To One Unnamed IV
- Poetry of Li Shangyin

《无题·凤尾香罗薄几重》

English Rendering

A faint phoenix-tail gauze, fragrant and doubled,

Lines your green canopy, closed for the night....

Will your shy face peer round a moon-shaped fan,

And your voice be heard hushing the rattle of my carriage?

It is quiet and quiet where your gold lamp dies,

How far can a pomegranate-blossom whisper?

...I will tether my horse to a river willow

And wait for the will of the southwest wind.

To One Unnamed IV by Li Shangyin
To One Unnamed IV by Li Shangyin

Original Text (中文原文)

凤尾香罗薄几重,碧文圆顶夜深缝。

扇裁月魄羞难掩,车走雷声语未通。

曾是寂寥金烬暗,断无消息石榴红。

斑骓只系垂杨岸,何处西南任好风?

Analysis & Context

Seven-character-regular-verse

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.

© 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.