236. Crossing the Han River | Li Pin
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
岭外音书绝，经冬复历春。
English translation
Beyond the southern ranges, letters and news were cut off; a winter passed, and then another spring.
Beyond the ranges means south of the Five Ridges. The break in letters is prolonged isolation from all news of home, not merely one missing message.
Original Chinese text
近乡情更怯，不敢问来人。
English translation
The nearer I come to home, the more fearful I grow; I dare not question travelers coming from that direction.
After so long without news, return contains hope and fear together. The speaker wants to know, but dreads that an answer may overturn what he has imagined.
赏析 · Commentary
归乡为什么反而害怕 · Why Coming Home Produces Fear
远离故乡时，思念可以依靠记忆维持；真正接近时，一切都将接受现实检验。亲人是否平安，家园是否如旧，过去很久的自己还能否回去，这些问题都可能在一句问话后得到答案。诗人不敢问，写的正是答案出现以前那段最紧张的距离。
Far from home, longing can be sustained by memory. Near home, memory is about to be tested by reality. Are relatives safe, is the household unchanged, can the person who left still return to the same life? One question might answer all of these. The speaker's silence captures the most tense distance: close enough to know, not yet ready to hear.
作者归属存在争议 · A Disputed Attribution
《唐诗三百首》的部分传统版本把此诗题在李频名下，许多其他文献则题作宋之问《渡汉江》或《汉江》。本站目录沿用当前底本作李频，同时保留异说。作者不同会影响身世背景的解释，因此页面不把“岭外”强行落实为某一次确定的贬谪经历，只按诗句本身说明久居岭南、归乡近切的感受。
Some traditional editions of Three Hundred Tang Poems attribute this poem to Li Pin, while many other sources give it to Song Zhiwen under Crossing the Han River or Han River. This site follows its present base text and lists Li Pin, while preserving the alternative. Because attribution changes the biographical context, the note does not force beyond the ranges into one specific exile narrative; it stays with the poem's prolonged southern absence and anxious return.