PoemWell A reading desk for classical Chinese poetry
Menu

Tang Dynasty Jueju Zhang Jiuling

Since You Left

賦得自君之出矣

Fù Dé Zì Jūn Zhī Chū Yǐ

A neglected loom and a waning full moon make separation visible in Zhang Jiuling's four-line poem on an inherited theme.

Read the poem

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

自君之出矣，

zì jūn zhī chū yǐ

Since the day you went away,

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 自 zì since
  2. 君 jūn you
  3. 之 zhī linking particle
  4. 出 chū left
  5. 矣 yǐ completed-action particle
02

不復理殘機。

bú fù lǐ cán jī

I have left the unfinished weaving at the loom.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 不 bú not
  2. 復 fù again
  3. 理 lǐ attend to
  4. 殘 cán unfinished
  5. 機 jī loom
03

思君如滿月，

sī jūn rú mǎn yuè

Longing for you, I am like the moon at its full:

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 思 sī miss
  2. 君 jūn you
  3. 如 rú like
  4. 滿 mǎn full
  5. 月 yuè moon
04

夜夜減清輝。

yè yè jiǎn qīng huī

night after night, my clear brightness dwindles.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 夜 yè night
  2. 夜 yè night
  3. 減 jiǎn lose
  4. 清 qīng clear
  5. 輝 huī radiance

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

自君之出矣，

不復理殘機。

思君如滿月，

夜夜減清輝。

Translation

Since the day you went away,

I have left the unfinished weaving at the loom.

Longing for you, I am like the moon at its full:

night after night, my clear brightness dwindles.

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?

    自君之出矣，

    Pronunciation hint

    zhī

    Reveal meaning and translation

    之 — linking particle

    Since the day you went away,

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

    思君如滿月，

    Pronunciation hint

    rú

    Reveal meaning and translation

    如 — like

    Longing for you, I am like the moon at its full:

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

    夜夜減清輝。

    Pronunciation hint

    jiǎn

    Reveal meaning and translation

    減 — lose

    night after night, my clear brightness dwindles.

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 →

Self-check at your own pace. No score or progress is saved. Open only the answers you want included when printing.

Line-by-line notes

Lines 1–2 · Time measured from a departure

賦得 in the title marks composition on a given or inherited theme. 自 introduces the departure as a starting point from which the rest of the poem can count time. 不復 makes ordinary work one of the things that changed then. 殘機 is the loom with its weaving left unfinished. The English brings the work into the line so the reader can see what the speaker no longer tends (理).

Lines 3–4 · The full moon gives the comparison somewhere to go

如 gives the comparison its directness. The Chinese moves from 思君 to 滿月 in five characters. English supplies “I am” so that the diminishing light can express what separation does to the speaker. 滿 gives the image its starting fullness, and 夜夜 measures its loss a night at a time. 減 falls on 清輝, the clear brightness. The longing persists while the speaker's visible counterpart grows dimmer.

Form and tone

The five-character quatrain gives two lines to a household action left undone and two to a celestial comparison. Its last line changes how the preceding full moon is understood. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin; no historical tone pattern is inferred from it.

Historical context

Zhang Jiuling adopts a conventional voice of separation; the poem should not be treated as a direct diary entry or proof about his own marriage. Its moon differs from his shared moon above the sea: here the visible change of phase measures the cost of absence within one person.

Sources

Chinese text follows Quan Tang shi, juan 49, Fude zi jun zhi chu yi. Punctuation is editorial. English translation and annotations 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

Zhang Jiuling. “Since You Left” (賦得自君之出矣). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/since-you-left-zhang-jiuling

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.