The great master Li Bai reflects on an unforgettable dream he once had, and then pauses to reflect on the nature of happiness. This poem is widely considered to be one of his masterpieces.
夢遊天姥吟留別
海客談瀛洲，煙濤微茫信難求；
越人語天姥，雲霞明滅或可睹。
天姥連天向天橫，勢拔五嶽掩赤城。
天台四萬八千丈，對此欲倒東南傾。
我欲因之夢吳越，一夜飛度鏡湖月。
湖月照我影，送我至剡溪。
謝公宿處今尚在，淥水蕩漾清猿啼。
腳著謝公屐，身登青雲梯。
半壁見海日，空中聞天雞。
千岩萬轉路不定，迷花倚石忽已暝。
熊咆龍吟殷岩泉，栗深林兮驚層巔。
雲青青兮欲雨，水澹澹兮生煙。
列缺霹靂，丘巒崩摧。
洞天石扉，訇然中開。
青冥浩蕩不見底，日月照耀金銀台。
霓為衣兮風為馬，雲之君兮紛紛而來下。
虎鼓瑟兮鸞回車，仙之人兮列如麻。
忽魂悸以魄動，恍驚起而長嗟。
惟覺時之枕席，失向來之煙霞。
世間行樂亦如此，古來萬事東流水。
別君去兮何時還？且放白鹿青崖間，須行即騎訪名山。
安能摧眉折腰事權貴，使我不得開心顏！
Ballad On Leaving A Voyage Of Tianmu Mountain In A Dream
Mariners speak of Yingzhou the fabled abode of immortals
Indistinct amid misty swells and impossible to behold
Southerners speak of Tianmu Mountain
Sometimes seen through shifting light in rose-pink clouds
Tianmu touches the sky reaching across the heavens
Its grandeur surpasses the Five Marchmounts obscuring Chicheng Peak
Against this even Tiantai Mountain, a dozen miles in height
Would crumble south and east, as if pushed over
Longing for Tianmu one night I dreamt of the South
I flew between Jinghu Lake and the moon
The lake’s moonlight illuminated my reflection
And accompanied me to the river
The place where Poet Xie’s lodgings still stand
Clear waters rippled and swirled, gibbons howled
I put on the hiking clogs of Poet Xie
And climbed the mountain path to the clouds
Halfway up I saw the sun over the sea
In the sky I heard the Heavenly Rooster
Thousands of rocks, countless ravines, the path was not clear
Spellbound by flowers I leant on a rock and suddenly the sun set
Bears roared, dragons cried, underground caves trembled
Shaking the deep forest and layered mountain peaks
The clouds were a dark black, imminent rain
The waters tossing and tumbling, brewing fog
Thunder crashed, lightning flashed
Mountains collapsed and broke apart
The stone door to the immortal cave
Opened amid a deafening boom
The blue-green realm within was vast and endless, the ground beyond my sight
The sun and moon inside illuminated a tower of gold and silver
Clothed in rainbows and using wind as their horse
The gods of the clouds descended one after another
Tigers strummed ancient zithers, phoenixes pulled carriages
Transcendent beings formed ranks as dense as linen
Then my soul was shaken and my spirit shifted
Dazed, I jolted up and sighed in despair
When I awoke, just a pillow mat
None of the mist and clouds from before
The joys of the world pass like this
Since ancient times all things like water flowing eastward
I bid you farewell and leave, unsure of when I’ll return
I’ll leave the white deer amid the green cliffs
When needed, I shall ride them to search out the famous mountain
Why should I serve the rich and powerful, and not gain an open heart?
Translation notes
Not all Li Bai poems are this long or complicated. I tried my best to translate this poem in a way that was accessible to readers who might not be familiar with the many references within the poem. For example, in the first line, Yingzhou 瀛洲 is not referred to as ‘the fabled abode of immortals’ in the original. I added that detail in, but I couldn’t find any extra space for these:
- The Five Marchmounts 五嶽 are the Five Great Mountains in China that everyone from great emperors to Confucian and Daoist pilgrims would journey to. They were first recognised in the Warring States period (475 BC – 221 BC).
- Tiantai Mountain 天台 is obviously not 12 miles tall. Li Bai knew this and exaggerates its height using archaic units of measurement (si wan ba qian zhang 四萬八千丈, 48,000 zhang - roughly equivalent to 14,400 metres). I used the word ‘dozen’ to get across the different Chinese numbering system and an imperial unit of measurement.
- ‘Poet Xie’ is written Master Xie 謝公 in the original and refers to Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385 - 433), an early Buddhist landscape poet. His family estate was located on a hill next to the lake romanticised in this poem.
- The Heavenly Rooster 天雞 refers to a Chinese legend about a mythical bird that lives in the land of immortals, whose crowing awakens the whole world.
- The idea of an immortal cave 洞天 is a reference to the Daoist concept of ‘grotto-heavens’, real-life grottos located at sacred mountain sites. These were catalogued systematically in the Tang dynasty, around the time Li Bai wrote this poem. Traditionally, it was believed that a grotto-heaven would have its own sun and moon within it and be home to immortals, which is why I use the word ‘inside’ when describing the location of the sun and moon in the poem.
Translations of this poem vary wildly. Victor H. Mair, an American sinologist, wrote of the importance of translating each poet by exploring the poet’s own voice, rather than the voice of the translator. My own take is that many translations are over the top. It is tempting to equate the poem’s radical styles and trippy images with someone like Coleridge or Byron, and give Li Bai the voice of a Victorian Romantic.
Instead, I have tried to exercise restraint by placing the dream in the past tense so that it is being carefully recounted rather than experienced. In doing so, I have attempted to allow the wonderful juxtaposition of the original images and ideas to reveal themselves in the reader’s mind in the same way they may have originally appeared to Li Bai over 1,200 years ago.