In an epic poem that marks the passage of time with the change of seasons,
Li Bai, the celebrated Chinese poet, describes the union of a young teenage couple amid the great bucolic splendor of historic Changgan County.
In this ancient poem, “Changgan Memories”, Li Bai speaks through the voice of a
beautiful young woman, longing for her distant lover. In a brilliant description of
heartbreaking adolescent emotion, writes,
When my first hair started to cover my head
I picked up and played with flowers at the door.
Then you arrived riding a bamboo horse *.
You skirted the path; playing with green plumb bobs.
We lived together here in Changgan.
Two small children without even a suspicion.
Then when I was fourteen, I became your wife.
I was so shy that my face remained closed.
But I bowed my head to the shadowed wall
And I called you a thousand times, but I never came back, not once.
At fifteen I started to raise my eyebrows and wanted to be with you
like dust with ash.
However, you always kept your huge pillar of faith **.
I had no reason to go up any hill to look for you.
But when I was sixteen you went too far …
to Yandui in the Qutong Gorge.
You shouldn’t have risked the dangerous floods that come in May.
And now, while the sad monkeys cry in the sky, my step has left a mark in front of the door.
And little by little the green grass has been growing.
The moss is too deep to remove.
And as the leaves fall in the winds of early autumn; in August the butterflies are yellow.
A couple of them fly over the grass of the western garden. I feel like they are hurting my heart.
My face is now sad, red and old.
When you go down the river, send a letter home.
We will go to meet as far as possible.
I’ll go see you in Changfengsha.
A contemporary reading of events
In a bittersweet story about a young girl’s adolescence, this poem demonstrates the great ability of poets to describe the kind of deep, genuine emotion that can go right to the bone.
Brimming with heartfelt, funny imagery and filled with rugged, rustic scenes, its real value may lie in the human drama that, like the woman in the poem, can encourage us to question the very foundations on which our own existence is built.
A massive pillar faith
In a tale that recalls the spiritual dimensions of a young girl’s first love, we find a girl who awakens with the opening of her heart and soul. However, tragically, this wonderful feeling soon begins to fade.
Overwhelmed by a void that threatens to violate her soul, she searches forward. But his longing is followed by pain; a tragic and regrettable loss.
However, in the end, he keeps calling. But only the poet knows if his true love will ever return.
And now the sad monkeys cry
In a scene in which the monkeys are said to cry in the sky, the young woman is immersed in her desperate longing and pain. She screams, but no one can really hear her.
And little by little the green grass continues to grow. But the moss is now too deep to push away.
My face gets sad, red and old
In a state of sadness, the young woman has to face a series of emotions for which, unfortunately, she has been quite ill prepared. At the prospect of a life of loneliness, racing thoughts and endless musings begin to disturb his mind. And, tragically, they begin to take their toll.
The sad and grieving woman cries: “As the leaves fall in the winds of early autumn; in August the butterflies are yellow … I feel that they are hurting my heart.”
When you come to the river, send a letter to your house
However, in a show of hope, look within. Hoping to find a dream that rekindles her unshakable faith, she says, “When you come to the river, send a letter to your house. We will meet wherever you are.
I’ll go see you in Changfengsha. “
A foregone conclusion
However, the final fate of our beautiful young woman is certainly a question for us.
Will her heroic husband return?
Are you destined to live alone?
Or will it get lost in a sea of bitterness, or like the beautiful butterflies, will it learn to fly little by little, up?
….. Because only she and the poet will really know.
Footnotes:
* A bamboo horse is a bamboo pole that is used as a toy horse
** A massive pillar faith is a term from a traditional Chinese story. In this story, a man set out to meet his lover by a bridge pillar. When the waters of the river rose, he continued clinging to the pillar waiting for their return. In the end, however, he drowned while waiting.
