Visiting a Private Garden without Success
- Poetry of Ye Shaoweng

《游园不值》

- Last updated: 2024-06-21 11:32:25

Visiting a Private Garden without Success by Ye Shaoweng
中文原文

应怜屐齿印苍苔，小扣柴扉久不开。

春色满园关不住，一枝红杏出墙来。

English Translation

Perhaps he’s afraid my wooden shoes will damage the moss.

I knocked on the door, but the door never opened.

It’s impossible to wall in the beauty of spring,

An apricot branch draped in red blossoms has crept over the wall.

The last couplet is often reused in later works, its meaning recast as a sexual innuendo.[3] The African-American author Richard Wright wrote two haikus which bear close resemblance to Ye's poem.

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Why Chinese poems is so special?
The most distinctive features of Chinese poetry are: concision- many poems are only four lines, and few are much longer than eight; ambiguity- number, tense and parts of speech are often undetermined, creating particularly rich interpretative possibilities; and structure- most poems follow quite strict formal patterns which have beauty in themselves as well as highlighting meaningful contrasts.
How to read a Chinese poem?
Like an English poem, but more so. Everything is there for a reason, so try to find that reason. Think about all the possible connotations, and be aware of the different possibilities of number and tense. Look for contrasts: within lines, between the lines of each couplet and between successive couplets. Above all, don't worry about what the poet meant- find your meaning.

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