BOOKMARK

On the Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Month, Presented to Assistant Administrator Zhang

By Han Yu Tang Dynasty

English Poetic Translation

Wispy clouds rolled back, the empty night lacks the Silver River,
A clear wind sweeps the vault, the moon spreads rippling waves.
The sand lies level, the waters rest, sound and shadow vanish;
We raise a single cup to urge one another; you must sing.
Your song is piercing in tone, its words bitter and distressed,
I cannot bear to hear it to the end, my tears fall like rain.
Dongting touches the sky, Mount Jiuyi rises steep and tall,
Where dragons lurk and emerge, and gibbons and marmots wail.
Surviving nine deaths out of ten, you reached your official post,
Living in lonely seclusion like a fugitive in hiding.
Stepping from bed you dread venomous snakes, at meals you fear poison,
The damp sea vapors and festering insects reek with foul stenches.
Yet yesterday before the prefectural gates the great drums thundered,
As the heir-emperor, carrying on the sages, elevated worthy ministers.
The pardon edict traveled ten thousand miles in a single day,
And crimes worthy of execution were absolved from death.
Those exiled were summoned back, those banished returned home,
Washing away taints and sweeping out filth to cleanse the court ranks.
Yet local officials suppressed your name, while commissioners obstructed,
So through sheer misfortune you were merely moved to the rough southern frontier.
As a lowly departmental judge, your plight is unspeakable,
You still cannot escape the beatings of the rod amid the dust.
Many of our contemporaries have already set off back up the road,
Yet the heavenly path is dark and perilous, hard to climb once more.
Cease your singing for a moment now and listen to my song,
For my song today takes a vastly different measure from your own.

Classical Chinese & Pinyin

纖雲四卷天無河，清風吹空月舒波。
沙平水息聲影絕，一桮相屬君當歌。
君歌聲酸辭且苦，不能聽終淚如雨。
洞庭連天九疑高，蛟龍出沒猩鼯號。
十生九死到官所，幽居默默如藏逃。
下牀畏蛇食畏藥，海氣濕蟄燻腥臊。
昨者州前搥大鼓，嗣皇繼聖登夔臯。
赦書一日行萬裏，罪從大辟皆除死。
遷者追廻流者還，滌瑕蕩垢清朝班。
州家申名使家抑，坎軻祗得移荊蠻。
判司卑官不堪說，未免捶楚塵埃間。
同時輩流多上道，天路幽險難追攀。
君歌且休聽我歌，我歌今與君殊科。

xiān yún sì juǎn tiān wú hé, qīng fēng chuī kōng yuè shū bō.
shā píng shuǐ xī shēng yǐng jué, yī bēi xiāng zhǔ jūn dāng gē.
jūn gē shēng suān cí qiě kǔ, bù néng tīng zhōng lèi rú yǔ.
dòng tíng lián tiān jiǔ yí gāo, jiāo lóng chū mò xīng wú háo.
shí shēng jiǔ sǐ dào guān suǒ, yōu jū mò mò rú cáng táo.
xià chuáng wèi shé shí wèi yào, hǎi qì shī zhé xūn xīng sāo.
zuó zhě zhōu qián chuí dà gǔ, sì huáng jì shèng dēng kuí gāo.
shè shū yī rì xíng wàn lǐ, zuì cóng dà pì jiē chú sǐ.
qiān zhě zhuī huí liú zhě huan, dí xiá dàng gòu qīng cháo bān.
zhōu jiā shēn míng shǐ jiā yì, kǎn kē zhī dé yí jīng mán.
pàn sī bēi guān bù k堪 shuō, wèi miǎn chuí chǔ chén āi jiān.
tóng shí bèi liú duō shàng dào, tiān lù yōu xiǎn nán zhuī pān.
jūn gē qiě xiū tīng wǒ gē, wǒ gē jīn yǔ jūn shū kē.

Philological Direct Translation

Fine clouds four-rolled heaven without Milky Way, clear wind blows empty moon spreads waves.
Sand level water rests sound shadow cut, one cup each other urging you should sing.
Your song sound sour words yet bitter, not able listen end tears like rain.
Dongting connects heaven Jiuyi high, dragons and serpents emerge and submerge gibbons and marmots wailing.
Ten births nine deaths arrive at official post, secluded dwelling silently like hiding fugitive.
Down bed fear snake eat fear medicine, sea vapor damp insects fumigate fishy stench.
Yesterday prefecture before beats great drum, succeeding emperor continuing sage ascends Kui and Gao.
Edict book one day travels ten thousand miles, crimes from capital punishment all remove death.
Transferred ones pursued back exiled ones returned, washing flaws sweeping filth clearing court ranks.
Prefecture family report name commissioner family suppresses, rough lot only gets transferred to Jing and Man.
Assessing secretary humble official unbearable speak, not avoids beating rods dust among.
Same time peer group many go road, heaven path dark dangerous hard to pursue climb.
Your song for now rest listen my song, my song now with you different key.

