Tune: Pure Serenity I (Yan Shu)
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
红笺小字，说尽平生意，鸿雁在云鱼在水，惆怅此情难寄。
English translation
Tiny characters on red stationery seem to say everything the heart has carried through life. Wild geese pass among the clouds and fish move beneath the water, yet the feeling remains impossible to send; only wistfulness is left.
Original Chinese text
斜阳独倚西楼，遥山恰对帘钩。人面不知何处，绿波依旧东流。
English translation
At sunset, the speaker leans alone against the western tower; distant hills happen to face the curtain hook. The person once seen is nowhere to be found, while the green current continues eastward as before.
词句注释 · Notes
上片 · First stanza
“红笺”点出书信，“鸿雁”“鱼”则沿用传书的意象。信已写满而情意仍难寄，词中写的是传递受阻，不宜把鸿雁、鱼当作真实送信情节。
“Red stationery” signals a letter, while geese and fish evoke traditional images of messages. The letter may be full, yet the feeling cannot be delivered. These are literary motifs, not a literal account of animals carrying mail.
下片 · Second stanza
下片由室内倚楼望山，转到对人的追忆。“人面不知何处”写人事已非，“绿波依旧东流”以景物照旧反衬相逢难再。
The stanza looks from the tower toward distant hills, then turns to memory. The absent face marks change in human affairs; the unchanged eastward current makes reunion seem less certain.