Quick Answer: What Is Dreaming of Tianmu Mountain About?
In Dreaming of Tianmu Mountain (梦游天姥吟留别, Mèng Yóu Tiān Mǔ Yín Liú Bié), Li Bai (李白, Lǐ Bái) imagines a moonlit ascent, a terrifying transformation and an immortal assembly. Awakening removes the dream’s splendor, but the farewell ends with a choice: he refuses humiliating service to the powerful.
- Follow the whole movement: Reported marvels lead into a dream, then awakening and departure.
- Keep wonder and terror together: The immortal realm opens through thunder and shattering peaks.
- Read the last refusal in context: Lost pleasure leads toward an assertion of personal dignity.
The imagined journey is not a hiking itinerary, and its mountain heights are not measurements to convert into meters.
The famous ending gains force from what precedes it. The speaker has encountered beauty, fear and dazzling company, then found himself back with an ordinary pillow and mat. His final declaration answers that change.
Read the Complete Poem from Reported Marvel to Farewell
Mount Tianmu (天姥山, Tiān Mǔ Shān) is a real mountain in the Xinchang–Shengzhou area of Zhejiang. The mountain in the dream, however, is shaped by poetic imagination. [3]
Several names need distinguishing. Yingzhou (瀛洲, Yíng Zhōu) is a legendary immortal island. Yue (越, Yuè), and the wider Wu and Yue (吴越, Wú Yuè) region, supply the poem’s southern setting. The Five Peaks (五岳, Wǔ Yuè), Chicheng (赤城, Chì Chéng) and Mount Tiantai (天台山, Tiān Tāi Shān) enter its extravagant comparison of heights. [1]
Mirror Lake (镜湖, Jìng Hú) and Shan Stream (剡溪, Shàn Xī) mark the dream’s movement. Lord Xie (谢公, Xiè Gōng) refers to the earlier poet Xie Lingyun (谢灵运, Xiè Líng Yùn), associated with mountain wandering and wooden clogs. The heavenly rooster (天鸡, Tiān Jī) and mythical luan (鸾, Luán) birds belong to its marvels. [1][2]
The traditional unit zhang (丈, Zhàng) is retained in the height comparison rather than converted. Below is the complete Chinese text with an original English rendering. This is an extended poem with changing line lengths, not an eight-line regulated poem.
| Chinese text | Original English rendering |
|---|---|
| 海客谈瀛洲，烟涛微茫信难求。 | Seafarers speak of Yingzhou; through dim, mist-covered waves it is truly hard to seek. [1] |
| 越人语天姥，云霞明灭或可睹。 | The people of Yue speak of Tianmu; through clouds and colored haze, now bright, now hidden, it may be glimpsed. [1] |
| 天姥连天向天横，势拔五岳掩赤城。 | Tianmu joins the sky and stretches across it; its mass rises above the Five Peaks and overshadows Chicheng. [1] |
| 天台四万八千丈，对此欲倒东南倾。 | Tiantai, forty-eight thousand zhang high, seems beside it ready to topple, leaning southeast. [1] |
| 我欲因之梦吴越，一夜飞度镜湖月。 | On these accounts I long to dream of Wu and Yue; in a single night I fly across the moonlight on Mirror Lake. [1] |
| 湖月照我影，送我至剡溪。 | The lake’s moon lights my shadow and accompanies me to Shan Stream. [1] |
| 谢公宿处今尚在，渌水荡漾清猿啼。 | Lord Xie’s lodging place is still there; clear green water ripples and gibbons cry with a chill clarity. [1] |
| 脚著谢公屐，身登青云梯。 | On my feet are Lord Xie’s clogs; I climb a ladder into blue clouds. [1] |
| 半壁见海日，空中闻天鸡。 | Halfway up the cliff I see the sun over the sea; in the air I hear the heavenly rooster. [1] |
| 千岩万转路不定，迷花倚石忽已暝。 | A thousand crags, ten thousand turns: the path is never certain. Lost among flowers, leaning on a rock, I find it suddenly dusk. [1] |
| 熊咆龙吟殷岩泉，栗深林兮惊层巅。 | Bears roar and dragons cry, resounding through cliffs and springs; deep woods tremble and layered summits take fright. [1] |
| 云青青兮欲雨，水澹澹兮生烟。 | Clouds hang dark, about to rain; rippling water gives rise to mist. [1] |
| 列缺霹雳，丘峦崩摧。 | Lightning and thunder: hills and ridges shatter. [1] |
| 洞天石扉，訇然中开。 | The immortal cavern’s stone doors burst open in the middle with a mighty crash. [1] |
| 青冥浩荡不见底，日月照耀金银台。 | The blue expanse stretches vast, with no bottom in sight; sun and moon shine on terraces of gold and silver. [1] |
| 霓为衣兮风为马，云之君兮纷纷而来下。 | With rainbows for robes and wind for horses, the lords of the clouds descend in a throng. [1] |
| 虎鼓瑟兮鸾回车，仙之人兮列如麻。 | Tigers play zithers and luan birds wheel the carriages; immortals stand in ranks thick as hemp. [1] |
| 忽魂悸以魄动，恍惊起而长嗟。 | Suddenly my soul trembles and my spirit stirs; startled awake, I rise with a long sigh. [1] |
