早发白帝城

早發白帝城

zǎofābáidìchéng

phrase

Meanings

1 Setting Out Early from Baidi City
2 (title of a famous Tang poem by Li Bai about a dawn departure down the Yangtze)
3 (lit.) early — set out — Baidi — city

Characters

emperor (白帝 = White Emperor)

城

chéng

city

Examples

小学课本里都有李白的《早发白帝城》。

Xiǎoxué kèběn lǐ dōu yǒu Lǐ Bái de Zǎo Fā Báidì Chéng.

Every primary-school textbook contains Li Bai's 'Setting Out Early from Baidi City.'

游三峡时，他不禁想起早发白帝城。

Yóu Sānxiá shí, tā bùjīn xiǎngqǐ Zǎo Fā Báidì Chéng.

Touring the Three Gorges, he couldn't help recalling 'Setting Out Early from Baidi City.'

Tips

history

Title of 李白《早发白帝城》 (Li Bai, Tang, 759 CE), composed when Li Bai was unexpectedly pardoned from exile at Yelang and sailed back east from 白帝城 (Baidi City, on the Yangtze in modern Chongqing): 朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山 (At dawn I left Baidi amid the rainbow clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling, returned in a single day. The gibbons' cries on both banks never cease, yet my light skiff has already passed ten thousand mountains). The archetypal poem of sudden joyful release.

usage

白帝 here is pronounced báidì ('White Emperor,' after the Han warlord 公孙述 who built the city claiming he was the White Emperor of the West). The title is memorized in full by virtually every mainland schoolchild.

Stroke Order

早 zǎo

发 fā

白 bái

帝 dì

城 chéng