Watching the Hunt
- Poetry of Wang Wei
The wind blows hard, horn-bow ringing;
The general hunts, round Weicheng winging.
On dried grass, falcon’s eye’s keen and bright;
On snowless plain, horse’s trot is light.
Past Xinfeng Market he flies like wind;
To Willow Camp he’s back in a grin.
He looks back where his arrow left its trail —
Miles and miles of dusk clouds, calm and pale.
This poem is a representative work of Wang Wei's early poetic style. While its exact date of composition is uncertain, the vigorous spirit, robust brushwork, and soaring energy that fill its lines suggest it belongs to his youth or middle age, when his state of mind was still closely connected to the enterprising ethos of the High Tang era. Although titled "Watching the Hunt," it is far from a coolly detached sketch by an onlooker. Instead, the poet injects his own heroic spirit into the scene, using his poetic pen as a lens to capture and reconstruct a general's winter hunt. Through masterful shifts between movement and stillness, speed and pace, proximity and distance, it composes a majestic symphony interweaving strength and beauty, speed and space, and is hailed as the crowning masterpiece of Tang dynasty hunting poetry.
风劲角弓鸣，将军猎渭城。
草枯鹰眼疾，雪尽马蹄轻。
忽过新丰市，还归细柳营。
回看射雕处，千里暮云平。
- 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.