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Tang Dynasty Jueju Liu Changqing

Shelter in Snow at Furong Mountain

逢雪宿芙蓉山主人

Féng xuě sù Fúróng shān zhǔ rén

A traveler seeks shelter as cold and darkness close in. Read how barking at a brushwood gate makes an unseen arrival audible through wind and snow.

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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

日暮蒼山遠，

rì mù cāng shān yuǎn

At dusk, the dark mountains recede;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 日 rì sun
  2. 暮 mù sets
  3. 蒼 cāng dark green
  4. 山 shān mountains
  5. 遠 yuǎn distant
02

天寒白屋貧。

tiān hán bái wū pín

in the cold, a plain house looks poor.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 天 tiān weather
  2. 寒 hán cold
  3. 白 bái plain
  4. 屋 wū house
  5. 貧 pín poor
03

柴門聞犬吠，

chái mén wén quǎn fèi

At the brushwood gate, a dog is heard barking:

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 柴 chái brushwood
  2. 門 mén gate
  3. 聞 wén hear
  4. 犬 quǎn dog
  5. 吠 fèi bark
04

風雪夜歸人。

fēng xuě yè guī rén

through wind and snow, someone comes home at night.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 風 fēng wind
  2. 雪 xuě snow
  3. 夜 yè night
  4. 歸 guī return
  5. 人 rén person

English translation by PoemWell.

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Original

日暮蒼山遠，

天寒白屋貧。

柴門聞犬吠，

風雪夜歸人。

Translation

At dusk, the dark mountains recede;

in the cold, a plain house looks poor.

At the brushwood gate, a dog is heard barking:

through wind and snow, someone comes home at night.

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?

    日暮蒼山遠，

    Pronunciation hint

    cāng

    Reveal meaning and translation

    蒼 — dark green

    At dusk, the dark mountains recede;

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

    柴門聞犬吠，

    Pronunciation hint

    wén

    Reveal meaning and translation

    聞 — hear

    At the brushwood gate, a dog is heard barking:

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

    風雪夜歸人。

    Pronunciation hint

    yè

    Reveal meaning and translation

    夜 — night

    through wind and snow, someone comes home at night.

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 — A house against the distance

日暮 and 天寒 place the search for shelter at dusk and in cold. 遠 makes the mountains recede while 貧 brings the small house into view through its plainness. 白屋 names a humble dwelling. That is why the English chooses “plain house” rather than specifying white paint. The first pair narrows the view from a mountain landscape to a possible lodging.

Lines 3–4 — Hearing an arrival

柴門 brings the scene close enough to name the brushwood gate. 聞犬吠 supplies sound before the poem describes anyone approaching. The compressed 風雪夜歸人 gives the weather, the time, and a person returning. Readers differ on whether this is a host coming back or the traveler being seen as the arrival. The English keeps “someone,” letting the bark announce movement without naming the person. No greeting is needed to complete the shift from cold distance to human presence.

Form and tone

The five-character quatrain narrows from mountain distance to a house and then to a sound at its gate. The last line is almost entirely nouns and a compact returning action. That compression lets the reader reconstruct an arrival without a narrated sequence of footsteps and opening doors.

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

The title supplies lodging at a host’s place on Furong Mountain, but mountains with that name are not uniquely identified by these lines. The poem’s practical need for shelter gives its cold landscape a different human scale from River Snow’s sustained solitude.

Continue with Liu Changqing and the nature reading path. Compare River Snow and Passing a Mountain Village at Dusk using the reading connections below.

Sources

逢雪宿芙蓉山主人 — 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 Changqing. “Shelter in Snow at Furong Mountain” (逢雪宿芙蓉山主人). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/snow-at-furong-mountain

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.