English Rendering
All alone in a foreign land,
I am twice as homesick on this day
When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain,
Each of them a branch-and my branch missing.
On the Mountain Holiday Thinking of My Brothers in Shandong
- Poetry of Wang Wei
《九月九日忆山东兄弟》
Original Text (中文原文)
独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲。
遥知兄弟登高处，遍插茱萸少一人。
Analysis & Context
Seven-character-quatrain
Composed in 717 AD when Wang Wei was twenty-seven and serving as a court secretary in Chang'an, this poem expresses his longing for family during the Double Ninth Festival. Far from his hometown in Shandong, the young poet observed this traditional occasion—marked by mountain climbing, wearing dogwood sprigs, and drinking chrysanthemum wine—with poignant solitude. Though devoid of ornate language, the poem's restrained depth captures a wanderer's holiday nostalgia, particularly through the imagined scene of brothers' reunion, making it an enduring masterpiece of homesickness in Chinese literature.
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.
- Deer Enclosure
- An Early Audience at the Palace of Light, Harmonizing Secretary Jia Zhi's Poem
- Watching the Hunt
- The Lake Qi
- The Pepper Garden
- Mengcheng Mound
- The Summit Temple
- <Prelude to Water Melody> Sent to Ziyou on Mid-autumn Festival
- Invitation to Wine
- Question and Answer in the Mountains
- Cold sheet
- Coming Home ( Returning Home )
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