Lu You

In my heart sad thoughts throng;
We've severed for years long.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Lu You (Chinese: 陆游; 13 November 1125 – 26 January 1210) was a prominent poet of China's Southern Song Dynasty.

Quotes

• 紅酥手，黃藤酒，
  滿城春色宮墻柳。
  東風惡，歡情薄，
  一杯愁緒，幾年離索，錯，錯，錯。

  萅如舊，人空瘦，
  淚痕紅浥鮫綃透。
  桃花落，閒池閣，
  山盟雖在，錦書難托，莫，莫，莫。
  • Pink hands so fine,
    Gold-branded wine.
    Spring paints green willows palace walls cannot confine.
    East wind unfair,
    Happy times rare.
    In my heart sad thoughts throng;
    We've severed for years long.
    Wrong, wrong, wrong!
    Spring is as green,
    In vain she's lean,
    Her silk scarf soaked with tears and red with stains unclean.
    Peach blossoms fall
    Near deserted hall.
    Our oath is still there. Lo!
    No word to her can go.
    No, no, no!
  • "Fonqhwang Hairpin" (《釵頭鳳》), in Song of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, trans. Yuanchong Xu (Penguin Books, 1994), p. 150
  • Compare:
    • The world's love runs thin.
      Human love turns evil.
      Rain strips, in the yellow twilight,
      The flowers from the branches.
      The dawn wind will dry my tear stains.
      I try to write down the trouble of my heart.
      I can only speak obliquely, exhausted.
      It is hard, hard,
      We are each of us all alone.
      Today is not yesterday.
      My troubled mind sways
      Like the rope of a swing.
      A horn sounds in the cold depth of the night.
      Afraid of people's questions,
      I will swallow my tears
      And pretend to be happy.
      Deceit. Deceit. Deceit.
    • Tang Wan (Lu You's wife)'s response, in The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China, trans. Kenneth Rexroth (McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 50

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Lu You on Wikipedia