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Tang Dynasty Jueju Liu Yuxi

Wuyi Lane

烏衣巷

Wū yī xiàng

Swallows return to an old lane, but its great families have vanished. Follow how a familiar bird turns an ordinary street into a scene of historical change.

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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

朱雀橋邊野草花，

zhū què qiáo biān yě cǎo huā

Beside Vermilion Sparrow Bridge, wild grasses flower;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 朱 zhū vermilion
  2. 雀 què sparrow
  3. 橋 qiáo bridge
  4. 邊 biān beside
  5. 野 yě wild
  6. 草 cǎo grass
  7. 花 huā flowers
02

烏衣巷口夕陽斜。

wū yī xiàng kǒu xī yáng xié

at the mouth of Wuyi Lane, evening sunlight slants.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 烏 wū black
  2. 衣 yī clothes
  3. 巷 xiàng lane
  4. 口 kǒu entrance
  5. 夕 xī evening
  6. 陽 yáng sun
  7. 斜 xié slants
03

舊時王謝堂前燕，

jiù shí wáng xiè táng qián yàn

The swallows once before the halls of Wang and Xie

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 舊 jiù former
  2. 時 shí times
  3. 王 wáng Wang
  4. 謝 xiè Xie
  5. 堂 táng hall
  6. 前 qián before
  7. 燕 yàn swallows
04

飛入尋常百姓家。

fēi rù xún cháng bǎi xìng jiā

fly into the homes of ordinary families.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 飛 fēi fly
  2. 入 rù enter
  3. 尋 xún ordinary
  4. 常 cháng usual
  5. 百 bǎi hundred
  6. 姓 xìng surnames
  7. 家 jiā homes

English translation by PoemWell.

Read the whole poem

Original

朱雀橋邊野草花，

烏衣巷口夕陽斜。

舊時王謝堂前燕，

飛入尋常百姓家。

Translation

Beside Vermilion Sparrow Bridge, wild grasses flower;

at the mouth of Wuyi Lane, evening sunlight slants.

The swallows once before the halls of Wang and Xie

fly into the homes of ordinary families.

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?

    朱雀橋邊野草花，

    Pronunciation hint

    biān

    Reveal meaning and translation

    邊 — beside

    Beside Vermilion Sparrow Bridge, wild grasses flower;

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

    舊時王謝堂前燕，

    Pronunciation hint

    xiè

    Reveal meaning and translation

    謝 — Xie

    The swallows once before the halls of Wang and Xie

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

    飛入尋常百姓家。

    Pronunciation hint

    cháng

    Reveal meaning and translation

    常 — usual

    fly into the homes of ordinary families.

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 · The city at evening

橋邊 places the wild grasses beside a named bridge, and 巷口 sets the falling light at the entrance to a named lane. 花 can do the work of “flower” as a verb here, so the English gives the grasses an action. 斜 describes the low angle of the light. Even before an earlier age is mentioned, the poem asks the reader to spend time in these two ordinary corners.

Lines 3–4 · Follow the swallows indoors

王謝 names the Wang and Xie families associated with the old capital’s aristocratic households. Read through to 燕 before deciding what survives from 舊時. The subject carried from line three into line four is the swallows, and 飛入 follows them inside. 百姓 means ordinary people here, and 尋常 makes the destination familiar and unexceptional. The birds link two eras in the reader’s imagination. The grand halls give way to houses where people still live.

Form and tone

Four seven-character lines form a jueju. The opening pair fixes two places; the closing pair follows one moving subject across a sentence. Read 舊時 against 尋常: past prestige becomes present ordinariness without an explicit statement that history has declined.

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

Wuyi Lane belongs to the historical landscape of Jinling, present-day Nanjing. Liu Yuxi writes a retrospective city poem, not an eyewitness record of the aristocratic households named. Compare Stone City for a similar survival of natural movement after political power has passed.

Continue with Liu Yuxi and the memory reading path. Compare Stone City and Red Cliff using the reading connections below.

Sources

烏衣巷 — 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 Yuxi. “Wuyi Lane” (烏衣巷). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/wuyi-lane

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.