Du Fu Quotes (13 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Du Fu: 13 quotes 7 likes

Famous Du Fu Quotes

Du Fu

Source: Kim Cheng Boey, Between Stations: Essays (2009), p. 102
Context: Spring Night, Delighting in Rain (A translation by Burton Watson)

The good rain knows when to fall,
stirring new growth the moment spring arrives.

Wind-borne, it steals softly into the night,
nourishing, enriching, delicate, and soundless.

Country paths black as the clouds above them;
on a river boat a lone torch flares.

Come dawn we'll see a landscape moist and pink,
blossoms heavy over the City of Brocade.

“Nature ever calls people to live
Along with her; why should I be lured
By transient rank and honours?”

Du Fu

"The Winding River", as translated by Rewi Alley in Du Fu: Selected Poems (1962), p. 54

“Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separation
or remember our life in Chang'an.
In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;
In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.
When will we lean at the open casement together
while the moonlight dries our shining tears?”

Du Fu

"Moonlit Night" https://allpoetry.com/Moonlit-Night (trans. David Lunde)

“Within the vermilion gate, meats and wines go to waste
While on the roadside lie the frozen bodies of the poor.”

Du Fu

As quoted in Lin Yutang's The Vermilion Gate (1914)

“Clear waters wind
Around our village,
With long summer days
Full of loveliness;
Fluttering in and out
From the house beams
The swallows play;
Waterfowl disport together
As everlasting lovers; …
What more could I wish for?”

Du Fu

"The River by Our Village", as translated by Rewi Alley in Du Fu: Selected Poems (1962), p. 100

“A visible darkness grows up mountain paths;
I lodge by the river gate high in a study,
Frail cloud on a cliff edge passing the night.
The lonely moon topples amid the waves;
Steady, one after another, a line of cranes in flight.
Howling over the kill, wild dogs and wolves.
No sleep for me. I worry over battles—
I have no strength to right the universe.”

Du Fu

"Spending the Night in a Tower by the River" (trans. Stephen Owen)

Du Fu Quotes about mountains

“Autumn, cloud blades on the horizon.
The west wind blows from ten thousand miles.
Dawn, in the clear morning air,
Farmers busy after long rain.
The desert trees shed their few green leaves.
The mountain pears are tiny but ripe.
A Tartar flute plays by the city gate.
A single wild goose climbs into the void.”

Du Fu

"Clear After Rain" (雨晴), as translated by Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (1971), p. 16

“It is almost as hard for friends to meet
As for the morning and evening stars.
Tonight then is a rare event,
Joining, in the candlelight,
Two men who were young not long ago
But now are turning grey at the temples.
To find that half our friends are dead
Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.
We little guessed it would be twenty years
Before I could visit you again.
When I went away, you were still unmarried;
But now these boys and girls in a row
Are very kind to their father's old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;
And then, when we have talked awhile,
They bring and show me wines and dishes,
Spring chives cut in the night-rain
And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups—
But what ten cups could make me as drunk
As I always am with your love in my heart?
Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;
After tomorrow—who can say?”

Du Fu

"To My Retired Friend Wei" (Chinese: 贈衛八處士) in: University of Virginia's 300 Tang Poems http://etext.virginia.edu/chinese/frame.htm at etext.virginia.edu

“The nation is ruined, but mountains and rivers remain.”

Du Fu

"Spring View" (trans. Gary Snyder), written in 755.
Variant translation (by David Hinton): The nation falls into ruins; rivers and mountains continue.

Du Fu Quotes

“Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.”

Du Fu

"Snow Storm" (对雪), as translated by Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (1971), p. 6

Men , Age , Singing

“Good rain is coming to our delight.
Its early-spring timing is perfectly right.
With wind it drifts in all through the night.
Silently it's drenching everything in sight.”

Du Fu

"Welcome Rain in a Spring Night" (《春夜喜雨》), as translated by Ying Sun http://www.musicated.com/syh/tangpoems.htm (2008)

Spring , Time , Night

“I'm empty, here at the edge of the sky.”

Du Fu

"Poem on Night" (trans. Jan W. Walls), in Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, eds. Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo (1975), p. 139

“Birds the more white, against green stream
Blooms burst to flame, against blue hills
I glance, the spring is gone again.
What day, what day, can I go home?”

Du Fu

"A Quatrain" (trans. Jerome P. Seaton), in Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, eds. Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo (1975), p. 142

Home , Spring , Bird