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Tang Dynasty Gushi Wei Yingwu

To a Daoist in the Quanjiao Mountains

寄全椒山中道士

Jì Quánjiāo shān zhōng dào shì

A city dweller thinks of a mountain recluse and wishes to bring him wine. Follow the journey in thought and the leaves that conceal its destination.

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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

今朝郡齋冷，

jīn zhāo jùn zhāi lěng

This morning the prefectural study is cold;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 今 jīn this
  2. 朝 zhāo morning
  3. 郡 jùn prefectural
  4. 齋 zhāi study
  5. 冷 lěng cold
02

忽念山中客。

hū niàn shān zhōng kè

suddenly I think of the man in the mountains.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 忽 hū suddenly
  2. 念 niàn think of
  3. 山 shān mountains
  4. 中 zhōng within
  5. 客 kè guest
03

澗底束荊薪，

jiàn dǐ shù jīng xīn

He bundles thorny firewood down in the ravine,

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 澗 jiàn stream
  2. 底 dǐ bottom
  3. 束 shù bundle
  4. 荊 jīng brushwood
  5. 薪 xīn fuel
04

歸來煮白石。

guī lái zhǔ bái shí

then comes home to boil white stones.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 歸 guī return
  2. 來 lái come
  3. 煮 zhǔ boil
  4. 白 bái white
  5. 石 shí stones
05

欲持一瓢酒，

yù chí yì piáo jiǔ

I would take a gourd of wine

Word meanings — Line 5
  1. 欲 yù wish
  2. 持 chí carry
  3. 一 yì one
  4. 瓢 piáo gourd
  5. 酒 jiǔ wine
06

遠慰風雨夕。

yuǎn wèi fēng yǔ xī

to comfort him far off on this evening of wind and rain.

Word meanings — Line 6
  1. 遠 yuǎn from afar
  2. 慰 wèi comfort
  3. 風 fēng wind
  4. 雨 yǔ rain
  5. 夕 xī evening
07

落葉滿空山，

luò yè mǎn kōng shān

Fallen leaves cover the empty mountain:

Word meanings — Line 7
  1. 落 luò fallen
  2. 葉 yè leaves
  3. 滿 mǎn fill
  4. 空 kōng empty
  5. 山 shān mountain
08

何處尋行跡。

hé chù xún xíng jì

where could I look for his tracks?

Word meanings — Line 8
  1. 何 hé what
  2. 處 chù place
  3. 尋 xún seek
  4. 行 xíng walking
  5. 跡 jì tracks

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

今朝郡齋冷，

忽念山中客。

澗底束荊薪，

歸來煮白石。

欲持一瓢酒，

遠慰風雨夕。

落葉滿空山，

何處尋行跡。

Translation

This morning the prefectural study is cold;

suddenly I think of the man in the mountains.

He bundles thorny firewood down in the ravine,

then comes home to boil white stones.

I would take a gourd of wine

to comfort him far off on this evening of wind and rain.

Fallen leaves cover the empty mountain:

where could I look for his tracks?

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?

    今朝郡齋冷，

    Pronunciation hint

    jùn

    Reveal meaning and translation

    郡 — prefectural

    This morning the prefectural study is cold;

  2. Line 5 · What does the marked word mean?

    欲持一瓢酒，

    Pronunciation hint

    yì

    Reveal meaning and translation

    一 — one

    I would take a gourd of wine

  3. Line 8 · What does the marked word mean?

    何處尋行跡。

    Pronunciation hint

    xún

    Reveal meaning and translation

    尋 — seek

    where could I look for his tracks?

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 · Cold prompts remembrance

郡齋 places the speaker in a prefectural study. 冷 gives him a physical reason to think of the friend in the mountains. 忽, “suddenly,” makes the thought an arrival, so the poem can pass from the official room to the ravine in one couplet. 客 here refers to the person he thinks of, whom the title identifies as a Daoist.

Lines 3–4 · Imagined work in the ravine

束荊薪 describes gathering and tying thorny wood for fuel. 歸來 takes the imagined figure home with it. 煮白石, boiling white stones, belongs to the legendary vocabulary of ascetics and immortals. The ordinary work of finding fuel gives the extraordinary cooking a setting in a lived day.

Lines 5–6 · A gift the speaker would carry

欲 marks a wish and gives English “I would take” its conditional force. 一瓢 is a single gourd of wine. 遠慰 brings that ordinary gift into the scale of a long journey undertaken to comfort someone through the wind and rain. The imagined weather now belongs to evening, after the cold morning that opened the poem.

Lines 7–8 · Finding the friend

滿 gives the fallen leaves the whole mountain to cover. 行跡 are traces of someone's passage. The question 何處尋 returns the speaker to the difficulty of finding this particular person in such a place. By ending at the question, the poem keeps the wine in prospect and makes concern and uncertainty audible together.

Form and tone

The eight five-character lines are read here as an old-style poem, not automatically classified as regulated verse by their count. Each couplet changes the speaker’s relation to his friend: remembering, imagining work, proposing a visit, then doubting how to find him.

See old-style verse 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 addresses a Daoist in the Quanjiao mountains, while 郡齋 locates the sender in an official residence. Their different lives meet through practical concern rather than a doctrinal discussion. The last question makes seclusion both attractive and difficult for friendship.

Continue with Wei Yingwu and the nature reading path. Compare On an Autumn Night, Sent to Qiu and Seeking a Hermit, Without Finding Him using the reading connections below.

Sources

寄全椒山中道士 — 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

Wei Yingwu. “To a Daoist in the Quanjiao Mountains” (寄全椒山中道士). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/to-the-daoist-in-quanjiao

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.