It means: Even if (husband and wife) meet, you won’t recognize me. My face is already covered with dust and my temples are like frost.
From: "Jiang Chengzi·Dreams on the Night of the Twentieth Day of the First Month of Yi Mao"
Original text:
Ten years of life and death are so vast that they cannot be forgotten without thinking about them. Thousands of miles of lonely tomb, no place to speak of desolation. Even if we meet each other, we should not know each other, our faces are covered with dust and our temples are like frost.
At night, I suddenly returned home with a deep dream, and I was dressing up outside the small window. They looked at each other without words, only a thousand lines of tears. It is expected that the broken part of the intestines will be cut off every year, on a bright moonlit night, there will be short pines.
Translation:
It has been ten years since we said goodbye. We cannot bear to miss each other but it is difficult to see each other after all. That distant lonely grave thousands of miles away has nowhere to express my sorrow to you. Even if we meet, you won't recognize me. My face is covered with dust and my temples are like frost.
Last night I returned to my hometown in my dream, and you were dressing up at the window of the cabin. You and I were silent and miserably silent, only we shed a thousand lines of hot tears. Unexpectedly, the place where I missed her was on a hill with dwarf pine trees on a bright moonlit night.
Creative background: When Su Dongpo was nineteen years old, he married Wang Fu, who was sixteen. Wang Fu was young and beautiful, and he served his relatives very filially. The two had a deep love for each other. Unfortunately, destiny is unpredictable, and Wang Fu died at the age of twenty-seven. This was a huge blow to Dongpo, and the deep pain in his heart and mental pain are self-evident. Su Shi said in "The Epitaph of His Dead Wife Wang": "On Dinghai in May of the second year of Zhiping (1065), Wang (named Fu), the wife of Su Shi in Zhao County, died in the capital. In June of Jiawu, she was buried in the west of the capital. He will be buried in Renwu, Pengshan County, northeast of Meizhou, eight steps northwest of the tomb of the late monarch and his wife. In 1075 AD (the eighth year of Xining), Dongpo came to Mizhou. On the 20th of the first month of this year, he dreamed of his beloved wife Wang, and wrote this memorial poem that has been passed down through the ages.
About the author:
Su Shi (January 8, 1037 - August 24, 1101), also known as Zizhan, also known as Hezhong, also known as Dongpo Jushi, known in the world as Su Dongpo, Su Xian. Han nationality, a native of Meishan, Meizhou (now part of Meishan City, Sichuan Province) in the Northern Song Dynasty. His ancestral home is Luancheng, Hebei Province. He is a famous writer, calligrapher and painter in the Northern Song Dynasty. [1]?[2] In the second year of Jiayou's reign (1057), Su Shi became a Jinshi. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, he served in Fengxiang, Hangzhou, Mizhou, Xuzhou, Huzhou and other places. In the third year of Yuanfeng (1080), he was framed for the "Wutai Poetry Case" and was demoted to Huangzhou as deputy envoy of Tuanlian. After Zhezong of the Song Dynasty came to the throne, he served as a bachelor of Hanlin, a bachelor of imperial examination, and a minister of the Ministry of Rites. He also went to Hangzhou, Yingzhou, Yangzhou, Dingzhou and other places. In his later years, he was demoted to Huizhou and Danzhou because of the new party's rule. Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty was pardoned and returned to the north, but died of illness in Changzhou on the way. During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty, he was posthumously given the title of Grand Master, with the posthumous title "Wenzhong". Su Shi is the representative of the highest achievements in literature in the Song Dynasty, and has achieved high achievements in poetry, lyrics, prose, calligraphy, and painting. His poems have broad themes, are fresh and bold, are good at using exaggerated metaphors, and have a unique style. Together with Huang Tingjian, he is also known as "Su Huang". He is a representative of the bold and unrestrained style of poetry, and together with Xin Qiji, he is also known as "Su Xin"; his prose writings are grand and bold, and he is known as "Ou Su" together with Ouyang Xiu, and is one of the "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties"; Su Shi is also good at He is one of the "Four Schools of Calligraphy" in the Song Dynasty. He is good at painting, especially good at ink bamboo, strange rocks, dead wood, etc. There are "Dongpo Seven Collections", "Dongpo Yi Zhuan", "Dongpo Yuefu" and so on.