BOOKMARK

Song of the Lute

By Li Qi Tang Dynasty

English Poetic Translation

Our host pours wine to crown the evening's grace,
And bids the guest from Guangling wake his strings.
The moon scales ramparts where stray ravens race;
Frost bites the groves, and wind cuts through our rings.

Bright tapers burn beside the bronze-wrought bowl;
He strikes Clear Waters, then the Chu Consort's strain.
A single note arrests the living soul;
The assembly hushes as the stars wane.

Across the Huai, a thousand miles of state,
I take my charge into the cloudy mountains' gate.

Classical Chinese & Pinyin

主人有酒歡今夕，請奏鳴琴廣陵客。
月照城頭烏半飛，霜淒萬樹風入衣。
銅鑪華燭燭增輝，初彈淥水後楚妃。
一聲已動物皆靜，四座無言星欲稀。
清淮奉使千餘裏，敢告雲山從此始。

zhǔ rén yǒu jiǔ huān jīn xī, qǐng zòu míng qín guǎng líng kè.
yuè zhào chéng tóu wū bàn fēi, shuāng qī wàn shù fēng rù yī.
tóng lú huá zhú zhú zēng huī, chū dàn lù shuǐ hòu chǔ fēi.
yī shēng yǐ dòng wù jiē jìng, sì zuò wú yán xīng yù xī.
qīng huái fèng shǐ qiān yú lǐ, gǎn gào yún shān cóng cǐ shǐ.

Philological Direct Translation

Host has wine to rejoice this evening, / please play sounding zither Guangling guest.
Moon shines city walls crows half fly, / frost chills ten-thousand trees wind enters robes.
Bronze brazier bright candles candles add radiance, / first playing Clear Waters afterwards Chu Consort.
One sound already moves creatures all are still, / four seats without words stars about to thin.
Clear Huai carrying imperial orders thousand more miles, / dare announce cloud mountains from this begins.

Scholarly Exegesis & Cultural Commentary

I. Formal Poetic Architecture & Meter

This poem is written in the heptasyllabic ancient style (Qiangu shi), which grants the poet greater freedom in rhyme shifting, meter, and line length compared to the heavily regulated Tang strict forms (Lushi). The rhyme scheme shifts fluidly to capture the dynamic emotional arc of a musical performance, maintaining a resonant level-tone rhyme throughout its ten lines. The architecture relies heavily on sensory juxtaposition—auditory brilliance set against nocturnal stillness, and visual warmth indoors contrasting with the biting autumn frost outside.

II. Historical Chronology & Existential Impulse

Composed during the flourishing High Tang period, Li Qi's verse captures the vibrant social culture of musical banquets, farewell gatherings, and bureaucratic travels along the imperial waterways. The poet, preparing for a long official mission across the Huai River valley, confronts the melancholic reality of parting. The performance of the zither serves not merely as entertainment, but as an existential pivot, translating the traveler's inner premonitions of lonely exile and official duty into timeless aesthetic resonance.

III. Line-by-Line Exegesis & Allusion Decoding

The poem progresses from a warm, convivial banquet setting into an expansive cosmic and psychological space, ultimately resolving in resolute official departure.

Lines 1-2 (Opening Couplet): Line 1 ("Host has wine to rejoice this evening") establishes an immediate atmosphere of hospitality, which is abruptly grounded in cold reality in Line 2 ("Moon shines city walls crows half fly"), where the startled flight of crows signals nocturnal unrest.
Lines 3-4 (First Antithetical Turn): Line 3 ("Bronze brazier bright candles candles add radiance") evokes interior warmth and artificial brilliance, while Line 4 ("Frost chills ten-thousand trees wind enters robes") pushes the reader outward into the biting autumn environment.
Lines 5-6 (Second Antithetical Turn / Climax): Line 5 ("first playing Clear Waters afterwards Chu Consort") invokes legendary ancient melodies associated with pure emotional depth and sorrowful historical loyalty, bridging the mortal world with classical antiquity.
Closing Lines (Resolving Couplet): Line 9 and Line 10 ("Clear Huai carrying imperial orders thousand more miles, / dare announce cloud mountains from this begins") transition the poem from intimate acoustic rapture to the vast geographic reality of official service and reclusion.

IV. Cultural Symbolism & Key Metaphors

The classical zither (qin) functions as the ultimate instrument of moral cultivation, cosmic attunement, and spiritual communication among literati. The ancient melodies named in the poem—such as Clear Waters—carry deep historical resonance, symbolizing uncompromised integrity and the emotional depth of banished or misunderstood scholars.

V. Philosophical Core & Global Resonance

The poem articulates the quintessential Confucian tension between public duty (serving as an imperial emissary across distant provinces) and Daoist inward detachment (symbolized by the untamed cloud mountains). Through the medium of music, time is temporarily suspended, offering humanity a brief sanctuary from the inevitable grief of parting and the relentless passage of time.