Chinese literature

" Learning Tang poems three hundred by heart, you can chant poems though you know not the art." The Tang period (618-907) in China is considered the golden age of Chinese poetry. The collection of 300 poems from this period was compiled over 130 years ago. Chinese people love the language of these poems just like British people love Shakespeare's.  Some of the sentences in the poems become catch phases in Chinese daily life. Here are a couple of examples:
五言絕句
王之渙
登鸛雀樓

白日依山盡， 黃河入海流。
欲窮千里目， 更上一層樓。

Five-character-quatrain
Wang Zhihuan
AT HERON LODGE

Viewing the sky ends at the far Mountains,
the river runs away into the sea,
If you want to see further,
Go up another flight of stairs.

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The last two lines: 'if you want to see further, go up another flight of stairs.' It sounds a bit plain to an English speaker, just like when you translate 'Die, or not to die' into Chinese.


题西林壁
----苏轼

横看成岭侧成峰，
远近高低各不同。
不是庐山真面目，
只缘身在此山中。

Mountain Lu
----Su Shi

It looks like hills from front, a peak from the side;
It looks different from far, from near, from above, from below.
You cannot recognize the true appearance of the Mt Lu,
Because you are in the mountains.

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These last two lines tell a common sense which can be applied in many situations. E.g.: When a person can not see a thing clearly because he himself is involved in the situation; or he can only see part of the truth because his view is confined by his standing point.