𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗲𝗺 ⸙༉

11. Facing Snow -Du Fu

Translation:

After the battle, many new ghosts cry,
The solitary old man worries and grieves.
Ragged clouds are low amid the dusk,
Snow dances quickly in the whirling wind.
The ladle's cast aside, the cup not green,
The stove still looks as if a fiery red.
To many places, communications are broken,
I sit, but cannot read my books for grief.

*About poet check chapter number 4

Time period: Two of Du Fu's poems bear the title "Facing the Snow." One was written in late 756; the other, two years before his death in 770.

Analysis:

The later poem essentially deals with the arrival of the northern snow, the inclement weather it brings, and the fact that although the poet is penniless, his reputation allows him to buy on credit as much wine as he pleases. The earlier poem, however, to be discussed below, has been translated more frequently and is better known. Full of anxiety and tension, it is also a much more engaging poem.

"Facing the Snow" was written in late 756 in the capital, Ch'ang-an. Rebels of the An-Lu Rebellion had been occupying the capital for several months, and Du Fu had been detained there, unable to take office or return home. Although the new Emperor Su-tsung mounted an attack against the rebels, his ineffective commanders lost thousands of men in several engagements in the early winter of 756.

The first line of the poem, "Battle-wailing, numerous are the new ghosts," refers to this military disaster. The poet's response to the situation was simply to grieve about it in his poetry: "Sorrow-singing, solitary is one old man" (line 2). As can be seen, the poem begins with a couplet that highlights the revolt rather than the snow. This suggests what the major concern of the poem is. The snow itself is mentioned in the next couplet: "Chaotic clouds descending upon the dimming dusk,/ Impetuous snow ruffling in the whirling wind." The weather, described with great precision, is not only inclement but also ominous. The fact that the poem begins with two couplets, one about war and the other about the snowstorm, implies that there is an analogical relationship between the two. In fact, the analogy seems to be enlarged into an extended conceit in the next couplet: "The ladle is laid aside, the jar contains no green wine;/ The stove remains, the fire appears to be red still." Although drinking wine and drawing warmth are mundane practices in winter, this couplet seems to be stating more than the obvious. As A. R. Davis points out in Tu Fu (1971), there "could be a symbol of the distress of a nation" in the poem. If this is so, then the idling ladle and the empty jar may refer to the lost government and the ravaged country, whereas the stove and the fire may imply that the new emperor still holds the country together with the moral leadership required for containing the rebellion. This extended conceit is made the more apparent by the conclusion of the poem, in which the poet states that because news has been cut off from several prefectures as a result of the occupation of the capital, he sits in sorrow "writing to the air" (a difficult phrase, which may mean he is at a loss about what to write in a letter, or about how to send or where to receive one)