The son whom I always have doted on, 64 his
complexion
is whiter than snow.
Du Fu - 5
Unauthenticated Download Date | 10/1/17 7:36 AM Journey North 337 Wherever the rain and dew brings moisture fruits form, the sweet and the bitter alike.
I thought of Peach Blossom Spring, so remote,1 44 increasing sighs over the blunders of my life.
From the rises I gazed to Fu?
s Altar,2 which emerged and sank away as I crossed valley and cliff.
I had already gone on to the shores of a stream, 48 and my servant was still in the tips of the trees.
3 Owls screeched in the brown mulberry trees, ground squirrels folded hands by their scattered dens.
In the depths of night I passed through a battlefield, 52 where the cold moon shone on white bones.
An army of a million at Tong Pass?
back then they scattered so swiftly!
4 In consequence half the folk of Qin 56 were destroyed and made into non-human things.
5 What?
s more I fell into the dust of the Hu, coming home, my hair is all streaked with gray.
A year has passed, and I reach my thatched cottage,6 60 wife and children?
s clothes patched in a hundred places.
Stirred to weeping, the sound of pines replies, and mournful streams join our secret sobs.
The son whom I always have doted on, 64 his complexion is whiter than snow. 1 *Peach Blossom Spring. 2 Fu? s Altar, by legend constructed by Duke Wen of Qin, was a mound that marked Fuzhou, where Du Fu? s family was located. 3 That is, the servant is behind him, higher up the slope. 4 This refers to the disastrous defeat of the hastily assembled imperial army outside of Tong Pass. 5 That is, ghosts, not having been buried with the proper ceremonies. 6 That is, a year since he left his family in Fuzhou and went back to Chang? an, at the point when it fell to An Lushan? s forces. Unauthenticated Download Date | 10/1/17 7:36 AM 338 ? ? ? ? ?
The son whom I always have doted on, 64 his complexion is whiter than snow. 1 *Peach Blossom Spring. 2 Fu? s Altar, by legend constructed by Duke Wen of Qin, was a mound that marked Fuzhou, where Du Fu? s family was located. 3 That is, the servant is behind him, higher up the slope. 4 This refers to the disastrous defeat of the hastily assembled imperial army outside of Tong Pass. 5 That is, ghosts, not having been buried with the proper ceremonies. 6 That is, a year since he left his family in Fuzhou and went back to Chang? an, at the point when it fell to An Lushan? s forces. Unauthenticated Download Date | 10/1/17 7:36 AM 338 ? ? ? ? ?
