.png)
Du Fu suffered tremendously over his lifetime, though the upheaval inspired much of his great poetry. (Public domain image)
Editor’s note: This is a series of translations of Chinese poetry from the Tang Dynasty being published on The Epoch Times website. Each piece will be accompanied by its Chinese original, an interpretive English translation, and a small essay of introduction, contextualization, and appraisal.
Now I’d like to share with you my translations of some poems by Du Fu. Considered by many Chinese to be their greatest poet, Du Fu himself felt overshadowed by Li Bai, his slightly elder colleague, and he failed to receive anywhere near the same recognition for his poetry during his lifetime as did many of his contemporaries.
In fact, some of Du Fu’s early poems suggest his discouragement and personal pique at the lack of both professional advancement and artistic acclaim. And whatever discouragements he may have felt early in his career, these woes were greatly compounded later on by the political and social tumult brought by the An Lu Shan rebellion, which tore apart Tang society from 755 to 763. As the long prosperity of the early Tang dynasty devolved into widespread violence and chaos, instead of having a chance at a government sinecure where he could pursue his art in peace and comfort, Du Fu endured wartime privation and forced marches, captivity, long separation from his family, bouts of famine and many similar hardships. His young son starved to death as did countless of his fellow countrymen.But while the rebellion brought great adversity, it also proved to be the source of inspiration for some of Du Fu’s greatest verse. The social collapse transformed his outlook, and endowed him with deep compassion for the suffering he saw all around. Much more so than the other major Tang poets, many of Du Fu’s later poems reflect a developed social conscience. And the occasionally querulous tone of his earlier work matures into a lyric that has been informed by a tragic sense of life.
So here are two poems by Du Fu. The first is from his earlier years and is a more conventional Tang lyric about the sadness occasioned by springtime.
And here is a second poem written a number of years later, during the An Lu Shan rebellion, as Du Fu sadly reflects on his distant wife and children.
Lan Hua is the pen name for a New York-based writer and translator. The name means Blue Flower, both in tribute to Red Pine (who towers above him as the greatest living translator of the Poems of the Masters) and the broader lyric tradition in which he seeks to participate.
