Dēng GāoClimbing High 登高
Du Fu's autumn masterpiece, often called the greatest Tang regulated verse.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
风急天高猿啸哀
fēng jí tiān gāo yuán xiào āi
渚清沙白鸟飞回
zhǔ qīng shā bái niǎo fēi huí
无边落木萧萧下
wú biān luò mù xiāo xiāo xià
不尽长江滚滚来
bù jìn cháng jiāng gǔn gǔn lái
万里悲秋常作客
wàn lǐ bēi qiū cháng zuò kè
百年多病独登台
bǎi nián duō bìng dú dēng tái
艰难苦恨繁霜鬓
jiān nán kǔ hèn fán shuāng bìn
潦倒新停浊酒杯
liáo dǎo xīn tíng zhuó jiǔ bēi
Simplified characters; traditional title: 登高.
English translation
The wind so swift, the sky so wide, apes wail and cry;
Water so clear and beach so white, birds wheel and fly.
The boundless forest sheds its leaves shower by shower;
The endless river rolls its waves hour after hour.
A thousand miles from home, I'm grieved at autumn's plight;
Ill now and then for years, alone I'm on this height.
Living in times so hard, at frosted hair I pine;
Cast down by poverty, I have to give up wine.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
Every line of the poem uses parallelism, yet it never feels stiff. The first couplet packs six images into fourteen characters. The second, with its doubled sounds — xiāo xiāo, gǔn gǔn — is one of the most famous in Chinese: falling leaves and the endless river, time passing and time going on. The second half narrows from the cosmic to the personal: exile, illness, white hair and, finally, the doctor's ban on wine, the last small comfort removed.
Background
Written in autumn 767 in Kuizhou on the Yangtze, on the Double Ninth Festival when people climbed heights. Du Fu was 56, ill and far from home.
Key words
- 渚 zhǔ
- islet
- 落木 luò mù
- falling leaves
- 百年 bǎi nián
- a lifetime
- 潦倒 liáo dǎo
- down and out, worn out
About the poet: Du Fu
Du Fu (also romanized Tu Fu) lived through the An Lushan Rebellion, which tore apart the Tang empire and his own family life. His precise, compassionate poems record war, poverty and loyalty, earning him the titles "Sage of Poetry" and "poet-historian."
Lifetime: 712–770. Other famous works: Happy Rain on a Spring Night (春夜喜雨); The Prime Minister of Shu (蜀相); The Officer at Shihao Village (石壕吏); Thoughts While Traveling at Night (旅夜书怀); Qujiang (曲江); Meeting Li Guinian in Jiangnan (江南逢李龟年); Ballad of the Army Carts (兵车行); Moonlit Night (月夜); Spring View (春望); Climbing High (登高); Quatrain: Two Orioles (绝句·两个黄鹂鸣翠柳); On Yueyang Tower (登岳阳楼); My Thatched Hut Torn by the Autumn Wind (茅屋为秋风所破歌).
More by Du Fu
- Spring View春望
- Quatrain (The River Blue)绝句
- On Yueyang Tower登岳阳楼
- Moonlit Night月夜
- Happy Rain on a Spring Night春夜喜雨
- Meeting Li Guinian in Jiangnan江南逢李龟年
- Qujiang曲江
- The Officer at Shihao Village石壕吏