zǐ子yè夜wú吴gē歌·qiū秋gē歌

"Midnight Song of Wu" is an old folk-song title. Legend says that in the Eastern Jin dynasty a woman named Ziye (Midnight) in the Wu region (around today's Jiangsu and Zhejiang) made up sad, touching songs. Later poets wrote versions for the four seasons. Li Bai wrote four, one for each season, and this is the autumn song. In the Tang there was often fighting on the borders. Many men were sent to guard them, and their wives at home missed them day and night. The year it was written is unknown.

“子夜吴歌”是乐府旧题。相传东晋时吴地（今江苏、浙江一带）有一位叫子夜的女子，创作了哀怨动人的《子夜歌》，后人又按春夏秋冬写成《子夜四时歌》。李白也用这个旧题写了四首，分别写春、夏、秋、冬，这是第二首秋歌。唐代边境常有战事，许多男子被派去守边，家里的妻子日夜思念。写作年份不详。

Li Bai (701–762) was a great Tang poet, called the Immortal of Poetry. Most of his poems are bold and sweeping, but he also learned from folk songs, using plain words to tell the feelings of ordinary people. In this poem he speaks in the voice of a wife missing her husband, and shows how tired the people were of war.

李白（701—762），唐代大诗人，被称为“诗仙”。他的诗大多豪放奔腾，但也很会学习民歌，用朴素的话写普通人的心情。这首诗就是借思妇（思念丈夫的妻子）的口吻，写出了百姓对战争的厌倦。

The poem opens with a huge picture: an autumn night, one bright moon over Chang'an, and in its light ten thousand homes all beating cloth, the thumping sounds rising and falling. Why are so many beating cloth? Because they are making winter clothes for husbands far away on the frontier. The autumn wind keeps blowing, but it cannot blow away the sound, or their longing. The last two lines are the question in every wife's heart: when will the war be over, so my husband can come home? The moon, the autumn wind and the sound of beating cloth pile up layer on layer, and you feel both deep longing and the pain that war brings to ordinary families.

诗一开头是一幅很大的画面：秋夜，长安城上一轮明月，月光下千家万户都在捣衣，“砰、砰”的声音此起彼伏。为什么这么多人在捣衣？因为她们要给远在边关的丈夫做冬衣。秋风吹个不停，却吹不散这一片捣衣声，也吹不散她们的思念。最后两句是妻子们心底的问话：什么时候才能打完仗，让丈夫回家？明月、秋风、捣衣声，一层层叠在一起，让人感到深深的思念，也感到战争带给普通人家的痛苦。