Returning Geese
歸雁
Guī Yàn
Qian Qi gives geese a mythic reason to leave the beautiful Xiao-Xiang region: moonlit zither music whose sorrow is too much to bear.
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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.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 瀟 xiāo Xiao
- 湘 xiāng Xiang
- 何 hé what
- 事 shì reason
- 等 děng casually
- 閒 xián idly
- 回 huí return
Word meanings — Line 2
- 水 shuǐ water
- 碧 bì jade green
- 沙 shā sand
- 明 míng bright
- 兩 liǎng both
- 岸 àn banks
- 苔 tái moss
Word meanings — Line 3
- 二 èr two
- 十 shí ten
- 五 wǔ five
- 弦 xián strings
- 彈 tán play
- 夜 yè night
- 月 yuè moon
Word meanings — Line 4
- 不 bù not
- 勝 shēng bear
- 清 qīng pure
- 怨 yuàn lament
- 卻 què turn back
- 飛 fēi fly
- 來 lái come
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
瀟湘何事等閒回，
水碧沙明兩岸苔。
二十五弦彈夜月，
不勝清怨卻飛來。
Translation
Why leave Xiao-Xiang and return so readily?
The water is green, the sand bright, moss lines both banks.
Twenty-five strings sound beneath the moon at night;
unable to bear that clear lament, the geese have flown here.
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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?
瀟湘何事等閒回，
Pronunciation hint
shì
Reveal meaning and translation
事 — reason
Why leave Xiao-Xiang and return so readily?
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
二十五弦彈夜月，
Pronunciation hint
xián
Reveal meaning and translation
弦 — strings
Twenty-five strings sound beneath the moon at night;
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
不勝清怨卻飛來。
Pronunciation hint
yuàn
Reveal meaning and translation
怨 — lament
unable to bear that clear lament, the geese have flown 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.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · Why leave a place like this?
The title supplies the geese as the unspoken addressees. 何事 asks what has made them turn back, and 等閒 suggests an action taken readily or lightly. Then the second line seems to make departure less explicable. 水碧, 沙明, and 兩岸苔 set three bright or green details in view. The place being left has plenty to recommend it to the eye.
Lines 3–4 · What sight cannot explain
二十五弦 points to the many-stringed se zither and evokes the music of the Xiang spirits. Under the moon, that music has a 清怨, a clear-sounding lament. 卻 turns the answer back toward the geese and their flight. The English supplies the birds as the subject again and reads their migration as the poem’s imagined response to sorrowful music. 不勝 means “cannot bear” and uses the retained literary reading bù shēng here. Modern Mandarin also commonly uses shèng in this sense. Ministry of Education dictionary
Form and tone
This seven-character quatrain uses question and answer across its two halves. A beautiful visual scene is overturned by an unbearable sound. The subject supplied by the title arrives explicitly in the English ending. No historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
Qian Qi links actual migrating geese with a mythic southern soundscape. The poem's homesickness is indirect: a returning bird carries human susceptibility to music and longing. His longer Xiang Spirit poem gives that soundscape more room and ends with silence instead of flight.
Sources
Chinese text follows Gui yan, Quan Tang shi, juan 239. 閑 is normalized to 閒. Punctuation is editorial. English translation and annotations are original to PoemWell. The retained literary reading of 不勝 is recorded in the Ministry of Education dictionary.
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
Qian Qi. “Returning Geese” (歸雁). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/returning-geese-qian-qi
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