| 惟觉时之枕席，失向来之烟霞。 | There are only the pillow and mat of waking; the mists and colored clouds of a moment ago are lost. [1] |
| 世间行乐亦如此，古来万事东流水。 | The pleasures of this world are like this too; since ancient times all things have been water flowing east. [1] |
| 别君去兮何时还？且放白鹿青崖间，须行即骑访名山。 | I leave you now: when shall I return? For now let a white deer roam among green cliffs; when it is time to go, I will ride it to visit famous mountains. [1] |
| 安能摧眉折腰事权贵，使我不得开心颜。 | How could I lower my brows and bend my back to serve the powerful, leaving me unable to show a joyful face? [1] |
The dream song is left as a farewell. Alternative titles make its address to friends in eastern Lu explicit; “farewell” should not disappear behind the mountain adventure. [4]
Follow the Dream from Moonlit Water into the Mountains
The opening distinguishes an elusive immortal island from a mountain that reports say can be seen. Those reports prompt the dream rather than establish a measured travel route. The enormous heights belong to the mountain’s poetic stature, not a geographical survey. [4]
Moonlight then becomes company. It lights the speaker’s shadow and accompanies him onward. The transition from hearing accounts to traveling within a dream is swift, without the practical stages of an ordinary journey. [1]
The clogs connect the ascent with an earlier poet’s mountain wandering. The dream is therefore a journey through literary memory as well as imagined landscape. For that kind of reference, see the literary allusions guide.
Let Terror Open onto the Immortal Assembly
The climb does not remain serenely beautiful. The uncertain path, sudden dusk, animal cries, dark clouds and thunder increase its force. Short bursts of language accompany the shattering hills and opening doors. [1]
Beyond them, the scene expands into luminous terraces and extraordinary company. Rainbow garments, wind-steeds, musical tigers and mythical birds make ordinary scale and ordinary possibility fall away.
This splendor does not settle into a permanent home. The speaker’s trembling leads directly toward awakening. Reading only the magnificent assembly would lose the instability already built into its arrival.
Compare the relation of landscape and feeling in the Chinese nature poetry guide.
Return to the Pillow and the Refusal to Bow
The pillow and mat abruptly replace the immense realm. The speaker has not carried its golden terraces back into waking life. What remains is an awareness of pleasure’s passing, expressed through water flowing east. [1]
Yet the ending does not stop at resignation. Farewell, imagined future wandering and the white deer lead toward a refusal of humiliating service. The deer belongs to the poem’s language of extraordinary freedom, not evidence for a literal riding excursion. [1][2]
The last question makes the speaker’s dignity explicit. It need not turn every immortal into a named court official, or prove a permanent rejection of every form of public service. The words refuse bending before power at the cost of an open, joyful expression.
Continue with the Li Bai guide and the friendship and farewell poetry guide for the author and the departing speaker’s address.
FAQs About Dreaming of Tianmu Mountain
Is Yingzhou another name for Japan in this poem?
Here it is the legendary island of immortals. Treating it simply as Japan obscures the opening contrast between an elusive marvel and the reported mountain.
Should the mountain heights be converted into modern measurements?
No. The extravagant comparison creates poetic scale. It is not a survey giving elevations for a modern map.
Does the dream end with the speaker staying among immortals?
No. He awakens with only his pillow and mat. The poem then turns to passing pleasures, farewell, future wandering and the refusal to bow before power.
出典
[1] Li Bai, via Wikisource. Dreaming of Tianmu Mountain: Complete Farewell Poem
[2] Yang Qixian and Xiao Shiyun, via Wikisource. Classified and Supplemented Annotations to Li Taibai’s Poetry, Volume 15: Dreaming of Tianmu
[3] Taiwan Ministry of Education. Revised Mandarin Chinese Dictionary: Tianmu Mountain
[4] Hai Bin, Guangming Daily via National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences. Evidence, Substance and Trust: Xue Tianwei’s Research on Li Bai and Tang Poetry