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汉 Han · 乐府 Yuefu ballad

蒿里

Haoli, the Hill of Weeds

汉乐府

Han Yuefu

悼亡/怀人mourning and remembrance 祭祀/颂赞sacrifice / praise

蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚。
鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰。

Whose land is Haoli?
It gathers in the souls of all, the worthy and the foolish alike.
How the Earl of Ghosts hurries and harries us—
a man's life may not linger even a moment.

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Meaning

Whose ground is this place called Haoli? It gathers in the souls of all the world, drawing no line between the worthy and the foolish. How urgently the Earl of Ghosts, who calls away the soul, presses and hurries a man along; once a life is at its end, not even a moment's hesitation or delay is allowed.

蒿里是何处人家的土地？它聚敛着天下人的魂魄，不分贤者与愚者。勾魂的鬼伯何其急切地催促着，人的性命一旦将尽，连片刻的犹豫停留都不被允许。

Appreciation

Haoli is a place at the southern foot of Mount Tai, and it was anciently believed that when a man died his soul returned to Mount Tai and gathered at Haoli. In the harmonized-song division of the Han music bureau this piece appears together with 'Dew on the Shallots', the old explanation being that one was sung at the funerals of kings and nobles and the other at those of officers and common men; both are songs sung as the coffin is drawn. The whole poem is only four lines, yet with layered questioning and a startling stroke it says everything about the pressure of death. The first line asks as though it did not know; the second states without disguise the cold truth that the ground gathers souls without regard for worth. The third and fourth personify death as the Earl of Ghosts, and the exclamation writes his haste, while the three words that deny a man even a moment's pause say all there is to say about how quickly a life is over. The language is wholly colloquial and unadorned, yet its force is grave and deep.

【白话串讲】 “蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚”——蒿里是什么地方？不管贤愚，都聚到这里。“鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰”——鬼差催得急，人命不能停留。这首挽歌，是汉代人面对死亡的清醒。【意象与手法】全诗仅四句，却以层层设问与惊警之笔写尽死亡之迫。首句故作疑问，次句直揭聚魂无贤愚的冷酷【情感与主旨】蒿里为泰山南麓地名，古谓人死魂归泰山、聚于蒿里【名句点睛】本诗宜从中考、高考‘短章讽喻与情感把握’角度命题。考点一：概括诗歌主旨——揭示死亡面前贤愚平等的终极悲慨；考点二

Background

Haoli is a place name at the southern foot of Mount Tai, and antiquity held that when a man died his soul went back to Mount Tai and gathered at Haoli. In the harmonized-song division of the Han music bureau this piece appears alongside 'Dew on the Shallots', the old explanation being that 'Dew on the Shallots' escorted kings and nobles while 'Haoli' escorted officers and commoners, and that both were songs sung as the coffin was drawn. Their words came from among the people and were collected by the music bureau and set to music, so that they are not the work of one time or one place. They carry the collective imagining of death among the men of Han, stand as the representative of the early dirge, and had a lasting influence on later elegies and poems of mourning.

《蒿里》为汉乐府《相和歌·薤露》篇（蒿里曲），是写人死归于蒿里的丧歌。此诗：蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚。鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰。全诗写人死归蒿里、人命无常，是汉乐府的名篇。

Art

The whole poem is only four lines, yet with layered questioning and a startling stroke it writes to the full the pressure of death. The first line puts a question as though the answer were unknown; the second states without disguise the cold fact that this ground gathers souls without distinguishing the worthy from the foolish. The third and fourth lines personify death as the Earl of Ghosts, and the exclamation of how urgently he presses writes his haste to the utmost, while the three words denying a man even a moment's pause say everything about the suddenness of a human life. The language is entirely colloquial and unworked, yet the force of it is grave and strong; in its plainness there is something that shakes the reader, and it embodies the realistic spirit of the music-bureau song, which is moved by grief and joy and arises from actual events, and the native quality of popular verse.

