White Egret | A white egret glides down autumn water

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762)

Translation © by Ethan Fan

白鹭鹚

Language: Chinese (中文)

Our translations: ENG

白鹭下秋水，
孤飞如坠霜。
心闲且未去，
独立沙洲傍。

Text Authorship:

by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762), "白鹭鹚" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

[ None yet in the database ]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in English, a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Armande de Polignac.
- Go to the text.
Also set in French (Français), a translation by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955) , "Le héron blanc", appears in La flûte de jade, Paris, Éd. H. Piazza, first published 1920 ; composed by Odette Gartenlaub, Armande de Polignac.
- Go to the text.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Alfred Henschke (1890 - 1928) ; composed by Niklaus Aeschbacher, Volkmar Andreae, John Borstlap, Kurt Brüggemann, Walther Hirschberg, Artur Immisch, Josef Schelb, Ernst Ludwig Uray.
- Go to the text.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist ; composed by Joseph Gustav Mraczek, Willy Schneider (attribution uncertain).
- Go to the text.

Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

ENG English (Ethan Fan) , "White Egret", copyright © 2022, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Dan Shen

This text was added to the website: 2010-02-05
Line count: 4
Word count: 4

White Egret

Language: English after the Chinese (中文)

A white egret glides down autumn water,
Flying in solitude like falling frost.
An idle heart in no rush to go,
Standing alone by a sandbar.

Translator's notes
Line 1: Autumn water, describing a broad and flat body of water.

Li Bo is among the most famous and influential ancient Chinese poets, with over a thousand of his works having been preserved. One of the romantic artistic techniques of Li Bo's poetry is the combination of personification and metaphor, describing things, and relating things to people. For example, White Egret uses the descriptions of egret, hoarfrost, autumn water and a sandbar, literally depicting a deserted environment and a lone white egret, but represents the people outside the painting facing the bleak autumn, feeling lonely in the journey away from home and friends.

Text Authorship:

Translation from Chinese (中文) to English copyright © 2022 by Ethan Fan, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in Chinese (中文) by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762), "白鹭鹚"
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2022-09-19
Line count: 4
Word count: 26