Chinese poem illustration: 王风 大车/ King Wind – Grand Chariot by Anonymous

王风 大车

Full video also available at Bilibili: 王风 大车

Love is a modern concept to Chinese. It is not to say that ancient Chinese were not capable of perceiving it, expressing it and writing about it, but mainly in a non-typical love scenario: love between brothers, friends, parents and kids, etc. rather than between a couple. Furthermore, love between family members is much more emphasized. This poem belongs to the few modern-concept love poems in classic Chinese poetry.

The significance of chariot is analysed, thus a new interpretion to this poem is develoed: the oath to his wife from the bloody battlefield. Characters 菼, 璊 are analysed.

王风 大车
佚名

大车槛槛,毳衣如菼。
岂不尔思?畏子不敢。

大车啍啍,毳衣如璊。
岂不尔思?畏子不奔。

榖则异室,死则同穴。
谓予不信,有如皦日

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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