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Cháng Hèn GēSong of Everlasting Sorrow 长恨歌
Bai Juyi's ballad of Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
汉皇重色思倾国
hàn huáng zhòng sè sī qīng guó
御宇多年求不得
yù yǔ duō nián qiú bù dé
杨家有女初长成
yáng jiā yǒu nǚ chū zhǎng chéng
养在深闺人未识
yǎng zài shēn guī rén wèi shí
天生丽质难自弃
tiān shēng lì zhì nán zì qì
一朝选在君王侧
yī zhāo xuǎn zài jūn wáng cè
回眸一笑百媚生
huí móu yī xiào bǎi mèi shēng
六宫粉黛无颜色
liù gōng fěn dài wú yán sè
……
在天愿作比翼鸟
zài tiān yuàn zuò bǐ yì niǎo
在地愿为连理枝
zài dì yuàn wéi lián lǐ zhī
天长地久有时尽
tiān cháng dì jiǔ yǒu shí jìn
此恨绵绵无绝期
cǐ hèn mián mián wú jué qī
Simplified characters; traditional title: 長恨歌. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.
English translation
The Han emperor prized beauty and longed for one who could topple a kingdom;
for years upon his throne he searched and did not find her.
In the Yang family a daughter had just come of age,
raised deep in the women's quarters, unknown to the world.
Such beauty, given by Heaven, could not stay hidden;
one morning she was chosen to stand at the sovereign's side.
When she turned her eyes and smiled, a hundred charms were born;
the painted ladies of the Six Palaces lost all their color.
(…)
"In heaven, may we be birds that fly wing to wing;
on earth, may we be trees whose branches intertwine."
Heaven endures, earth lasts long, yet both will someday end;
this sorrow goes on and on, with no end at all.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
The ballad begins almost as a fairy tale of beauty and favor, then (in the omitted middle) turns to rebellion, Yang Guifei's death and the emperor's endless grief, ending with a Daoist magician who finds her spirit on an island of immortals. The closing vows — birds that share wings, trees that grow together — became the standard images of devoted love in East Asia. The final couplet sets human feeling against the cosmos and lets sorrow outlast heaven and earth. The poem was a favorite in Heian Japan and shaped "The Tale of Genji."
Background
Written in 806, about fifty years after the An Lushan Rebellion, in which Emperor Xuanzong's beloved consort Yang Guifei was forced to die. Bai Juyi calls the emperor "the Han emperor" to keep a polite distance. The full poem has 120 lines; only the opening and the famous ending are shown.
Key words
- 倾国 qīng guó
- "overturning a state" — a woman of devastating beauty
- 六宫 liù gōng
- the imperial harem
- 比翼鸟 bǐ yì niǎo
- mythical birds that fly only in pairs
- 连理枝 lián lǐ zhī
- branches of two trees grown together
About the poet: Bai Juyi
Bai Juyi (also romanized Po Chü-i; courtesy name Letian) wrote in a famously plain style — legend says he read drafts to an old woman and revised anything she could not understand. An outspoken official, he was exiled to Jiangzhou and later governed Hangzhou and Suzhou. His poems were hugely popular in Heian Japan.
Lifetime: 772–846. Other famous works: On the Night of the Fifteenth of the Eighth Month, on Duty in the Palace, Thinking of Yuan Zhen (八月十五日夜禁中独直对月忆元九); A Question for Liu the Nineteenth (问刘十九); A New Mountain Cottage Below Incense Burner Peak, Written on the East Wall (香炉峰下新卜山居草堂初成偶题东壁); Grass on the Ancient Plain: A Farewell (赋得古原草送别); Song of Everlasting Sorrow (长恨歌); The Song of the Lute (琵琶行); The Old Charcoal Seller (卖炭翁).
Names from this poem
More by Bai Juyi
- A New Mountain Cottage Below Incense Burner Peak, Written on the East Wall香炉峰下新卜山居草堂初成偶题东壁
- Grass on the Ancient Plain: A Farewell赋得古原草送别
- A Question for Liu the Nineteenth问刘十九
- On the Night of the Fifteenth of the Eighth Month, on Duty in the Palace, Thinking of Yuan Zhen八月十五日夜禁中独直对月忆元九