Chinese Poem: Farewell on the Ancient Grasslands 賦得古原草送別 Tang Dynasty Poet Bai Juyi

today we will be exploring a poem written by 16 year old Bai Juyi and his deep feelings about grass no no it's not what you think nope nope hey guys welcome to learn Chinese now I'm your host Jared Madsen and today's poem is called Fu De Gu Yuan Cao Song Bie Fu De basically means a poem but it's a little bit more than that it's the tradition of poetry it's respecting those who created poetry and all the wise people who came before you. Gu means ancient. Yuan means plains or a grassland. Cao means grass. Song Bie means to send someone off. Song means to take, to go. Bie in this particular case means to say goodbye. So the title of this poem basically means a poem about grass on a grassland and saying goodbye. First line of the poem begins Li Li Yuan Shang Cao. So Li Li in this case means abundant okay it's these two characters they're put together and in this context it means abundance Yuan is the plains or the grasslands Shang means on and Cao means grass. Okay so pretty straightforward it's basically saying, setting of the scene here we are on the plains and there is this abundance of grass so the second part of the first line is Yi Sui Yi Ku Rong Yi means a year but it's for years old right it's used for age so Yi Sui means one year old Yi again is one so you see that twice so basically we're saying one year old and then one Ku which means to wither up. Rong which means abundance okay so let's break this down so basically what it's saying is for every year and now we're talking about grass right growing grass every year that this grass is alive one time it will wither up and one time it will be in abundance so this is the the a year in the life of grass is basically what he's saying and that's it sometimes is abundant sometimes it gets all withered up now you see the one and the one uh that kind of ties it all together that's part of the Poetry the second line means wild means fire okay so Wildfire is not too bad means to burn ooh means not and Jin would be like too exhaustion to an extreme so means something that is burned but it's not burned to the point that it is totally gone that it dies all right so the wildfires burn but not to the point that it totally destroys it okay so again we're talking about grasp right if if a wildfire comes through and it it burns the grass uh the roots are still there and later on it will be able to grow back which leads us to the second part of the second line twin Fung spring twin means Wind Tree means to blow yo means again and means life or to give birth so trinfung the spring Wind Tree yoshang lows and again brings life to the grass right so the second line we see you know don't worry the wildfires come it's not going to kill it because when the spring then comes it will blow life back into the grass the third line begins with Yuen Fung Yuen means distant far away and fun means fragrance good smell okay means attack okay ghoul as we saw in the title means ancient and doll means the way or in this case it means a path so that's kind of interesting too right like taoism Dao it's that same character we often call it the way in English because it literally means a way it means a road in ancient times it it meant a road so what we have here is the distant fragrance you and Fung attacks the ancient Road okay so we gotta we gotta pause here for a second we've we've set the scene the first half of the poem we've set the scene we we see the grass and we kind of understand that it grows and that the wildfires can't kill it and that the spring breathes life back what is this about attacking an ancient Road well if a row if a road that people don't travel on anymore so an ancient Road gradually the grass will come in the distant fragrance of the grass that grass will come in and it will attack the road it will eventually take over the road and the road will be covered with grass all right and then this extends to the second part of the third line Ching means clear like a clear sky and Tui means green often this this Emerald beautiful green okay so on this clear sky with the sun shining and that's way the the beautiful green so it's going to be referring to the grass again to take Huang desolate Chung town or city okay so when the sun is shining and you you have this beautiful emerald grass it then takes over a desolate City it takes over an abandoned city a city that no longer exists all right so now we're kind of getting deep into this this is a little bit more than it feels like it might be a little bit more than just about the grass all right so the last line yo soon okay so both of these characters we've seen previously right yo we saw in the second line which means again and soon we saw in the title which means to it literally means to take or to send but it often will be used uh for a person as to send off right to to take somebody to the airport to send them off you you are you are transferring you're taking them you're seeing them off means grandchildren okay so the grandchildren of the king now traditionally this was more referring to nobility but in this case uh it just kind of means means like an old friend right so almost even a distant friend a friend of distant timer of distant place right then the last character is Chu to go so yo soon so again I I I come and I see farewell to my old friends as they leave okay so this is where it kind of gets to be okay so he's sounds like he's talking about just some friends who came to visit him which he probably is but he could also be talking about friends or the wise people the nobility of the past people from from ancient times right because remember in the third line we were talking about an ancient Road and an abandoned city all right so the last part of the last line again means abundance so as we saw the very first line was Lily and this is Chichi so those kind of it's kind of wrapping it back around again they both mean abundance it's both the same character repeated so you see it two times in a row it's referring to the grass it's referring to the abundance of the grass man fully yeah now again we saw this in the title so Bia is to to say goodbye um when somebody leaves right and Ting is the emotion the sentiment the feeling so let's go over the whole poem and see if we can make some sense of this right so the first line basically says there's there's this Lush grass on the Plains and year after year it dries up and then it is born again in abundance even though the wildfires come in they can't really kill it because then the spring wind will blow and breathe life back into the grass the distant fragrance though comes in and hacks the old roads the grass comes in and covers the old roads and when on a clear day this Emerald grass will come and take over an abandoned town and now I send off my dear friend and I have this feeling this this deep feeling that fills me this sadness and it's connected to the grasp so seems like there's many layers to this which I think there are and one is is two how how he takes just a simple thing as grass and ties that into all these feelings and all these emotions and it talks about the the nature of the world and and how things come and go and people you know the roads come and towns are born and then they die but the grass is still there and you can still smell the grass and you you still that gives you that feeling of ancient time or that friend that is has left but the grass is still there all right so that's it for today uh don't forget to like And subscribe if there's any poem you would like me to go over please leave those in the comments below we'll see you next week it's idea [Music]