Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
...After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
...I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.
国破山河在，城春草木深。感时花溅泪，恨别鸟惊心。
烽火连三月，家书抵万金。白头搔更短，浑欲不胜簪。
Five-character-regular-verse
This poem dates from 757, when Du Fu was held captive by the rebels in Chang'an. The hairpin was used to hold in place the caps worn by Chinese officials (Owen p. 420).
Du Fu’s poetry, particularly “Gazing at Spring,” explores the heart-wrenching aspects of war on families and the natural world. In the first line, he juxtaposes the broken state of the country, 国破 (country, broken), with the flourishing grass and wood in the city. By doing so, he emphasizes the fragile and wilted state of his country. His thoughts are so turmoiled by the state of his country that even when he sees a beautiful flower or hears the chirping of birds, he imagines that the flower is shedding tears and the birds are wailing. His personification of nature evokes a distressing image of a country so devastated and torn apart that even nature mourns for it. Why is this country so broken? In the next line, Du Fu makes it clear that a war is raging throughout the country through his statement that the beacon fire (烽火), which is lighted on towers and the tops of hills to alert the soldiers of the approaching enemy, has been lighted for three months. As a cause of this war, families are torn apart; now, even a single letter from his family seems to be equal in worth to ten thousand pieces of gold. After highlighting the war’s impact on his country and nature, Du Fu depicts how the war has affected him. Because of his constant worry for his country, he has tugged and scratched at his white hair so often that he can no longer hold a hairpin in it. Thus, Du Fu uses evocative imagery to illustrate the devastating impacts of war on his nation and personal life.
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.
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