Home › Poems › Reply to Vice-Prefect Zhang
Chóu Zhāng Shào FǔReply to Vice-Prefect Zhang 酬张少府
Wang Wei to a friend: no talk of success, only pine wind and mountain moon.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
松风吹解带
sōng fēng chuī jiě dài
山月照弹琴
shān yuè zhào tán qín
君问穷通理
jūn wèn qióng tōng lǐ
渔歌入浦深
yú gē rù pǔ shēn
Simplified characters; traditional title: 酬張少府. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.
Note on the text: This page presents a well-known excerpt; the full poem is longer in the traditional corpus.
English translation
The pine wind blows my sash loose;
the mountain moon shines as I play the zither.
You ask the reason for success and failure —
a fisherman's song goes deep into the cove.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
Wang Wei to a friend: no talk of success, only pine wind and mountain moon. The scene stays with you.
Background
Wang Wei to a friend: no talk of success, only pine wind and mountain moon.
Key words
- 松风 sōng fēng
- wind in the pines
- 吹解 chuī jiě
- blown apart; scattered by wind
- 山月 shān yuè
- the mountain moon
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).
More by Wang Wei
- Farewell to Yuan Er on His Mission to Anxi送元二使安西
- Deer Park鹿柴
- Bamboo Grove Retreat竹里馆
- Thinking of My Brothers on the Double Ninth九月九日忆山东兄弟
- Farewell (Dismounting to Drink)送别
- Autumn Evening in the Mountains山居秋暝
- Longing相思
- Miscellaneous Poem (You Have Come from Home)杂诗