The fifth translation in this endeavour, and already our second poem by Wang Wei about the colour of moss. I discovered this poem a few weeks ago when reading through an anthology of Wang Wei’s works, and it has been lodged in the back of my mind ever since. It is a vivid and visual delight.
書事
輕陰閣小雨，
深院晝慵開。
坐看蒼苔色，
欲上人衣來。
Writing On A Happening
A faint shade stopped the drizzle
deep in courtyard daylight yet
too lazy to open the gate
I sat watching the green moss’ greenness
as if it were climbing my robe
Translation notes
The title of this poem is important, because it implies an event (or series of events) so notable had occurred that Wang Wei had to record it in detail.
Ge 閣 in the first line means to stop. It’s that the poem is being written from the subjective and imaginative perspective of the poet: the coming of shade doesn’t cause rain to stop, but as he perceived the scene, it did. It almost lends this faint shade a magical or supernatural power.
The second line is where this poem starts to reveal its character, and where I think two lines are required in English to convey the original one line in Chinese. Shen 深 is usually translated as ‘deep’ - in Deer Place this character was used to describe the ‘deep forest’. Yuan 院 means ‘courtyard’, and zhou 晝 is usually translated as ‘daytime’. So, one might be tempted to take these three characters at face value, and translate the beginning of the second line as ‘deep in the courtyard during daytime’.
However, shen 深 is occasionally used to describe deep, vivid, saturated hues. If we remember the faintness of the shade alluded to in the line above, the challenge is to continue the theme of light and colour (this comes in useful later), while also getting across the time of day. Therefore, ‘deep in courtyard daylight’.
The time of day is important because the next two characters don’t give us much. Yong 慵 means lazy and kai 開 means open. The gate to the courtyard is implied, and the laziness is further implied because it’s already daytime (as signified by zhou 晝, mentioned above) and the gate is still closed. As well as being connected to the character shen 深 (‘deep’), I felt zhou 晝 (‘daylight’) also needed to be connected to yong 慵 (‘laziness’) though a word such as ‘yet’ or ‘but’. Having extracted all the meaning we possibly can from the second line, we are set up for a beautiful conclusion.
Cang 蒼 is a shade of deep green, and refers to tai 苔 (‘moss’, also featured in Deer Place. But Wang Wei doesn’t stop there. After these two characters he also adds the character se 色, which means colour. This makes the colour of the moss, rather than the moss itself, the subject of this line. Some translators might use a literal word such as ‘colour’ here. But what is the poet really writing about? In a poem where each character conveys multiple meanings, here we have two characters intentionally emphasising one concept: the colour of the moss. I have chosen to use the ‘greenness’ of the green moss to playfully double up in the same way that the characters do, while also emphasising what I believe the poet imagined: a colour so vivid, a hue that permeated him so deeply, that he felt like the moss was climbing his robe.