69. Endless Longing, No. 2 | Li Bai
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
日色已尽花含烟，月明欲素愁不眠。
English translation
The daylight is used up and the flowers hold mist; the moonlight, near to white, and grief keeps her awake.
Two lines run from dusk into night. Near to white means the moonlight is pale enough to drain color away.
Original Chinese text
赵瑟初停凤凰柱，蜀琴欲奏鸳鸯弦。
English translation
The zither of Zhao has just fallen still on its phoenix pegs; the Qin lute is about to sound its lovebird strings.
One stops, one starts, the same hands changing instruments. Phoenix and lovebird both come in pairs, which hints that she is alone.
Original Chinese text
此曲有意无人传，愿随春风寄燕然，忆君迢迢隔青天。
English translation
This tune carries feeling, but no one carries it; she would send it on the spring wind to Yanran, remembering him, so far off, cut off by the blue sky.
One line turns three ways: no one to carry the tune, send it on the wind, cut off by sky. Yanran is frontier country, which places the one she misses far away at war.
Original Chinese text
昔日横波目，今成流泪泉。
English translation
Eyes that once were crossing waves are now a spring of tears.
Two lines give one thing before and after: her eyes. The change is completed inside a single couplet.
Original Chinese text
不信妾肠断，归来看取明镜前。
English translation
If you do not believe my heart is broken, come back and look in the bright mirror.
The close is an invitation and a test at once. Come back and look hands the verdict to the mirror rather than keeping it.
赏析 · Commentary
两首《长相思》的分别 · What Separates the Two Endless Longings
通行本把这两首编在一起。第一首写长安，主角没有明确性别，全程是一个人在夜里，靠霜、簟、孤灯和月亮来量距离；第二首写一个女子，有瑟、有琴、有燕然、有镜子，全是闺中器物。一首是悬空的，一首是落在具体生活里的。李白写同一题目的两首，往往就是这样互补：一首往外看天，一首往里看屋子。读的时候不必强求它们讲同一个故事，两首各自成立的对照，比合成一条线更能看出他对「思」这件事的处理。
The current editions print these two together. The first is set in Chang'an, its speaker's gender unmarked, all of it one person at night measuring distance with frost, mat, lamp and moon; the second has a woman, with zither, lute, Yanran and a mirror — all boudoir objects. One hangs in the air, one stands in concrete life. When Li Bai writes two poems on one title they are usually complementary like this: one looks out at the sky, one looks into the room. There is no need to force them into one story; the contrast with each standing on its own shows more about how he handles longing than fusing them into a single thread.
「愿随春风寄燕然」：声音怎么寄 · Sending a Tune on the Spring Wind
她想把曲子送出去，可「此曲有意无人传」——曲子有情，缺的是送的人。于是诗给了两条替代路线：托春风，和隔着青天望。春风是能到的，青天是到不了的，两个意象并排出现，等于先给了一个办法，又立刻拆掉它。汉唐之间写思妇寄远，多用鱼雁、用书信，李白不用这些现成的载体，用的是风。风无凭，所以最后还得回到「看取明镜前」——把话交给一面镜子。
She wants to send the tune out, but this tune carries feeling, and no one carries it — the tune has the feeling, what is missing is a carrier. So the poem offers two substitutes: entrust it to the spring wind, and gaze across the blue sky. The wind can arrive; the sky cannot be crossed. The two images stand side by side, which gives a method and immediately takes it away. Between Han and Tang, writing a wife sending word far off usually uses fish and geese or letters; Li Bai passes up the ready-made carriers and uses wind. Wind has no guarantee, and so at the end he must fall back on look in the bright mirror — handing the words to a mirror.
结尾把判断交给了镜子 · The Ending Hands the Verdict to a Mirror
「不信妾肠断，归来看取明镜前」，这句可以读作撒娇，也可以读作断言。她说的是：你不信，就回来看。看什么？看镜子里的人瘦成什么样。她把证据准备在一面镜子里，人不必在场，镜子会替她说。这种写法省掉了一整段诉说，也把最后的决定权推给了对方——回来不回来，是对方的事。全诗五句到此收住，前面那些瑟、琴、燕然、春天的风，全为了让这五个字落下来。
If you do not believe my heart is broken, come back and look in the bright mirror can be read as coaxing or as assertion. What she says is: if you do not believe me, come back and look. Look at what? At how thin the person in the mirror is. She has prepared her evidence in a mirror; the person need not be present, the mirror will speak for her. The device saves a whole passage of pleading and pushes the last decision onto the other party — whether to come back is his affair. The poem stops at five lines, and all the zither, lute, Yanran and spring wind exist so that these few words can land.