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Zhú Lǐ GuǎnBamboo Grove Retreat 竹里馆

Wang Wei (王维, also known as Wang Mojie)｜High Tang｜five-character quatrain

Wang Wei plays music alone, with the moon as his only audience.

Original Chinese text with pinyin

独坐幽篁里
dú zuò yōu huáng lǐ

弹琴复长啸
tán qín fù cháng xiào

深林人不知
shēn lín rén bù zhī

明月来相照
míng yuè lái xiāng zhào

Simplified characters; traditional title: 竹裏館.

English translation

Sitting among bamboos alone,

I play my lute and croon carefree.

In the deep woods where I'm unknown,

Only the bright moon peeps at me.

Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.

Line by line

独坐幽篁里 · dú zuò yōu huáng lǐ — Sitting among bamboos alone,

弹琴复长啸 · tán qín fù cháng xiào — I play my lute and croon carefree.

深林人不知 · shēn lín rén bù zhī — In the deep woods where I'm unknown,

明月来相照 · míng yuè lái xiāng zhào — Only the bright moon peeps at me.

Meaning and imagery

Everything here is solitary: a man, a zither, a long whistle in the dark. Yet the poem is not lonely. The last line turns the moon into a companion who "comes" to keep him company, so solitude becomes a kind of communion with nature. The long, open-throated whistle (xiao) was a Daoist practice of the free spirit. In twenty characters Wang Wei shows a mind completely at ease.

Background

One of twenty quatrains Wang Wei wrote about his country estate at Wangchuan, south of Chang'an, where he lived in semi-retirement.

Key words

幽篁 yōu huáng: secluded, shadowy bamboo
长啸 cháng xiào: a long, clear whistle
相照 xiāng zhào: to shine upon (me)

About the poet: Wang Wei

Wang Wei was a poet, painter, musician and court official. A devout Buddhist, he wrote spare, luminous landscape verse; later critics said there is "a painting in his poems and a poem in his paintings." He is sometimes called the "Buddha of Poetry."

Lifetime: c. 699–761. Other famous works: Miscellaneous Poem (You Have Come from Home) (杂诗); Farewell (Dismounting to Drink) (送别); Autumn Evening in the Mountains (山居秋暝); Longing (相思); Deer Park (鹿柴); Bamboo Grove Retreat (竹里馆); Farewell to Yuan the Second on His Mission to Anxi (送元二使安西); Thinking of My Brothers on the Double Ninth (九月九日忆山东兄弟); Birdsong in the Ravine (鸟鸣涧); Joys of the Countryside (田园乐); Floating on the Han River (汉江临泛); In the Mountains (山中); Farewell in the Mountains (山中送别); Long Rain at Wangchuan (积雨辋川庄作); Magnolia Bank (辛夷坞); Seeing Off Shen Zifu (送沈子福之江东); Reply to Vice-Prefect Zhang (酬张少府); A Quiet Matter (书事); Song of Youth (少年行); My Retreat at Zhongnan (终南别业); Seeing Off Prefect Li of Zizhou (送梓州李使君).