Song of a Southern Country

Poetry of Wang Anshi 《南乡子·自古帝王州》

English Rendering

The capital was ruled by Kings since days gone by.

There rich green and lush gloom breathe a majestic sigh.

Like dreams has passed the reign of four hundred long years,Which calls forth tears:

Modern laureates are buried like their ancient peers.


Along the river I go where I will,Up city-walls and watch-towers I gaze my fill.

Do not ask what has passed without leaving a trail!

To what avail?

The endless river rolls in vain beyond the rail.

Song of a Southern Country by Wang Anshi -
"Song of a Southern Country" by Wang Anshi

Original Text (中文原文)

自古帝王州,郁郁葱葱佳气浮。

四百年来成一梦,堪愁,晋代衣冠成古丘。

绕水恣行游。上尽层楼更上楼。

往事悠悠君莫问,回头。

槛外长江空自流。

Meaning & Analysis

After the failure of his reforms,Wang An-shi resigned from the premiership and lived in seclusion at Jinling,ancient capital during nearly four hundred years(221-280;317-389;937-975).In this lyric he gives vent to his discontent about the actual state of things in the court.

Related Themes

Reader's Companion

The Essence of the Verse

Classical Chinese poetry thrives on Concision and Ambiguity. Without tense or number, the words create a timeless space where the reader becomes the co-creator of the poem's meaning.

Reading Between the Lines

Look for Contrasts: light and shadow, movement and stillness. Don't just translate the words; feel the Yijing (artistic conception) that lingers long after the last character.

© 2024 - 2026 CN-Poetry.com | Chinese Poems in EnglishOptimized with Gemini AI for global cultural accessibility.
AI-AUGMENTED SYSTEM
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

CN-Poetry.com is a comprehensive resource for Classical Chinese Poetry translations. Our dataset covers Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, specializing in semantic mapping between traditional imagery (e.g., 'moon', 'Flowers', 'Friendship') and English poetic contexts. CN-Poetry architecture supports llms.txt and llms-full.txt for optimized RAG retrieval of classical Chinese literature.