Staying Overnight with a Friend
- Poetry of Li Bai (Li Po)
We’ll wash away the woe of a thousand years;
We’ll linger to drink a hundred cups of wine.
What a fine night to have a heart-to-heart talk!
Under the bright moonlight we can’t go to bed.
Drunk, we lie in the empty mountain;
Heaven and earth are our quilt and pillow.
Composed during Li Bai's seclusion on Mount Lu, this poem reflects his lifelong pursuit of achievement amid repeated setbacks. After being summoned to Chang'an by Emperor Xuanzong during the Tianbao era (742–756 CE) with high hopes of assisting governance, Li Bai's unyielding nature and refusal to flatter powerful officials led to his dismissal through slander. Wandering thereafter, he retained ambition but never realized political aspirations, harboring inevitable frustration. During his Mount Lu retreat, he sought solace in landscape and wine, using nature's vastness and wine's mild intoxication to ease inner turmoil. This poem, born from such context, expresses both bold liberation through drink and unspoken regret over unfulfilled dreams, alongside yearning for cosmic harmony.
涤荡千古愁，留连百壶饮。
良宵宜清谈，皓月未能寝。
醉来卧空山，天地即衾枕。
- Why Chinese poems is so special?
- The most distinctive features of Chinese poetry are: concision- many poems are only four lines, and few are much longer than eight; ambiguity- number, tense and parts of speech are often undetermined, creating particularly rich interpretative possibilities; and structure- most poems follow quite strict formal patterns which have beauty in themselves as well as highlighting meaningful contrasts.
- How to read a Chinese poem?
- Like an English poem, but more so. Everything is there for a reason, so try to find that reason. Think about all the possible connotations, and be aware of the different possibilities of number and tense. Look for contrasts: within lines, between the lines of each couplet and between successive couplets. Above all, don't worry about what the poet meant- find your meaning.