Yuan Dynasty
梧叶儿·别情
### 标题
春将去，人未还。
Translation
Parting is easy; meeting again is hard. Where now is your carved saddle fastened? Spring is about to pass, yet you have not returned. In all this waiting, sorrow has fallen upon my brows and tears upon my eyes.
Analysis
This piece compresses the pain of waiting into a few sharp lines. “Parting is easy; meeting again is hard” gives the emotional law of the poem. The question about the “carved saddle” turns longing toward the absent person’s whereabouts, as if the speaker tries to locate him through imagination. The line “Spring is about to pass, yet he has not returned” gives the poem its temporal ache. Seasonal beauty becomes pressure. The ending does not hide sorrow behind refined imagery; it speaks plainly of brows drawn by grief and eyes filled with tears, a hallmark of sanqu’s direct emotional speech.
About the Author
Guan Hanqing excelled at compressing dramatic situations into short, vivid, colloquial lines. In pieces like “Wuye’er: Parting Feelings,” he avoids elaborate allusion and instead relies on direct speech, gesture, and emotional immediacy.