Shì ÉrTo My Son 示儿
Lu You's last poem, written on his deathbed.
Original Chinese text with pinyin
死去元知万事空
sǐ qù yuán zhī wàn shì kōng
但悲不见九州同
dàn bēi bù jiàn jiǔ zhōu tóng
王师北定中原日
wáng shī běi dìng zhōng yuán rì
家祭无忘告乃翁
jiā jì wú wàng gào nǎi wēng
Simplified characters; traditional title: 示兒.
English translation
In death I know all emptiness is true;
Still I grieve that we never saw the Nine Provinces one.
When the king's armies take the Central Plains again,
At family rites forget not to tell your father, my son.
Original translation by Poetune — literal but poetic, written for this site.
Line by line
Meaning and imagery
The poem opens with Buddhist calm — in death everything is empty — and then breaks it with a single regret. The last couplet asks his sons to report victory at the ancestral rites, so that even in death he can hear the news. Simple and direct, it is the classic expression of lifelong patriotism.
Background
Written in 1210, shortly before Lu You died at 85. Northern China had been lost to the Jurchen Jin since 1127.
Key words
- 元知 yuán zhī
- knew all along
- 九州 jiǔ zhōu
- the Nine Provinces, i.e. all China
- 王师 wáng shī
- the imperial army
- 乃翁 nǎi wēng
- "your old father"
About the poet: Lu You
Lu You is the most prolific poet in Chinese history, with nearly ten thousand poems. Throughout his life he urged the Southern Song to recover the north from the Jurchen Jin; patriotism and rural life are his two great themes.
Lifetime: 1125–1210. Other famous works: Visiting a Village West of the Mountains (游山西村); To My Son (示儿); Phoenix Hairpin (钗头凤).