— Zheng Gu
Over warm misty grassland wing to wing you fly.
As fair and good as pheasants in the mountain high.
When Grass-green Lake is darkened in rain, you pass by;
When flowers fall on the Imperial Tomb, you cry.
A roamer would wet his sleeves with tears on heating your song;
His wife’d sing after you with lowered eyebrows long.
You echo each other on Southern River wide;
The sun sets on the bamboo grove by the Tombside.
Note
Zheng Gu (c. 851–907) was a leading poet of the late Tang Dynasty, renowned for his exquisite sensitivity to sound, color, and mood in nature poetry. He earned the nickname “Zheng the Cuckoo” (Zheng Du Juan) precisely because of his famous poem “The Partridges” (Zhe Gu), which so vividly captured the bird’s melancholic call that it became iconic in Chinese literary tradition.
In “The Partridges,” Zheng Gu uses the bird not just as a natural subject but as an emotional symbol. The partridge, with its iridescent wings, plays warmly among misty meadows, resembling the noble pheasant in grace. Yet its true power lies in its voice: as it flies past Qingcao Lake in the dim rain or cries near the Huangling Temple – sacred to the legendary Xiang River goddesses – its mournful call echoes through myth and landscape.
The poem’s emotional core emerges when the partridge’s song reaches human ears: a wandering traveler’s sleeve grows wet with tears at the first note; a beautiful singer lowers her painted eyebrows in sorrow as she hums its tune. The final lines widen the scene – the birds call to each other across the vast Xiang River, their voices rising from deep thickets of bitter bamboo as the sun sets in the west. Here, nature, myth, and human feeling merge into a single atmosphere of longing, exile, and twilight melancholy.
鹧鸪
–郑谷
暖戏烟芜锦翼齐，
品流应得近山鸡。
雨昏青草湖边过，
花落黄陵庙里啼。
游子乍闻征袖湿，
佳人才唱翠眉低。
相呼相应湘江阔，
苦竹丛深日向西。
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