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Tang Dynasty Jueju Liu Zongyuan

River Snow

江雪

Jiāng xuě

Birds and travelers disappear from a snowy landscape, leaving one fisherman. Read how repeated absences make that solitary figure newly visible.

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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.

01

千山鳥飛絕，

qiān shān niǎo fēi jué

Across a thousand mountains, no bird flies;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 千 qiān thousand
  2. 山 shān mountains
  3. 鳥 niǎo birds
  4. 飛 fēi flight
  5. 絕 jué ends
02

萬徑人蹤滅。

wàn jìng rén zōng miè

on ten thousand paths, no human track remains.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 萬 wàn ten thousand
  2. 徑 jìng paths
  3. 人 rén human
  4. 蹤 zōng tracks
  5. 滅 miè vanish
03

孤舟簑笠翁，

gū zhōu suō lì wēng

One boat: an old man in straw cape and bamboo hat,

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 孤 gū solitary
  2. 舟 zhōu boat
  3. 簑笠 suō lì straw rain cape and bamboo hat
  4. 翁 wēng old man
04

獨釣寒江雪。

dú diào hán jiāng xuě

fishing alone in snow on the cold river.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 獨 dú alone
  2. 釣 diào fishes
  3. 寒 hán cold
  4. 江 jiāng river
  5. 雪 xuě snow

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

千山鳥飛絕，

萬徑人蹤滅。

孤舟簑笠翁，

獨釣寒江雪。

Translation

Across a thousand mountains, no bird flies;

on ten thousand paths, no human track remains.

One boat: an old man in straw cape and bamboo hat,

fishing alone in snow on the cold river.

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?

    千山鳥飛絕，

    Pronunciation hint

    niǎo

    Reveal meaning and translation

    鳥 — birds

    Across a thousand mountains, no bird flies;

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

    孤舟簑笠翁，

    Pronunciation hint

    suō lì

    Reveal meaning and translation

    簑笠 — straw rain cape and bamboo hat

    One boat: an old man in straw cape and bamboo hat,

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

    獨釣寒江雪。

    Pronunciation hint

    hán

    Reveal meaning and translation

    寒 — cold

    fishing alone in snow on the cold river.

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 kinds of absence

千山 and 萬徑 spread the view across mountains and paths. 鳥飛絕 removes motion in the air, while 人蹤滅 removes the traces of movement on the ground. 絕 and 滅 have the force of ceasing and disappearing. The English keeps the exaggerated numbers and places the negatives where the reader can immediately tell what has vanished.

Lines 3–4 · The remaining person

孤 goes with the boat, and 獨 goes with fishing. Read line three first as a group of visible things, a boat, rain cape, hat, and old man. Line four then supplies the action, 釣. The source’s 簑 is another form of 蓑, read suō, the straw cape. The English reads 雪 as the setting of the fishing. By saving it for the last character, the Chinese lets the snow settle over the single person the poem has left in view.

Form and tone

Four five-character lines make a short quatrain. The opening two are closely balanced, from large number to terrain to absent movement. The final pair moves through 孤, “solitary,” and 獨, “alone,” to the title’s snow. The narrowing scale is easier to hear when the four lines are read without rushing.

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

Liu Zongyuan’s isolation in official life makes a biographical reading possible, but the fisherman is not explicitly identified as the poet. This page keeps that distinction. The source uses 簑, an alternative graph for 蓑; the reading and meaning remain suō, a straw rain cape.

Continue with Liu Zongyuan and the nature reading path. Compare An Old Fisherman and Shelter in Snow at Furong Mountain using the reading connections below.

Sources

江雪 — 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

Liu Zongyuan. “River Snow” (江雪). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/river-snow

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.