江雪

A lone fisherman in a snowed-silent world — twenty characters of perfect stillness.

Qiān shān千山niǎo鸟fēi飞jué绝，

mò万jìng径rén人zōng踪miè灭。

gū孤zhōu舟suō蓑lì笠wēng翁，

dú独diào钓hán寒jiāng江xuě雪。

Line by line

千山鸟飞绝，千山鳥飛絕， A thousand mountains, not a bird in flight;
万径人踪灭。萬徑人蹤滅。 ten thousand paths, no human trace.
孤舟蓑笠翁， A lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat,
独钓寒江雪。獨釣寒江雪。 fishing alone in the cold river snow.

The poet & the story

Liu Zongyuan (773–819) wrote this in bitter political exile in Yongzhou, banished after a failed reform movement. The frozen, emptied landscape is widely read as a self-portrait: a principled man alone in a hostile world, refusing to give up his fishing line.

Interpretation

A thousand mountains, and not one bird flying; ten thousand paths without a human footprint. In that erased world, one old man in a straw cape fishes the cold river snow. The first characters of the four lines hide the message 千萬孤獨 — “utterly alone.” The poem is the classic image of dignified solitude.