Home › Poems › Spring River in Flower on a Moonlit Night
Chūn Jiāng Huā Yuè YèSpring River in Flower on a Moonlit Night 春江花月夜
Zhang Ruoxu's "poem that tops all Tang poems."
Original Chinese text with pinyin
春江潮水连海平
chūn jiāng cháo shuǐ lián hǎi píng
海上明月共潮生
hǎi shàng míng yuè gòng cháo shēng
滟滟随波千万里
yàn yàn suí bō qiān wàn lǐ
何处春江无月明
hé chù chūn jiāng wú yuè míng
……
江畔何人初见月
jiāng pàn hé rén chū jiàn yuè
江月何年初照人
jiāng yuè hé nián chū zhào rén
人生代代无穷已
rén shēng dài dài wú qióng yǐ
江月年年只相似
jiāng yuè nián nián zhǐ xiāng sì
Simplified characters; traditional title: 春江花月夜. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.
English translation
The spring river's tide rises level with the sea;
over the sea the bright moon is born with the tide.
Shimmering, it follows the waves for ten thousand li —
where on the spring river is there no moonlight?
(…)
On the riverbank, who first saw the moon?
In what year did the river moon first shine on people?
Human lives pass on, generation after generation, without end;
the river moon, year after year, looks just the same.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
The opening is a vision of moonlight spreading across the tide and the whole river. Then the poem asks cosmic questions: who first saw the moon, and when did it first shine on people? The answer contrasts human generations with the unchanging moon, but without despair — the chain of generations is endless too. The full poem goes on to lovers separated by the river under the same moon.
Background
A long ballad on an old song title. Little read for centuries, it was rediscovered in the Ming dynasty and is now considered one of the summits of Chinese poetry. Only the opening and a famous passage are shown.
Key words
- 滟滟 yàn yàn
- shimmering
- 江畔 jiāng pàn
- riverbank
- 无穷已 wú qióng yǐ
- endless
About the poet: Zhang Ruoxu
Zhang Ruoxu left only two poems, but one of them, "Spring River in Flower on a Moonlit Night," is often called "the poem that tops all of Tang poetry."
Lifetime: c. 660–720. Other famous works: Spring River in Flower on a Moonlit Night (春江花月夜).