Scholarly Exegesis & Cultural Commentary

I. Formal Poetic Architecture & Meter

This masterpiece is written in the ancient style of poetry known as gushi, specifically a long-form run-on heptasyllabic ancient verse (qiyan gushi). Unlike regulated verse (jintishi), it defies strict tonal patterns and parallel constraints, allowing for extreme emotional fluctuation and narrative breadth. The rhyme scheme shifts dynamically across its twenty lines, mirroring the turbulent psychological states and unpredictable vicissitudes of the poet's life. The architectural movement begins in a tranquil, almost deceptive spatial serenity under the mid-autumn moon, plunges into the terrifying, hyper-real landscape of the southern frontier exile, rises abruptly to the thunderous bureaucratic reprieve of the imperial amnesty, and concludes with a defiant, collaborative artistic pact between two fellow sufferers.

II. Historical Chronology & Existential Impulse

Composed in the year 819 during Han Yu's harsh exile in Yangshan, this poem marks one of the most poignant episodes of intellectual persecution in the mid-Tang dynasty. Earlier that year, Han Yu had submitted his famous memorial remonstrating against the imperial reception of a bone relic of the Buddha, an act of principled Confucian orthodoxy that infuriated Emperor Xianzong and nearly cost the scholar his life. Spared execution through the intercession of sympathetic ministers, Han Yu was demoted to the distant, miasmic reaches of the south. Zhang Gongcao (Zhang Jian), another high-ranking official similarly demoted, shared his bitter fate. Under the illuminating brilliance of the Mid-Autumn Festival moon—a traditional time for reunion—the two exiles instead find themselves united in shared trauma, political marginalization, and intellectual defiance.

III. Line-by-Line Exegesis & Allusion Decoding

Lines 1-4 (Opening Couplet & Scene Setting): The poem opens with a stark, luminous spatial expanse: thin clouds roll away, the Milky Way vanishes into the clarity of the autumn sky, and a pure wind sweeps the empty firmament as the moon spreads its watery light. The sand is leveled, the water is still, and all sound and shadow are extinguished, setting a stage of deceptive tranquility that contrasts sharply with the turmoil in the poets' hearts. Under this vast, indifferent moonlight, a cup of wine is raised in mutual toast, and Han Yu invites Zhang Gongcao to sing.
Lines 5-8 (The Song of Sorrow and the Southern Wilderness): Zhang’s song is described as mournful in tone and bitter in diction, so unbearable that Han Yu cannot listen to the end before his tears fall like rain. Zhang's voice evokes the terrifying topography of the deep south: the boundless waters of Dongting Lake, the towering peaks of Mount Jiuyi, where mythical dragons surface and wild apes and flying squirrels shriek. This mythological and geographical landscape externalizes the profound psychological disorientation and existential dread of imperial banishment.
Lines 9-14 (The Ordeal of Exile and the Incomplete Amnesty): Han Yu details the brutal reality of their penal journey: surviving ten births and nine deaths to reach their official posts, living in silent seclusion like hunted fugitives. Upon getting out of bed, they fear venomous snakes; when eating, they fear poisoned medicines; the coastal vapors and damp mists reek of foul miasma. Suddenly, the narrative pivots to the sound of the great drum beaten before the prefectural office announcing the ascension of a new, sage-like emperor (Xianzong's successor, Muzong) and a massive amnesty that commutes death sentences and recalls exiles to cleanse the court. Yet, cruel bureaucratic friction intervenes: local authorities suppress the promotion, and Zhang Gongcao is merely transferred to Jingman.
Lines 15-20 (Closing Couplet & Poetic Defiance): Han Yu laments his own degraded status as a lowly military adjudicator, perpetually exposed to physical humiliation and the dust of administrative punishment. While his former peers return to court along the perilous path of official advancement, he recognizes that the heavenly road of political favor is too treacherous to pursue. He bids Zhang to cease his sad song and listen to his own, which takes a radically different category—transforming passive lament into an active, defiant assertion of literary immortality and spiritual autonomy.

IV. Aesthetic Synthesis & Poetic Aftertaste

The poem achieves its profound aesthetic power through an abrupt emotional oscillation between cosmic stillness and harrowing earthly suffering. Han Yu masterfully employs the gushi form not merely as a vehicle for narrative, but as an elastic psychological chamber where political despair is transmuted into transcendent art. By contrasting the cold, perfect beauty of the mid-autumn moon with the rotting miasma of the southern exile and the arbitrary cruelty of court politics, Han Yu anchors his personal grievance in universal truths about human endurance. The lingering aftertaste is one of defiant camaraderie; abandoned by the sovereign center, the two scholars find ultimate refuge not in political rehabilitation, but in the indestructible bond of shared poetic witness.