ChineseStudy

42. Dreaming of Mount Tianmu, a Song of Farewell | Li Bai

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English translation

Sea travellers talk of Yingzhou; through misty waves it is faint, and truly hard to find.

He opens on an island no one can reach. Starting with something absent raises the bar for the real mountain that follows.

Men of Yue speak of Tianmu; through cloud and rainbow, flickering, it may yet be seen.

May yet be seen is what sets Tianmu up: unlike Yingzhou it cannot be nowhere, it keeps one thread of possibility.

Tianmu joins the sky and lies across it, its force outdoing the five peaks and covering Chicheng.

Three times the word sky falls in a row; the mountain is not a height but a thing laid across the heavens.

Tiantai, forty-eight thousand feet, faces it and would topple southeast.

Tiantai is a famous mountain of eastern Zhejiang; bringing it in is to lift Tianmu above it. The bigger the number, the more clearly it is the poet's own voice.

On the strength of all this I would dream my way into Wu and Yue, crossing Mirror Lake by moonlight in a single night.

The word dream lands here. All the exaggeration before was a lead-in; the way in is dreaming.

The lake moon lights my shadow and sees me to the Shan River.

Sees me to makes the moon a companion on the road. In the dream there is no one else; only the shadow and the moon follow.

The place where Xie lodged still stands; clear water ripples and gibbons call, sharp and cold.

Xie is Xie Lingyun. The man is gone, the place remains; one line of old man and old ground gives the dream its years.

Feet in Xie's clogs, I climb the stair of green cloud.

Putting on Xie's clogs is stepping into his footprints. The path in the dream is one a predecessor walked.

On the cliff face I see the sea sun; in the air I hear the sky rooster.

Cliff face and in the air are both suspended positions. Sun from the sea, rooster in the sky — all of it the senses of a high place.

A thousand cliffs, ten thousand turns, no fixed road; dazed by flowers, leaning on a rock, all at once it is dark.

All at once it is dark says time passes for no reason: lose yourself a moment and the day is gone. In a dream even the hours are not your own.

Bears roar, dragons sing, and the rock springs boom; the deep woods shiver, the layered peaks take fright.

Shiver and take fright are causatives: not the woods are afraid, but made afraid. The terror travels out through sound, ridge after ridge.

The cloud lies dark and wants to rain; the water ripples and gives off mist.

Both lines use the Chu-songs particle, a southern cadence. Cloud and water are both changing; the sky is pressing down.

Lightning splits, thunder cracks, hill and ridge come crashing down.

Four characters to a clause, short as something falling. A moment ago the weather was turning; now the sky has broken.

The stone door of the cave heaven bangs and opens down the middle.

The bang is a sound and also the noise of a boundary breaking. What opens after the collapse is not a road but another world.

The blue deep is vast with no bottom in sight; sun and moon shine on the gold and silver terrace.

The darker it was before, the brighter here. The gold and silver terrace is an immortal palace, and this light is what the earlier blackness was traded for.

Rainbow for robes, wind for horses, the lords of the cloud come down one after another.

Rainbow for robes and wind for horses take nature apart and dress it up. The immortals' whole parade is assembled from what the sky already has.

Tigers pluck the zither, phoenixes turn the chariots, and the immortals stand in rows as thick as hemp.

As thick as hemp gives no air of divinity, only number. Here the dream has reached its busiest point.

Suddenly the soul starts and the spirit shakes; dazed, I sit up with a long sigh.

After the noise comes a hard turn. The more splendid before, the more abrupt this fall. Suddenly is the poem's switch.

Only the pillow and mat of waking are left; the mist and cloud of a moment ago are gone.

Only and gone are set against each other inside one line: what remains is a piece of furniture, what is lost is a whole vision.

Pleasure in this world is like that too; from of old all things go like water eastward.

Stepping out of the dream into a judgment. Everything before was gorgeous and this line is plain, and the drop is the point.

I leave you all — when shall I come back?

The line turns from reflection back to people. The question is when he returns, and it also names out loud that this is a farewell.

For now I let the white deer loose among the green cliffs; when I must go I will ride it and visit the famous mountains.

The white deer is an immortal's mount. He cannot answer when he returns, so he hands his whereabouts to the mountains.

How could I lower my brows and bend my waist to serve the great, and never let my face be glad!

The last line hardens without warning. After so long a dream, it ends in one retort against the real world.

赏析 · Commentary

先立一个找不到的岛 · First, an Island No One Can Reach

开篇先讲瀛洲，传说里东海上的仙山，隔着雾涛根本找不到。讲完一个到不了的，才转回天姥：云霞明灭，也许还看得见。两句并排一放，天姥因为这一比显得可以抵达，读者也跟着起了想去的念头。李白写庐山、写天姥，常先给一个更高的参照，让眼前这座山浮起来。

The poem opens on Yingzhou, the legendary island in the eastern sea that no one can reach through the misted waves. Only after the unreachable one is described does he turn to Tianmu: cloud and rainbow flickering, perhaps still visible. Set side by side, Tianmu looks reachable by the comparison, and the reader's own wish to go rises with it. Writing Mount Lu or Mount Tianmu, Li Bai often gives a higher reference first, so the mountain in front of him floats.

一步一景，越走越暗 · Step by Step, Darker and Darker

入梦之后行踪很清楚：从镜湖到剡溪，到谢公的旧居，穿上谢公屐，登上青云梯，半山看见海日，听见天鸡。每一步都踩在具体的地名和物上。可越往上走，天色越不对：先是「忽已暝」，接着熊咆龙吟，云要下雨，水生烟，到最后闪电劈下来，山都崩了。明亮是一点点被吃掉的。

Once in the dream the route is exact: from Mirror Lake to the Shan River, to Xie's old lodging, into Xie's clogs, up the green-cloud stair, the sea sun seen from the cliff, the sky rooster heard. Every step stands on a real place or object. But the higher he climbs, the more the light goes wrong: first all at once dark, then bears and dragons, cloud that wants to rain, water giving off mist, and at last lightning splitting and the hills coming down. The brightness is eaten away a little at a time.

结尾为什么突然硬起来 · Why the Ending Hardens

醒来那几句本来已经可以收住：枕席还在，烟霞没了，世间行乐也像这样。到「且放白鹿青崖间」还是一副要看山的口气。最后一句忽然顶回来：怎么能低眉折腰去伺候权贵。前面梦得那么远，这句把人一把拉回长安的三年，全诗的分量最后压在这里。

The lines after waking could already have closed it: the pillow and mat remain, the mist and cloud are gone, and pleasure in this world runs the same way. Even letting the white deer loose among the green cliffs still sounds like a man off to see mountains. Then the last line pushes back without warning: how could he lower his brows and bend his waist to serve the great. All that distance dreamed, and this line hauls the man back to his three years in Chang'an, and the whole weight of the poem rests there.

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