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Tang Dynasty Jueju Du Fu

Two Yellow Orioles

絕句（兩個黃鸝鳴翠柳）

Juéjù · Liǎng gè huánglí míng cuìliǔ

Du Fu sets birds, snow, and distant boats within two balanced couplets. Chinese, pinyin, word gloss, original English translation, and a close reading.

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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

兩個黃鸝鳴翠柳，

liǎng gè huáng lí míng cuì liǔ

Two yellow orioles sing among the green willows;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 兩 liǎng two
  2. 個 gè classifier
  3. 黃 huáng yellow
  4. 鸝 lí oriole
  5. 鳴 míng sing
  6. 翠 cuì green
  7. 柳 liǔ willows
02

一行白鷺上青天。

yì háng bái lù shàng qīng tiān

a line of white egrets rises into the blue.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 一 yì one
  2. 行 háng row
  3. 白 bái white
  4. 鷺 lù egrets
  5. 上 shàng rise
  6. 青 qīng blue-green
  7. 天 tiān sky
03

窗含西嶺千秋雪，

chuāng hán xī lǐng qiān qiū xuě

My window holds the western ridges' age-old snow;

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 窗 chuāng window
  2. 含 hán contains
  3. 西 xī west
  4. 嶺 lǐng ridges
  5. 千 qiān thousand
  6. 秋 qiū autumns
  7. 雪 xuě snow
04

門泊東吳萬里船。

mén bó dōng wú wàn lǐ chuán

outside my gate lie boats from distant Eastern Wu.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 門 mén gate
  2. 泊 bó moor
  3. 東 dōng eastern
  4. 吳 wú Wu
  5. 萬 wàn ten thousand
  6. 里 lǐ li; miles
  7. 船 chuán boats

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

兩個黃鸝鳴翠柳，

一行白鷺上青天。

窗含西嶺千秋雪，

門泊東吳萬里船。

Translation

Two yellow orioles sing among the green willows;

a line of white egrets rises into the blue.

My window holds the western ridges' age-old snow;

outside my gate lie boats from distant Eastern Wu.

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?

    兩個黃鸝鳴翠柳，

    Pronunciation hint

    lí

    Reveal meaning and translation

    鸝 — oriole

    Two yellow orioles sing among the green willows;

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

    窗含西嶺千秋雪，

    Pronunciation hint

    lǐng

    Reveal meaning and translation

    嶺 — ridges

    My window holds the western ridges' age-old snow;

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

    門泊東吳萬里船。

    Pronunciation hint

    wú

    Reveal meaning and translation

    吳 — Wu

    outside my gate lie boats from distant Eastern Wu.

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.

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Line-by-line notes

Lines 1–2: hearing below, seeing upward

兩個 counts the orioles, while 一行 gives the egrets a shared shape. 行 is háng, a row, in this line. 黃鸝 and 翠柳 make one color pairing. 白鷺 and 青天 make the next, with 上 directing the look upward. 鳴 belongs to the first pair and gives the still green branches an audible life.

Lines 3–4: a window that holds faraway snow

含 gives the frame the power to contain what can be seen through it. 千秋, literally a thousand autumns, makes the snow seem age-old. In 門泊, the mooring belongs to the water outside the dwelling. 東吳 connects the vessels to the region of eastern Wu, and 萬里 gives that connection great distance. The English reads them as boats from Wu. Boats headed there are possible in the compact phrase. Read 窗 and 門 together: both are nearby openings through which remote places enter the view.

Form and tone

This seven-character jueju uses parallel structure in both couplets. Two / one row, yellow / white, orioles / egrets, and willows / sky make the first correspondence easy to see. Window / gate, west / east, and thousand / ten thousand organize the second.

天 and 船 mark the even-line rhyme. The final pair holds immense duration and distance inside a domestic view. Modern pinyin is supplied, including 一行 as yì háng; we omit a historical tone grid.

Historical context

This is the third poem in the group titled Four Quatrains in the cited collection. “Two Yellow Orioles” is an identifying English title, not a claim that Du Fu supplied a separate thematic title.

Du Fu's Long Spring Days is a useful next reading on the nature shelf. Both let parallel lines organize a living scene. Spring View puts birds and flowers under the pressure of separation and war. A poet's reputation for grief should not make every bird in his work a lament.

The translation, character gloss, and interpretive notes are original to PoemWell.

Sources

《全唐詩》, juan 228, 絕句四首, third poem, checked against the individual text. Two Yellow Orioles is our English title from the opening line. Punctuation is editorial.

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

Du Fu. “Two Yellow Orioles” (絕句（兩個黃鸝鳴翠柳）). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/two-yellow-orioles

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.