Shui Diao Ge Tou

The tune and the preface

水調歌頭 is the name of the tune, a cipai, not a description of the topic. The topic is in the preface. Bingchen is the year 1076. Mid-autumn is the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month. Ziyou is Su Zhe, Su Shi’s brother. The poet says he wrote the lyric drunk, at dawn, with that brother also on his mind. “Also” matters. The moon is the occasion. The brother is named beside it.

Upper stanza

幾時有 asks how long the moon has existed, not what time it is. The gloss keeps 幾時 together as “since when.” He asks the sky with the cup in his hand.

宮闕 are the palace gate-towers of heaven, a figure for the moon’s palaces. 歸去 is “go back.” He speaks as if the sky were a home he could return to, and then refuses the trip. 瓊樓玉宇 are jasper towers and jade halls. 不勝寒 is “cannot endure the cold.” We read 勝 as shēng, “to bear.” Some modern readings say shèng. The fear of the height is what keeps him below.

何似在人間 asks how the imagined heavenly life could compare with being among people. Our translation takes this as a turn back toward earthly life: the speaker dances here, with his own shadow, rather than leaving for the cold heights.

Some editions read 惟恐 or 唯恐 where we print 又恐, “and yet I fear.” 又 is the small word that makes the wish and the refusal one gesture. 惟 would be “only fear.” We follow 又 and record the other reading.

Lower stanza

The moon moves. It passes a red tower, lowers at a carved window, and finds people who are not asleep. 無眠 can include the poet. It does not have to be only him.

不應有恨: the moon ought not to hold a grievance. Then why is it always round at partings? Some texts put 何事 before the pause, 不應有恨何事, and some print 偏向, “why must it favor,” instead of 長向, “why is it always toward.” We pause after 恨 and keep 長向.

The next two lines are the explicit parallel. People have grief, joy, parting, reunion. The moon has dark, clear, full, incomplete. 此事古難全: this kind of thing has rarely been whole, from ancient times on. Our translation keeps 難, “difficult,” rather than turning the line into an absolute claim that completeness is impossible.

但願人長久 wishes that people endure. The words are general. The preface has already named Ziyou, so the wish is read, fairly, as including the two brothers. 嬋娟 is the moon named by its beauty. The gloss keeps 嬋娟 together. The translation retains li as a Chinese distance unit rather than silently turning it into miles. The large number conveys separation, not a measured itinerary.

This is a ci lyric to the tune Shui Diao Ge Tou. The tune sets the line lengths. It does not title the feeling. The pattern is two stanzas. Su Shi’s lyric runs 95 characters:

Upper stanza: 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5.

Lower stanza: 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5.

The rhyme endings are 天、年、寒、間、眠、圓、全、娟. They do not all belong to the narrow 先 category. The later rhyme manual 詞林正韻, seventh division groups parts of 元 with 寒、刪、先 for ci rhyme. This is a later way of describing the rhyme, not a book Su Shi consulted.

Ci is not a lüshi. There is no eight-line grid to test, and parallelism is a choice inside the tune. Su Shi uses it openly in the pair about people and the moon. The English does not imitate the rhyme. A rhymed translation would spend its words on rhyme instead of on the question.

歌頭 means the head of the song, the name of this pattern within the older shui-diao music. We leave the tune name untranslated in the title and explain it here.

In 1076 Su Shi was in Mizhou, 密州, in what is now Shandong, during the Song. He had asked for posts away from the capital after disagreements over policy. His brother Su Zhe was elsewhere. The preface is the occasion we actually have: a mid-autumn of drinking until dawn, and the brother in mind. The lyric is not a manifesto. It is a person talking to the sky and then correcting himself.

The moon on this desk already has two Tang jobs. In Quiet Night Thought it faces a man toward home. In Drinking Alone beneath the Moon it sits down with him. Su Shi inherits both the cup and the distance, and he adds the calendar: the moon is full, and the people are not together, and this has been true for a long time. The wish at the end is that the two conditions can coexist. Long life, and the same moon.

The form is ci. The dynasty is Song. The wine is the same literary drink as on the wine page, a cup in the hand, not a subject of its own.