BOOKMARK

Tall Yang Terrace: On Passing by Hangzhou

By Zhang Yan Song Dynasty

English Poetic Translation

Joined leaves cradle orioles, flat ripples toss white willow down,
a broken bridge, the slanting sun, returning boats.
How many strolls remain? To view the blooming flowers
is once again to wait until next year.
O east wind, linger awhile with the wild climbing rose,
for when the roses fade, spring calls for deepest pity.
And desolation grows:
Ten thousand emeralds shroud Xiling, a single stroke of barren smoke.
Where are the swallows now that built here long ago?
Only deep moss on the Weiqu lanes, dim grasses by Xieduan.
They say new sorrows have arrived
even beside the gulls upon the shore.
My heart no more can weave the dreams of flutes and songs;
I shut the heavy doors, slightly drunk, and idly sleep.
Do not lift the blind:
I dread to see the drifting petals, dread to hear the cuckoo's cry.

Classical Chinese & Pinyin

接葉巢鶯，平波卷絮，斷橋斜日歸船。
能幾番遊，看花又是明年。
東風且伴薔薇住，到薔薇、春已堪憐。
更悽然。
萬綠西泠，一抹荒煙。
當年燕子知何處，但苔深韋曲，草暗斜川。
見說新愁，如今也到鷗邊。
無心再續笙歌夢，掩重門、淺醉閒眠。
莫開簾。
怕見飛花，怕聽啼鵑。

jiē yè cháo yīng, píng bō juǎn xù, duàn qiáo xián rì guī chuán.
néng jǐ fān yóu, kàn huā yòu shì míng nián.
dōng fēng qiě bàn qiáng wēi zhù, dào qiáng wēi, chūn yǐ kān lián.
gèng qī rán.
wàn lǜ xī líng, yì mǒ huāng yān.
dāng nián yàn zi zhī hé chù, dàn tái shēn wéi qū, cǎo àn xián chuān.
jiàn shuō xīn chóu, rú jīn yě dào ōu biān.
wú xīn zài xù shēng gē mèng, yǎn zhòng mén, qiǎn zuì xián mián.
mò kāi lián.
pà jiàn fēi huā, pà tīng tí juān.

Philological Direct Translation

Joined leaves nest orioles, flat waves roll willow down, broken bridge slanting sun returning boat.
Able how many times wander, seeing flowers again is next year.
East wind for the time being accompany wild roses stay, arriving at wild roses, spring already is to be pitied.
Even more desolate.
Ten thousand greens Xiling, one stroke barren smoke.
That year swallows know what place, only moss deep Weiqu, grass dim Xieduan.
Hearing said new sorrows, nowadays also reach gull side.
No heart again continue flute and song dreams, closing heavy doors, slight drunkenness leisurely sleep.
Do not open curtain.
Fearing seeing flying flowers, fearing hearing crying cuckoo.

Scholarly Exegesis & Cultural Commentary

I. Formal Poetic Architecture & Meter

This masterpiece is composed to the Song lyric tune titled Tall Yang Terrace. The tune is classified among the double-stanza formats, characterized by abrupt caesuras, shifting tonal registers, and a melancholic cadence suited for lamentation. Zhang Yan employs a dense network of sonic and semantic contrasts, shifting smoothly from the vibrant sensory details of early spring to the stark, desolate landscapes of the late Southern Song dynastic decline. The meter balances rapid, cascading movement in the opening lines with heavy, halting pauses in the concluding stanzas, mirroring the psychological paralysis of the poet.

II. Historical Chronology & Existential Impulse

Set during the twilight years of the Southern Song Dynasty, this lyric reflects the profound existential and political displacement felt by members of the imperial clan and loyalist literati following the Mongol conquest of the capital Lin'an. Zhang Yan, a grandson of a former imperial official, lived through the agonizing transition from a prosperous, refined dynasty to foreign rule. Denied any prospect of official service and witnessing the total obliteration of the cultural and ancestral landscape of his youth, the poet turns inward, transmuting national ruin and personal bereavement into an immaculate artistic expression of desolation and vanishing heritage.

III. Line-by-Line Exegesis & Allusion Decoding

The poem opens with a vivid panorama of fleeting spring beauty before plunging into deep, elegiac introspection across the two stanzas.

Lines 1-2 (Opening Couplet): The poet establishes an immediate visual and auditory landscape of early spring in Lin'an, contrasting the nesting orioles among overlapping leaves with the floating willow down over river ripples and returning evening boats.
Lines 3-4 (First Antithetical Turn): The meditation shifts from spatial movement to temporal anxiety, questioning how many more times one might wander to admire flowers before another year of exile passes.
Lines 5-6 (Second Antithetical Turn / Climax): The poet invokes historical and literary allusions to classical sites such as Weiqu and Xieduan, once noble aristocratic quarters that have now decayed into overgrown moss and desolate smoke.
Closing Lines (Resolving Couplet): The final lines enact a complete psychological withdrawal, barring the external world of flying petals and crying cuckoos behind heavy doors and a dimmed curtain.

IV. Cultural Symbolism & Key Metaphors

The poem relies on enduring classical topoi to convey the tragedy of dynastic collapse without direct political polemic:

Swallows: Historically representing elite aristocratic households and the passage of illustrious families, their disappearance marks the total erasure of the old regime.
Wild Roses and Cuckoos: The blooming rose signals the agonizing final stage of a dying spring, while the cuckoo's plaintive cry traditionally evokes blood-stained grief and irrecoverable exile.

V. Philosophical Core & Global Resonance

The philosophical underpinning of the lyric is an exquisite synthesis of late Song aesthetic melancholy and Daoist detachment. Unable to alter the catastrophic political reality of foreign conquest, the poet retreats into a state of aestheticized mourning, sealing himself away from a world too painful to witness. This profound meditation on cultural memory, ruin, and human vulnerability elevates the work beyond a localized historical lament into a universal masterpiece of elegiac art.