Sending Yuan Er to Anxi

Lines 1–2: before the journey

渭城, Weicheng, is the departure setting near the Wei River and the Tang capital region. It is not Yang Pass, which the traveler will encounter far to the west. The poem brings these distant places together without describing all the road between them.

朝 is zhāo, “morning,” here. 浥 means to dampen or moisten: the rain settles the light dust that a road raises. We translate the action, rather than making the dust disappear. The inn and fresh willow color place a social parting in a spring landscape.

青青 is an intensified green. The Chinese packs 客舍 and 柳色 into the line without an English preposition; “by the inn” is our way of relating them. Willows have an association with departure in Chinese poetry, but this poem does not say anyone breaks off a branch. That familiar custom should not be added to the scene as an event.

Lines 3–4: what the cup can do

勸 is an urging or invitation. 君 addresses the friend directly, and 更 asks for one more cup. The English colon makes the last line the reason for the request. The Chinese can let that reason arrive with less visible grammatical scaffolding.

盡 means to finish or drain the cup. The poem records an offer, not how much the two have drunk. We need no imagined banquet to understand the small delay.

故人 means an old friend, not an old person. 無故人 expresses the loneliness of leaving the familiar circle behind. It should not be treated as a literal census proving that Yuan Er can never meet someone he knows on the road. The speaker measures the distance in companionship.

Names in the title

元 is the surname Yuan; 二 is a family-ranking designation, not an age. 使 means to go on a mission or serve as an envoy, while 安西 names the Tang administrative region in the west. The title identifies a journey, not a military battle.

The same poem circulates as 渭城曲, Weicheng Song. Its later association with Yangguan sandie, “Three Repetitions at Yang Pass,” belongs to its life as a song. A modern performance is not automatically the exact melody heard in Wang Wei’s day.

Why end at a pass rather than at the inn?

The first pair gives two things present before the friends: dust laid by rain and renewed willow color. The last pair begins with something the speaker can still do, urge another cup, then crosses into a future he cannot share. 西出 is the hinge between those situations. Reading the final line only as a general proverb about loneliness loses its direction: the imagined traveler moves west, away from this particular act of hospitality. Compare Gao Shi’s confident road ahead in Farewell to Dong Da.

Four lines of seven characters place the poem among seven-character jueju. The rhyming first, second, and fourth endings are 塵, 新, and 人. The third line changes from description to address; the fourth gives the reason the address is urgent.

The first two lines can be read in a 4 / 3 division: 渭城朝雨 / 浥輕塵, 客舍青青 / 柳色新. In the closing pair, 勸君 and 西出 set a person and a direction against each other.

Our pinyin is modern Mandarin, including yì bēi. No historical tone grid is given here. The poem’s later musical arrangements should be studied separately from the printed quatrain’s rhyme and phrasing.

Wang Wei is often introduced through mountains and quiet landscapes. Here his attention is just as exact, but it is directed toward a friend. The Tang journey places the promise of service beside the cost of leaving familiar company. The text does not supply a precise year, and our reading does not depend on assigning one.

Compare Yellow Crane Tower Farewell. Li Bai keeps looking after the departure; Wang Wei speaks before it. A Question for Liu Nineteen reverses the social direction: a cup is prepared in the hope that a friend will arrive. These poems share the wine shelf, while the farewell guide compares their different endings.

See the received Chinese text and variant under 渭城曲, which identifies its place in 《全唐詩》 juan 128. The English translation, gloss, and notes on this page are original to PoemWell.

Read this poem alongside the contrasting selections in our friendship and farewell guide.