chūn春yuàn怨

We do not know when or why this poem was written. It also goes by another title, Song of Yizhou. In the Tang, many men were sent to guard the far frontier, and their wives at home could only wait. The husband of the woman in this poem is guarding the border at Liaoxi. She cannot see him, so she can only meet him there in her dreams. The title means a spring grievance: missing someone, and resenting the separation, in springtime.

这首诗写于什么时候、为什么写，都不清楚。题目一作《伊州歌》。唐朝时，很多男子被派到遥远的边疆去守卫，家里的妻子只能苦苦等待。诗里这位女子的丈夫，就在辽西守边。她见不到丈夫，只能在梦里去辽西和他相会。题目“春怨”，就是春天里的思念和怨恨。

Jin Changxu was a Tang poet from Yuhang, today's Hangzhou in Zhejiang. Almost nothing is recorded about his life, and this is the only poem of his that survives. Yet with just these twenty characters, the poem made it into Three Hundred Tang Poems, and his name has been remembered for over a thousand years.

金昌绪，唐代诗人，余杭（今浙江杭州）人。他的生平几乎没有留下记载，流传下来的诗也只有这一首。可是就凭这短短二十个字，这首诗被选进了《唐诗三百首》，他的名字也被人记住了一千多年。

The poem is like a little story, each step leading to the next. Why does she want the orioles gone? Because they sing on the branches. What is wrong with that? It wakes her up. And then? She was dreaming of going to Liaoxi to find her husband, and when she wakes, the dream is broken. Only at the last line do we learn the reason. She seems to be blaming a little bird, but really she is missing her husband far away, and resenting the war that keeps them apart. The words are as simple as everyday talk, but the feeling runs deep.

这首诗像讲一个小故事，一环扣一环。女子为什么要赶走黄莺？因为它在树枝上叫。叫又怎么了？会把她吵醒。吵醒又怎样？她正梦见去辽西找丈夫，一醒，梦就断了。读到最后一句，我们才明白原因。看起来她是在怪一只小鸟，其实是在想念远方的丈夫，也是在怨战争让夫妻分开。语言像平常说话一样简单，感情却很深。