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Rù Ruò Yé XīEntering Ruoye Stream 入若耶溪
Wang Ji's lines: cicadas make the woods quieter, birdsong makes the hills deeper. A summer poem.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
蝉噪林逾静
chán zào lín yú jìng
鸟鸣山更幽
niǎo míng shān gèng yōu
Simplified characters; traditional title: 入若耶溪. This is a long poem; only the best-known lines are shown, and “……” marks omitted passages.
Note on the text: This page presents a well-known excerpt; the full poem is longer in the traditional corpus.
English translation
The cicadas' din makes the woods even quieter;
a bird's call makes the mountain quieter still.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
Wang Ji's lines: cicadas make the woods quieter, birdsong makes the hills deeper. A summer poem. The scene stays with you.
Background
Wang Ji's lines: cicadas make the woods quieter, birdsong makes the hills deeper. A summer poem.
Key words
- 蝉噪 chán zào
- key word in the poem
- 林逾 lín yú
- key word in the poem
About the poet: Wang Ji
Wang Ji's line on cicadas and quiet woods is proverbial.
Lifetime: Liang. Other famous works: Entering Ruoye Stream (入若耶溪).