ought to exist only in heaven;
how often can the human world be allowed to hear it?
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.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
錦城絲管日紛紛，
Pronunciation hint
jǐn chéng
Reveal meaning and translation
錦城 — Brocade City (Chengdu)
In Brocade City, strings and pipes sound thickly every day;
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Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
此曲秪應天上有，
Pronunciation hint
cǐ qǔ
Reveal meaning and translation
此曲 — this music
Such music ought to exist only in heaven;
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
人間能得幾回聞。
Pronunciation hint
rén jiān
Reveal meaning and translation
人間 — human world
how often can the human world be allowed to hear it?
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: music leaves its room
絲管 names strings and wind instruments by their materials. 日紛紛 makes the playing seem plentiful and recurrent. The two 半入 send halves of a single sound into river wind and cloud. The English keeps the same verb for both destinations, so the sentence can make music spread far beyond its players.
Lines 3–4: praise expressed as a question
秪 has the force of “only.” The speaker says the tune belongs in heaven, then asks how often 人間 can hear it. At first this is praise of remarkable music. Read 日 from the first line against 幾回 in the last: it is heard every day and is described as something people should rarely hear. That tension can give the compliment a courtly or admonitory edge. The poem leaves any specific offense unstated.
Form and tone
In this seven-character quatrain, 紛紛 supplies density before 半…半… divides the sound spatially. 紛, 雲, and 聞 connect the rhyme. The final question turns the daily performance of the first line into something supposedly rare.
See the quatrain guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; no unverified historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
錦城 identifies Chengdu, and the title addresses Hua Qing. The tension between 日, “daily,” and 幾回, “how often,” is worth reading before deciding whether the poem is pure praise or tactful criticism.
Continue with Du Fu or the music shelf.
Sources
Chinese text compared with 贈花卿, public transcription on Wikisource. 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
Du Fu. “Presented to Hua Qing” (贈花卿). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/presented-to-hua-qing
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.