Bandits plague our fragile lives with dread;
Taxes strip the foreign poor till bled.
An empty village—only birds take flight;
At sunset, not a soul in fading light.
Through ravines I walk, the wind whips my face;
'Neath pines I watch dew drip with silent grace.
I turn my graying head toward distant peaks;
On battlefields, the yellow dust still speaks.
盗贼浮生困，诛求异俗贫。空村惟见鸟，落日未逢人。
步壑风吹面，看松露滴身。远山回白首，战地有黄尘。
This work was composed in the autumn of 767 CE, the second year of the Dali era under Emperor Daizong, while Du Fu was residing in the Dongtun area of Kuizhou (present-day Fengjie, Chongqing). The title "Northern Hollow" refers to the northern slopes of the mountainous region. Although the An Lushan Rebellion had been quelled, the land of Shu was still riven by warlord conflicts and plagued by marauding deserters. Coupled with the relentless exactions of the authorities, the populace had nearly all fled or perished. Venturing deep into the wild hills, the poet witnessed the desolate spectacle of emptied villages and abandoned fields. Employing a descriptive technique approaching pure reportage, he recorded this landscape of ruin wrought jointly by war and tyranny. Though a mere forty characters in length, the poem functions like a tightly framed close-up on the era's open wound, concentrating within it the most deeply sorrowful and austere critical gaze of Du Fu's later years.
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.
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.
Journey through the dynasties. Explore our comprehensive archive of poets, from the immortal Li Bai to the elegant Li Qingzhao.
View All Poets →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.