Sunday, January 23, 2011

In Reply to Li Huan

答李澣 (韋應物)
林中觀易罷
溪上對鷗閒
楚俗饒詞客
何人最往還

To Reply - Plum - To Bathe (Wei Ying Wu)
Forest - In - To Look At - Easy - To Stop
Creek - Top - To - Gull - Idle
Chu - Popular - Abundant - Classical Chinese Poem - Person Engaged In A Particular Pursuit
What - Person - Most - Towards - To Repay

In Reply To Li Huan (Wei Ying Wu)
I stop reading the Yi Jing in the woods
The surface of the creek lets the gulls be idle
The popular and abundant poets of Chu
Who have the most contact

易: This is referring to the Yi Jing (易經), a classical Chinese text of philosophy and cosmology.

楚: a Chinese kingdom during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (722-221 BC)

詞: poetry that originated in the Tang Dynasty that is written to certain tunes with specific tonal patterns and rhyme schemes

何人: who

往還: contacts or dealings

This poem is about someone giving up a life of solitude and contemplation in the woods and now drifts idly through life among poets.

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