登鹳雀楼登鸛雀樓
bái rì白日yī依shān山jǐn尽，
Huáng Hé黄河rù入hǎi海liú流。
yù欲qióng穷qiān lǐ千里mù目，
gèng shàng yī céng lóu更上一层楼。
Line by line
- 白日依山尽，白日依山盡， The white sun sets behind the mountains;
- 黄河入海流。黃河入海流。 the Yellow River flows into the sea.
- 欲穷千里目，欲窮千里目， To see a thousand miles further,
- 更上一层楼。更上一層樓。 climb one more storey.
The poet & the story
Wang Zhihuan (688–742) left only six surviving poems, yet this one made him immortal. Stork Tower stood three storeys high on the bank of the Yellow River in Shanxi — one of the four great towers of ancient China, rebuilt in 2002 largely because of this poem.
Interpretation
The white sun sets behind the mountains; the Yellow River flows on to the sea — an enormous landscape in ten characters. Then the turn: to see a thousand miles further, climb one more floor. The closing couplet became a proverb for ambition and self-improvement, quoted in classrooms, speeches and graduation cards ever since.