<Butterfly in Love with Flower> Lantern Festival at Mizhou
- Poetry of Su Shi
《蝶恋花·密州上元》The Lantern Festival falis on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
Composed in 1075 during Su Shi's tenure as prefect of Mizhou, this cí articulates the cultural dislocation of a southern literatus governing northern hinterlands. Written on the Lantern Festival—China's most exuberant urban celebration—the poem constructs a diptych contrasting Hangzhou's sensory splendor with Mizhou's rustic austerity. Through this juxtaposition, Su Shi pioneers a new lyric mode: the "nostalgia of governance," where personal memory and official duty collide.
On Lantern Festival by riverside at night,
The moon frost-white
Shone on the beauties fair and bright.
Fragrance exhaled and music played under the tent,
The running horses raised no dust on the pavement.
Now I am old in lonely hillside town,
Drumbeats and flute songs up and down
Are drowned in prayers amid mulberries and lost.
The lantern fires put out, dew falls with frost.
Over the fields dark clouds hangs low:
It threatens snow.
灯火钱塘三五夜。明月如霜，照见人如画。
帐底吹笙香吐麝。此般风味应无价。
寂寞山城人老也。
击鼓吹箫，乍入农桑社。
火冷灯稀霜露下。
昏昏雪意云垂野。
- 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.