The Swordsman
劍客
Jiàn kè
A sword polished for ten years is offered at last. Explore how the speaker turns a weapon's untested edge into a question about action and recognition.
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.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 十 shí ten
- 年 nián years
- 磨 mó polish
- 一 yí one
- 劍 jiàn sword
Word meanings — Line 2
- 霜 shuāng frost
- 刃 rèn blade
- 未 wèi not yet
- 曾 céng ever
- 試 shì tested
Word meanings — Line 3
- 今 jīn this
- 日 rì day
- 把 bǎ take
- 示 shì show
- 君 jūn you
Word meanings — Line 4
- 誰 shuí who
- 有 yǒu has
- 不平事 bù píng shì an injustice
English translation by PoemWell.
Read the whole poem
Original
十年磨一劍，
霜刃未曾試。
今日把示君，
誰有不平事。
Translation
Ten years spent polishing a single sword;
its frost-bright edge has never been tried.
Today I hold it out for you to see:
who has an injustice needing redress?
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.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
十年磨一劍，
Pronunciation hint
mó
Reveal meaning and translation
磨 — polish
Ten years spent polishing a single sword;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
今日把示君，
Pronunciation hint
bǎ
Reveal meaning and translation
把 — take
Today I hold it out for you to see:
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
誰有不平事。
Pronunciation hint
bù píng shì
Reveal meaning and translation
不平事 — an injustice
who has an injustice needing redress?
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 — The time in the blade
磨 gives us repeated work, while 十年 and 一劍 put a great stretch of time into one object. 霜刃 describes its brightness and coldness through frost. 未曾試 leaves the reader with a prepared edge that has never had its occasion. The second line tells us as much about waiting as it does about the sword.
Lines 3–4 — What would make it useful?
今日 sets the present moment against those ten years. In our chosen reading, 把示 is the action of holding the blade out to show it to 君. 誰有 opens a question about who has a 不平事, a wrong or injustice needing redress. The offer can be read as a figure for ability that has not found its opportunity. The concrete scene remains a swordsman with a weapon in hand. The cited transcription records the 示 and 有 readings followed here, alongside alternatives.
Form and tone
The five-character quatrain divides between long preparation and a present offer. 十年 and 今日 make time part of the contrast. The final question opens the tightly compressed poem outward, inviting a situation in which the unused edge could matter.
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 received text includes variants in the last couplet. This page chooses the recorded 示 and 有 readings and identifies that choice in the source note. The speaker’s claim to usefulness can be compared with the poetic labor in After Writing a Poem, without turning either dramatic claim into a verified diary entry.
Continue with Jia Dao and the memory reading path. Compare After Writing a Poem and Jia Yi using the reading connections below.
Sources
劍客 (賈島) — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The source also titles the poem 述劍. This reading explicitly selects its recorded variants 示 and 有 in lines three and four. 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
Jia Dao. “The Swordsman” (劍客). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/swordsman-jia-dao
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.