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Active 9th century

Wen Tingyun

溫庭筠

Read Wen Tingyun through a cold morning journey, a stream experienced as company, and short lyrics of watching, waiting, and imagined intimacy.

Wen Tingyun’s selection crosses forms: regulated verse, quatrains, and short song lyrics. Look first at the physical arrangement of each scene. An inn, a garment, a bed, or a passing sail can make feeling perceptible without a long explanation of the person who feels it.

A journey assembled from details

Early Departure from Shang Mountain places rooster cries, an inn, the moon, footprints, a bridge, and frost in its central couplet. The Chinese offers nouns with few explicit grammatical connections. Our translation keeps that quick accumulation, while the word meanings help readers examine its parts.

Crossing the Watershed makes a stream into a traveling companion and also acknowledges that water has no human feelings. Its opening hesitation matters: the farewell is an experience of the speaker, not a claim about the stream’s intentions.

Waiting and its objects

In Dreaming of the South: Washed and Combed, preparation gives way to watching sails. Every passing boat fails to bring the hoped-for person. Countless Regrets, under the same tune title, lets moon and wind continue without understanding the speaker’s distress. Compare their different uses of an unresponsive landscape.

Lament of the Jade Zither begins with luxurious surroundings that offer no comfort. Its title names an instrument, but its lines do not describe an actual performance. That distinction helps keep title, scene, and interpretation aligned.

When decorated birds become a pair

Nan Ge Zi: A Golden Parrot in Her Hand moves from ornaments to an imagined relationship. Read its ending beside the two waiting lyrics to see how short ci can dramatize contrasting desires.

The author record gives the courtesy name and references to his collected works. Individual pages cite their Chinese texts. A lyric’s speaking voice is not automatically the author’s autobiographical voice.

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Poems in this hub

Wen Tingyun Early Departure from Shang Mountain 商山早行 A traveler leaves an inn before sunrise. Read the famous sequence of rooster, moon, footprints, and frost, then follow its turn toward a dream of home. Wen Tingyun Lament of the Jade Zither 瑤瑟怨 A luxurious bed offers no rest beneath a clear night sky. Follow the movement from indoor cold to passing geese and moonlight beyond the sleepless room. Wen Tingyun Dreaming of the South: Washed and Combed 夢江南·梳洗罷 After dressing, a woman waits beside the river as sails pass without stopping. Watch a whole day of expectation contract into the lyric's final image. Wen Tingyun Dreaming of the South: Countless Regrets 夢江南·千萬恨 Sleepless regret meets an indifferent moon and wind. Read how a brief song uses repeated phrases to make longing continue beyond its few lines. Wen Tingyun Nan Ge Zi: A Golden Parrot in Her Hand 南歌子·手裏金鸚鵡 Bird ornaments become a playful wish for companionship. Follow this short lyric from hands and clothing to an imagined pair of mandarin ducks. Wen Tingyun Crossing the Watershed 過分水嶺 A stream has accompanied a traveler for three days through the mountains. Read how its sound through the night becomes a voice at their parting.