Qingming
清明
Qīng míng
Rain weighs on a traveler at Qingming until a question brings a distant gesture. Read how weather, distress, and a herdboy's answer shape four lines.
Read the poem
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
- 清明 qīng míng Qingming festival
- 時 shí time
- 節 jié season
- 雨 yǔ rain
- 紛 fēn thickly
- 紛 fēn thickly
Word meanings — Line 2
- 路 lù road
- 上 shàng on
- 行 xíng traveling
- 人 rén person
- 欲 yù almost
- 斷魂 duàn hún be overwhelmed with sorrow
Word meanings — Line 3
- 借 jiè may I
- 問 wèn ask
- 酒 jiǔ wine
- 家 jiā house
- 何 hé what
- 處 chù place
- 有 yǒu exists
Word meanings — Line 4
- 牧 mù herding
- 童 tóng child
- 遙 yáo from afar
- 指 zhǐ points
- 杏花村 xìng huā cūn Apricot Blossom Village
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
清明時節雨紛紛，
路上行人欲斷魂。
借問酒家何處有，
牧童遙指杏花村。
Translation
At Qingming, rain falls thick and fine;
the traveler on the road is nearly broken in spirit.
May I ask where there is a wine shop?
A herdboy points far off, toward Apricot Blossom Village.
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?
清明時節雨紛紛，
Pronunciation hint
qīng míng
Reveal meaning and translation
清明 — Qingming festival
At Qingming, rain falls thick and fine;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
借問酒家何處有，
Pronunciation hint
jiā
Reveal meaning and translation
家 — house
May I ask where there is a wine shop?
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
牧童遙指杏花村。
Pronunciation hint
xìng huā cūn
Reveal meaning and translation
杏花村 — Apricot Blossom Village
A herdboy points far off, toward Apricot Blossom Village.
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: a festival day that feels bleak
清明 names the season or observance, so rain can fill the scene in spite of the name’s association with brightness. 紛紛 makes it steady and scattered at once. 行人 introduces a traveler on the road, with no grave visit specified. 欲斷魂 gives distress an extravagant image of the spirit about to break. “Nearly broken in spirit” keeps the intensity in idiomatic English.
Lines 3–4: a question answered without words
借問 is a polite way of asking, and 何處 gives the request a clear aim: a place to buy a drink. 遙指 answers by pointing into the distance. The text leaves the traveler looking toward a place rather than describing the arrival. 杏花村 may be a name or a village characterized by apricot blossom. The English preserves the image in “Apricot Blossom Village,” with no claim about a modern location.
Form and tone
Four seven-character lines make a jueju with a small dramatic turn: description, question, gesture. The last line directs the eye beyond the immediate rain. Its promised destination is left at a distance; no arrival or drink is actually narrated.
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 received poem is traditionally attributed to Du Mu and appears in the Qianjia shi anthology. This page follows that attribution without claiming an exact composition date or a documented journey. The poem’s later familiarity should not be confused with firm evidence for every story attached to it.
Continue with Du Mu and the nature reading path. Compare A Question for Liu Nineteen and Spring Dawn using the reading connections below.
Sources
清明 (杜牧) — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The displayed traditional text follows this reading. 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
Du Mu. “Qingming” (清明). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/qingming-du-mu
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.