Li Bai 李白
poet · wanderer · Tang China · 701–762
A Tang poet who loved wine and the moon. Called briefly to court and then sent away, he wandered for the rest of his life. About a thousand of his poems survive.
Posts
earlier 8th century
You ask me why I live in the green hills. I smile and do not answer, and my heart is at ease. Peach blossom on the stream drifts off into the distance. There is another heaven and earth here, not the world of men.
問余何意栖碧山，笑而不荅心自閑。
桃花流水窅然去，別有天地非人間。"Question and Answer in the Mountains"
c. 733 · Drinking with his cousins on a spring night in a garden of peach blossom
Heaven and earth are an inn for all things, and time is a traveller passing through a hundred ages. This floating life is like a dream: how much joy can we have?
夫天地者，萬物之逆旅也；光陰者，百代之過客也。而浮生若夢，爲歡幾何？"Preface to a Spring Night Banquet in the Peach and Plum Garden"
8th century · The Minister of Rites was Zhou Ze of the Han, who is said to have kept ritual abstinence all year round and neglected his wife
Three hundred and sixty days a year, and every day I am drunk as mud. You may be the wife of Li Bai, but how are you better off than the wife of the Minister of Rites?
三百六十日，日日醉如泥。
雖爲李白婦，何異太常妻。"To My Wife," in the Complete Tang Poems
8th century
Over Chang'an, one slip of moon; from ten thousand houses, the sound of cloth being pounded. The autumn wind blows and cannot blow away all these thoughts of the Jade Pass. When will the frontier be quiet, and my husband come home from the far campaign?
長安一片月，萬戶擣衣聲。
秋風吹不盡，總是玉關情。
何日平胡虜？良人罷遠征。"Ziye Songs of Wu: Autumn," in the Complete Tang Poems
744
Among the flowers, a jug of wine. I pour alone, with no one close. I raise my cup and invite the bright moon; with my shadow, that makes three.
花間一壺酒，獨酌無相親。
舉杯邀明月，對影成三人。"Drinking Alone under the Moon," the first poem, in the Complete Tang Poems
8th century
Too lazy to wave my white feather fan, I go naked in the green woods. I take off my headcloth and hang it on a rock wall, and bare my head to the wind in the pines.
嬾搖白羽扇，躶體青林中。
脫巾挂石壁，露頂洒松風。"A Summer Day in the Mountains," in the Complete Tang Poems
c. 745 · A poem handed down as Li Bai's
On the top of Fanke Hill I met Du Fu, a bamboo hat on his head in the noonday sun. Tell me, why so thin since we parted? It must be all the pain of writing poems.
飯顆山頭逢杜甫，頂戴笠子日卓午。
借問別來太瘦生，總爲從前作詩苦。"Teasing Du Fu"
8th century
The two of us drink face to face, and the mountain flowers open. One cup, one cup, and one cup more. I am drunk and want to sleep, so you had better go. Tomorrow morning, if you feel like it, come back with your zither.
兩人對酌山花開，一杯一杯復一杯。
我醉欲眠卿且去，明朝有意抱琴來。"Drinking in the Mountains with a Recluse," in the Complete Tang Poems
c. 746
The wine of Lu cannot make me drunk. The songs of Qi stir my feelings to no purpose. My thoughts of you are like the Wen River: in a broad flood I send them south.
魯酒不可醉，齊歌空復情。
思君若汶水，浩蕩寄南征。"Below the Walls of Shaqiu, Sent to Du Fu," in the Complete Tang Poems
c. 752
Heaven gave me my talents and they must have a use. Scatter a thousand in gold and it will come back again.
天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。"Bring in the Wine," in the Complete Tang Poems
c. 753
Draw a sword to cut the water, and the water flows on. Raise a cup to drown your sorrow, and the sorrow sorrows more. Life in this world never goes as one wishes. Tomorrow I shall let down my hair and go off in a little boat.
抽刀斷水水更流，舉杯銷愁愁更愁。
人生在世不稱意，明朝散髮弄扁舟。"At Xie Tiao's Tower in Xuanzhou, a Farewell to the Collator Shu Yun," in the Complete Tang Poems
c. 755 · On seeing Wang Lun, a villager who had been his host, come out to see him off
Li Bai was aboard and about to set off when suddenly, from the bank, came stamping feet and song. The water of Peach Blossom Pool is a thousand feet deep, and not so deep as Wang Lun's love in seeing me off.
李白乘舟將欲行，忽聞岸上踏歌聲。
桃花潭水深千尺，不及汪倫送我情。"For Wang Lun"
759 · Turning back after word reached him, on the road to exile, that he had been pardoned
At dawn I leave Baidi among the bright clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling, home in a single day. On both banks the gibbons cry without end, and my light boat has already passed ten thousand folds of hills.
朝辭白帝彩雲間，千里江陵一日還。
兩岸猨聲啼不盡，輕舟已過萬重山。"Leaving Baidi at Dawn," in the Complete Tang Poems
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