鹿柴 Lu Chai Classical Chinese Poem | Learn Chinese Now

Hi everyone today we are going to look at another classic Chinese Tang Dynasty poem, this time by poet 王維 Wáng Wéi (701 - 761 AD). Wang Wei was a Chinese government official during the Tang Dynasty, he was also a devout Buddhist, so he was sometimes referred to as 詩佛 Shī fó the Poetry Buddha.

This poem is entitled

鹿 柴 Lù chái which was an ancient name for a Deer enclosure which would have been close to Wang Wei's house in the countryside.

Now let us look at the first line:


空 山 不 見 人 Kōng shān bú jiàn rén

Kong means empty and shan means mountain, you can see the shape of the character is something like a triangular mountain.(use picture to depict)

Then the next three characters bu means not, jian means see, and ren means person or people. So the whole line can be translated as "In the empty mountains one cannot see anyone."

Now to the next line:

但 聞 人 語 響 Dàn wén rén yǔ xiǎng

Dan means but and it is still used in modern Chinese, then the character wen means to hear in ancient Chinese however it should be noted that the character 聽 tīng is used in modern Chinese to mean listen or hear, wen has now come to mean smell or taste.

Then the next three characters ren yu xiang, ren yu means human language and xiang means a sound. So this is the "sound of human language." We can translate the whole line as "but one can hear the sound of people talking."

These two lines describe the atmosphere near Wang Wei's countryside home, he was not completely in the mountain wilderness like a hermit, instead he lived in the peace of the countryside but still near human civilization, thus although he could not see anyone in the mountains, he could still hear the sound of people from nearby village or farm.

The next line reads:

返 景 入 深 林 Fǎn jǐng rù shēn lín

Fan means to return and jing means shadow but in this context means evening light or twilight. Then ru means to enter, shen means deep and lin means forest.

So this line can be translated as: "The returning twilight enters the deep forest."

The last line reads:

復 照 青 苔 上 Fù zhào qīng tái shàng

Fu means to repeat, zhao means to illuminate, qing tai means green moss and shang means on. Remember from last time we said that Chinese put location words after the thing they are describing location in relation to, so qing tai shang, literally green moss on, means on the green moss and the whole line means: "Returning to shine upon the green moss."

These two lines talk about how as the sun becomes lower in the sky at sunset the light is able to enter the deep forest again since it is shining horizontally entering through the side of the forest, whereas before when the light was coming from above it was blocked by the forest canopy. This happens twice per day, once at sunrise and once at sunset, so thus the light can again shine on the green moss.

Thank you for watching guys and if you want to hear any more classical Chinese poetry, please leave your requests in the comments section below. We will see you next week.

Zai jian




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