Beginning of Spring

Near the year’s end, the cycle turns and yang begins to return; ice and frost gradually diminish. Spring arrives in the human world, and the grasses and trees are the first to know. Suddenly, everywhere before the eyes seems filled with life. The east wind blows across the water, where green ripples rise and overlap in uneven layers.

With the particular sensitivity of a Neo-Confucian thinker, Zhang Shi captures the subtle instant in which winter gives way to spring. “律回岁晚” points to the distinctive timing of the Beginning of Spring, which often falls in the twelfth lunar month, while the three characters “冰霜少” vividly convey the gradual retreat of winter cold. “春到人间草木知” has become a celebrated line through the ages. Rather than writing that people recognize the coming of spring, the poet lets the plants and trees know it first, transferring human feeling into the natural world as though vegetation itself were the first to sense the breath of spring. In doing so, he gives spiritual vitality to the Beginning of Spring as the opening of a new year. The final couplet turns to the scene before his eyes. The three characters “生意满” form the poetic eye of the entire poem: they describe not only green spring water and rippling waves, but also an inward, vigorous force of life, revealing the poet’s Neo-Confucian understanding of the living vitality inherent in all things.