A Question for the Huai River
問淮水
Wèn Huái shuǐ
A weary pursuer of reputation and advantage asks why the river, too, can never rest. Read the original Chinese with pinyin, word meanings, an original English translation, and notes.
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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
- 自嗟 zì jiē sigh at oneself
- 名利 míng lì fame and gain
- 客 kè traveler
Word meanings — Line 2
- 擾擾 rǎo rǎo restlessly bustling
- 在 zài in
- 人間 rén jiān human world
Word meanings — Line 3
- 何事 hé shì why
- 長 cháng long
- 淮水 huái shuǐ Huai River
Word meanings — Line 4
- 東流 dōng liú flow east
- 亦 yì also
- 不閑 bù xián not at rest
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
自嗟名利客，
擾擾在人間。
何事長淮水，
東流亦不閑？
Translation
I sigh at myself, a traveler after fame and gain,
bustling about in the human world.
But why do you, waters of the long Huai,
flow east and never rest either?
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?
自嗟名利客，
Pronunciation hint
zì jiē
Reveal meaning and translation
自嗟 — sigh at oneself
I sigh at myself, a traveler after fame and gain,
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
何事長淮水，
Pronunciation hint
hé shì
Reveal meaning and translation
何事 — why
But why do you, waters of the long Huai,
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
東流亦不閑？
Pronunciation hint
dōng liú
Reveal meaning and translation
東流 — flow east
flow east and never rest either?
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: the traveler is the first subject
自嗟 turns the sigh back on the speaker. 名利 names the paired attractions of reputation and material gain. 客 marks someone away from home and gives that pursuit an unsettled setting. 擾擾 makes the activity sound restless. The English puts “bustling about” on its own line, where it can describe the speaker’s way of moving through 人間.
Lines 3–4: one word links the river to the speaker
何事 is the question “why?” The poem addresses the long Huai directly, as the English “you” makes explicit. Read 亦 aloud with the question: the water “also” never rests. That word applies the preceding human description to an eastward current. The comparison turns a complaint about ambition into a question the river cannot answer.
Form and tone
The five-character quatrain divides into a self-description and an address to water. 間 and 閑 make an audible connection between the human world and the absence of leisure. The question extends across the last two lines, so our punctuation waits until the end to close it.
See the jueju guide for the form. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin; no historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
The Huai is named, but the poem supplies neither a date nor a destination. The speaker encounters the river while considering a life of movement. Reading it as a completed withdrawal from public affairs would go beyond the words: the traveler remains in the world that provokes the sigh.
Read more by Bai Juyi, or follow the nature shelf. The English translation, gloss, and notes are original to PoemWell.
Sources
問淮水, public transcription. We retain 不閑 from the public transcription. Punctuation and reading-line divisions are 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. “A Question for the Huai River” (問淮水). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/question-for-the-huai-river
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.