如梦令·有寄 A Message to My East Slope
- Julia Min
- Apr 11, 2025
- 2 min read
如梦令·有寄
原作: 苏轼（字子瞻, 号东坡居士; 11世纪北宋）
英译及赏析: 闵晓红(2025)
为向东坡传语：人在玉堂深处。
别后有谁来？雪压小桥无路。
归去，归去！江上一犁春雨。
A Message to My East Slope
—to the tune of Rumenglinling
written by Su Shi (11th AC, social name 'Dongpo')
En. trans. by Julia Min (Apr.2025)
Pass my regards to my pals by East Slope.
Tell them I’m doing well serving the Throne.
Is the snow cleared on the bridge and road?
Has any friend visited the Hall of Snow?
How I wish to return, back to Huangzhou,
To plough my spring field as river rain grows.
Notes：
East Slope (东坡) – The name of Su Shi’s farm in Huangzhou (modern Huanggang, Hubei), where he reclaimed land and built a small cottage after being exiled. He later adopted “Dongpo” (Su Dongpo) as his literary name.
Serving the Throne – A reference to Su Shi’s appointment at the Hanlin Academy (翰林院) in the capital, a prestigious but demanding position close to the emperor. The original poem uses “Jade Hall” (玉堂), a poetic name for the academy.
Snow Hall (雪堂) – The studio Su Shi built at his East Slope farm. He painted snow scenes on its walls, hence the name. It became a symbol of his rustic ideal.
Huangzhou – The remote county (in present-day Hubei) where Su Shi was exiled from 1080 to 1084. East Slope was located there. After his pardon and return to court, he continued to long for this simpler life.
Appreciation
This poem, written in colloquial language, reads like a casual short message to a friend—or perhaps to the local prefect of Huangzhou. On the surface, it is light and breezy. But beneath the lines lies a fascinating undercurrent of feeling.
By the time Su Shi wrote this, he had finally been pardoned by the Emperor and restored to a respected position at court, serving in the Hanlin Academy—the intellectual and administrative heart of the Song Dynasty, home to the empire’s most prestigious scholar-officials. One might expect him to be content. Yet the poem reveals otherwise.
The first half is cheerful and inquisitive: Has anyone visited my Snow Hall? Is the road clear? It is the voice of a man looking back fondly on his old home. Then comes the shift. In the last two lines, his longing to return to country life awakens. This persistent longing was, in fact, never absent throughout Su Shi’s entire career. The poem makes you wonder: was life at court still difficult, even after his pardon? Or is this simply a warm-hearted message meant to comfort the friends he left behind on East Slope?
Perhaps both. And that ambiguity is precisely what gives this short lyric its quiet power.
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