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Melancholy at the Long Pavilion: Wandering Past East Marsh

By Wang Yisun Song Dynasty

English Poetic Translation

Adrift in a lonely skiff, I pass the eastern marsh once more.
I still recall that former day, when green shade veiled the courtyard door:
My clogs upon the mossy stairs, wine-stains upon my silken sleeve—
How boundless were the bygone years! Now only vain regrets remain,
To search for tracks among the weeds where autumn fills the withered plain.
We vowed to meet and gaze on blooms; but since we drifted far apart,
Like wind and scattered clouds, our fellowship was torn.
And waters stretch afar.
Who could foretell beyond the streams, chaotic mountains stretch yet more?
A heavy dream at heaven's edge, too brief to span the shore.
Perhaps they have forgotten now the carved balustrade and lattice screen.
I gaze upon the lingering, slanting light where ancient branches lean,
And stroke the towering trunks while failing years draw to their close.
Yet still a few stray crimson petals know the sorrow of the western close.

Classical Chinese & Pinyin

泛孤艇、東皋過遍。
尚記當日，綠陰門掩。
屐齒莓階，酒痕羅袖事何限。
欲尋前跡，空惆悵、成秋苑。
自約賞花人，別後總、風流雲散。
水遠。
怎知流水外，卻是亂山尤遠。
天涯夢短。
想忘了、綺疏雕檻。
望不盡、苒苒斜陽，撫喬木、年華將晚。
但數點紅英，猶識西園悽婉。

fàn gū tǐng, dōng gāo guò biàn.
shàng jì dāng rì, lǜ yīn mén yǎn.
jī chǐ méi jiē, jiǔ hén luó xiù shì hé xiàn.
yù xún qián jī, kōng chóu chàng, chéng qiū yuàn.
zì yuē shǎng huā rén, bié hòu zǒng, fēng liú yún sàn.
shuǐ yuǎn.
zěn zhī liú shuǐ wài, què shì luàn shān yóu yuǎn.
tiān yá mèng duǎn.
xiǎng wàng le, qǐ shū diāo jiàn.
wàng bù jìn, rǎn rǎn xié yáng, fǔ qiáo mù, nián huá jiāng wǎn.
dàn shǔ diǎn hóng yīng, yóu shí xī yuán qī wǎn.

Philological Direct Translation

Drifting in a solitary boat, East Marsh passed entirely.
Still remember that day, green shade gate closed.
Clogs teeth mossy steps, wine stains silk sleeve matters what limit.
Desiring to seek former traces, empty sorrow, become autumn garden.
Self appointed flower appreciating people, after parting altogether, romantic flow cloud scattered.
Water distant.
How to know flowing water outside, instead is chaotic mountains still more distant.
Edge of heaven dream short.
Thinking forgotten, carved lattice carved railing.
Looking unexhausted, gradually slanting sun, stroking tall trees, years age about to late.
Only several dots red petals, still know west garden desolate grievance.

Scholarly Exegesis & Cultural Commentary

I. Formal Poetic Architecture & Meter

This masterpiece belongs to the Song Ci lyric genre, written to the rare and demanding tune pattern titled Melancholy at the Long Pavilion. The tune is characterized by its uneven line lengths, shifting rhyming checkpoints, and elegiac emotional register suited for lamenting desolation and lost time. Wang Yisun deploys subtle acoustic shifts between level and oblique tones to mimic the undulating motion of receding waters and the drifting movement of scattered clouds, anchoring the sonic architecture in profound melancholy.

II. Historical Chronology & Existential Impulse

Composed during the late Southern Song dynasty, a period marked by profound national anxiety, political contraction, and the looming collapse of the dynasty under Mongol expansion, Wang Yisun's poetry often encodes the bitter displacement of scholar-officials. Living through the painful transition from the fallen Southern Song capital to the harsh realities of early Yuan rule, the poet uses the trope of ruined gardens and broken rendezvous to reflect the existential anguish of dislocated loyalty and personal bereavement. The landscape of the abandoned garden becomes an allegory for a vanished imperial order and irrecoverable personal history.

III. Line-by-Line Exegesis & Allusion Decoding

The lyric unfolds through a seamless movement from retrospective memory to desolate present observation, structuring a profound psychological descent into grief.

Lines 1-2 (Opening Couplet): The speaker sets the scene by drifting in a solitary boat past the eastern marsh, instantly establishing an atmosphere of detachment and isolation, while recalling a guarded gate sheltered by dense summer greenery.
Lines 3-4 (First Antithetical Turn): Tangible traces of past intimacy—moss on steps worn by wooden clogs and wine stains on silken sleeves—contrast sharply with the current autumn decay of the neglected garden.
Lines 5-6 (Second Antithetical Turn / Climax): The poem expands outward from personal memory to cosmic scale, contrasting the flowing waters with even more remote, chaotic mountain ranges stretching toward the horizon.
Closing Lines (Resolving Couplet): The twilight setting, aging trees, and surviving red petals anchor the emotional dispersion, leaving only the fading vestiges of a desolate western garden to bear witness to past elegance.

IV. Cultural Symbolism & Key Metaphors

The text is rich with traditional Chinese botanical and geographical symbolism that deepens its elegiac resonance for the reader.

Autumn Garden: Represents the inevitable decay of youth, beauty, and political stability, mirroring the fallen state of the dynasty and the withered ambitions of the scholar.
Flowing Water and Mountains: Classic topographies of separation in classical verse, signifying insurmountable physical and emotional distance between past companions.

V. Philosophical Core & Global Resonance

The philosophical underpinning of the lyric merges Daoist detachment from worldly flux with Confucian sorrow over unfulfilled social and personal bonds. The inevitable dissipation of romantic ties into wind-scattered clouds reflects the fragile impermanence of human endeavor against the vast backdrop of natural time. Wang Yisun captures a universal human vulnerability—the haunting grief of returning to sacred sites of memory only to find them erased by the relentless march of seasons.