Birthday poem · March 22Spring Equinox, the 4th solar term: day and night are equal.

Birthday poem card for March 22: “The Thrush” by Ouyang Xiu. Birth character 紅, red.
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Birth character

紅 hóng · red

紅 combines 糸 "silk" with 工 as a sound element; it first meant pink silk, then red.

霜葉紅於二月花
“Frost-bitten leaves look redder than early spring flowers.” — Du Mu, ‘Mountain Walk’

The poem

“The Thrush” 畫眉鳥

  1. 百囀千聲隨意移A hundred trills, a thousand notes, moving where it likes,
  2. 山花紅紫樹高低among red and purple mountain flowers, high and low in the trees.
  3. 始知鎖向金籠聽Only now I know: the songs heard in a golden cage
  4. 不及林間自在啼are nothing to its free singing in the woods.

Ouyang Xiu 歐陽脩 · Northern Song dynasty · 1007–1072 · seven-character verse

English translation by Poetune.

Why this poem

Ouyang Xiu: a thrush singing freely in the woods sounds better than one in a cage.

This day in the Chinese calendar

Solar term: Spring Equinox.

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