In the cold frost, a lone wild goose starts at losing its companion; someone shares its plight and feels compassion.

无事小狗仙
2025-02-20 09:21
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寒冷

Immortal by the River · A Lone Wild Goose

Qing dynasty・Nalan Xingde

In the frosty cold a lone goose starts, bereft of its companion, someone shares its sorrow and understands. I would send my grief afar on a scrap of silk, but grief is so great I rewrite the letter again and again, tears falling from both eyes before the lamp.

Do not recall the past beneath the bright moon; you know, too, how you dwindle year by year. Unbidden, a piercing cry rings out; the west wind blows on a solitary shadow, and it is only early autumn.

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Translation

Amid cold frost, a lone wild goose starts to realize it has lost its companions; someone is as lonely as you, and you pity each other. I wish to send a short letter carrying my sorrow far away, but there is too much sorrow: I write and revise, until only two streams of tears fall before the lamp.

Do not think of the past again beneath the bright moon; I know that each year it makes me waste away. Yet suddenly, for no reason, your piercing, desolate cry reaches me; the west wind blows against your solitary figure—it is early autumn once again.

Annotations

离鸿: a goose separated from its flock. 同病相怜: people in similar circumstances sympathizing with one another. 尺素: a letter. 易: to change.

消减: to grow thin or lose vitality. 嘹唳（liáo lì）: a bird's clear, far-carrying, high-pitched cry. 只影: a solitary shadow. 刚是: precisely, just.

Wild geese are often associated with carrying letters in classical Chinese poetry, but this lyric presents the opposite situation through a lost companion and a message difficult to send.

Introduction

Reading guide: This lyric about a goose sets the solitary bird opposite someone writing a letter by lamplight. The goose's separation from its flock and the person's nostalgia are not unrelated scenes: “同病相怜,” “fellow sufferers sympathize,” explicitly joins them.

Commentary

The opening depicts a goose startled to have lost its companion, then quickly turns to a person; in the second stanza, a goose’s cry draws the speaker back from self-consolation to the immediate scene. These shifts keep the portrayal of the creature resonant with inner feeling.

The repeatedly revised letter and tears falling from both eyes form a subtle contrast with the final “只影,” the solitary shadow. It is only early autumn, with the long cold season still ahead, so the last line seems merely to mark the time while actually extending loneliness into the future.

Comments

From a poem into a story

Fiction inspired by poetry

Strange Tales in a Historical Setting

Two Shadows of Wild Geese in Frost

A lone wild goose has spent three days on Tao Ye’s roof calling him a liar. Others hear only mournful cries, but he understands every word. He was the one who separated the pair last year; now the lone goose has followed the wooden birdcall he made, seeking its mate. His sister’s medicine still needs paying for, and the officials have ordered twelve birds as auspicious omens. Nets fall over Reed Bay every night, and the voice on his roof refuses to stop.

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In the cold frost, a lone wild goose starts at losing its companion; someone shares its plight and feels compassion.

Immortal by the River · A Lone Wild Goose