Lovesickness
- Poetry of Wang Wei

Five-character-quatrain

Yearning, love sick, thinking as one, one hearted, and fancy. When Spring comes a young man’s yearning/fancy (and woman’s too) turns to love. Wang Wei, our love sick poet, has not found an antidote, but a stimulus, by picking and eating the popular red bean.

Composed during Emperor Xuanzong's Tianbao era (742-756) on the eve of the An Lushan Rebellion, this poem was written while Wang Wei held official position in the capital. Despite professional success, he harbored solitude—his friends like Pei Di having retreated to mountain reclusion. Drawn to Chan Buddhism and nature, Wang Wei channeled these complex emotions into four deceptively simple lines. Using red beans (相思子, "love peas") as emotional vessels, the poem transcends specific dedication, serving equally as friendship token or romantic yearning, becoming an enduring masterpiece of symbolic e­xpression.