88 - 春曉

春眠不覺曉
處處聞啼鳥
夜來風雨聲
花落知多少

The poem above, 'Spring Dawn' was written by Meng Haoran, a Chinese poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907AD), an era renowned for its contributions to Classical Chinese poetry. The position of Meng's poetry in the Chinese poetical canon was perhaps confirmed by its inclusion in the 18th century anthology, Three Hundred Tang Poems, which has subsequently been reprinted many times.

It is hard for me to settle on a single translation, since the meaning of the poem is ambiguous to me. I will place a couple of alternative translations below. My Taiwanese friends agree that it is hard to discern the poem's exact meaning. This is comforting to me.

Here is a direct translation, word for word:

春眠不覺曉 - spring sleep unconcious dawn
處處聞啼鳥 - everywhere hear crying birds
夜來風雨聲 - night come wind and rain sound
花落知多少 - flowers drop know how many

Below is a translation by Andrew Wang-Fat Wong (黃宏發) whose excellent blog Classical Chinese Poems in English has been very helpful to me:

1  春眠不覺曉
2  處處聞啼鳥
3  夜來風雨聲
4  花落知多少
 
1/ In spring, I sleep, unaware morning is here,
2/ From near then far, trilling songbirds I hear.
3/ In the din of the wind and rain all through the night,
4/ How many blossoms fallen? Not few, I fear!

Finally, here is Hugh Grigg's translation, from the East Asia Student blog:

In Spring one sleeps, unaware of dawn;
everywhere one hears crowing birds.
In the night came the sound of wind and rain;
who knows how many flowers fell?