《蒿里》艺术上以丧歌的沉痛与人命无常的慨叹见长。全诗四句，层层写来：前二句写蒿里之地——“蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写蒿里谁家地、聚敛魂魄无贤愚；后二句写鬼伯催命——“鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰”写鬼伯催促、人命不得踟蹰。全诗写人死归蒿里、人命无常，正是汉乐府丧歌的笔法。

Allusions

The references in this poem lie chiefly in two terms, Haoli and the Earl of Ghosts. Haoli comes from the belief that Mount Tai governs the dead; Cui Bao, in his Notes on Things Ancient and Modern, records that 'Haoli is the name of a hill, lying south of Mount Tai', the place to which souls return, and later ages accordingly used the name for graves and for death itself. The Earl of Ghosts is the demon who calls away the soul, and derives from popular belief about the world below. Both terms rest on the ideas of life and death and the folk customs of the Qin and Han rather than on the polished allusions of the classics and histories, and their use of popular belief in verse shows exactly how the Han music bureau gathered its songs from the lanes and made beauty out of common things.

《蒿里》用典在“蒿里”“鬼伯”。“蒿里”写人死后魂魄所归之地（蒿里山，古人谓魂魄归处）；“鬼伯”写勾魂之鬼。全诗以这些意象写人死归蒿里、人命无常，不用深典而沉痛自见，正是汉乐府丧歌的笔法。

Commentary

The Collection of Music-Bureau Poems quotes Cui Bao's Notes on Things Ancient and Modern to the effect that 'Haoli' and 'Dew on the Shallots' both came from the followers of Tian Heng and were dirges sung at burials. In modern times Yu Guanying said of the Han dirges that 'the words are shallow and near, but the feeling is utterly grievous'. Hu Yinglin of the Ming called this piece 'ancient and plain, and fit to be chanted', which shows how a poem in native language can carry the great grief of life and death. It has always been regarded as the ancestor of the dirge and as the beginning of the elegy as practised by Yan Yanzhi and Tao Yuanming.

《蒿里》是汉乐府《相和歌·薤露》篇的名篇，也是中国诗歌中丧歌的代表作。此诗写人死归蒿里、人命无常，向为论者称道。论者多赏其丧歌的沉痛与人命无常的慨叹——“蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写蒿里聚敛魂魄、无分贤愚，沉痛之极；“鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰”写鬼伯催命、人命不得踟蹰，更见人命之无常。汉乐府丧歌以沉痛见长，此诗正是其代表——以蒿里写人命无常，正是其笔法。

Prosody

Form Han music bureau, harmonized songs (dirge)杂言乐府（相和歌）

Rhyme Free in rhyme, as in popular song, where the even lines do not keep a strict rhyme《蒿里》为杂言乐府《相和歌·薤露》篇，四句。此诗用韵：愚、蹰（虞部），一韵到底，音节沉痛。

Tone pattern Not traceable杂言乐府以音节沉痛、句式参差见长。此诗写人死归蒿里、人命无常，音节沉痛而悲凉。全诗以七言五言相间，声调与丧歌的内容相合，是汉乐府丧歌中沉痛的一路。

Reading note A short piece of four lines, chiefly in seven characters with prose phrases mixed in, rooted in the funeral songs of the common people.《蒿里》为汉乐府《相和歌·薤露》篇（蒿里曲），是写人死归于蒿里的丧歌。此诗以“蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写人死魂归蒿里、不分贤愚，以“鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰”写鬼伯催命、人命无常。写人死归蒿里，正是汉乐府的名篇。

Line by line

蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚。

Haoli, whose land is this? It gathers all souls, without distinction of wise or fool.

蒿里是谁家之地，聚敛魂魄，不分贤愚。

Whose land is Haoli? It gathers up all souls, making no difference between wise and foolish.

前二句写蒿里之地，是全诗丧歌的起点。“蒿里谁家地”写蒿里谁家地——“蒿里”写人死魂魄所归之蒿里，“谁家地”写是谁家之地——蒿里谁家地；“聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写聚敛魂魄无贤愚——“聚敛魂魄”写聚敛魂魄，“无贤愚”写不分贤愚——聚敛魂魄，无贤愚。二句写蒿里之地：蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚。以“蒿里谁家地”写蒿里为魂魄所归之地，以“聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写其聚敛魂魄、不分贤愚，正是汉乐府丧歌写人死归蒿里的起点——人死魂归，贤愚无别。

The funeral song begins at the graveyard. Haoli, whose land is this? Haoli is the mythic gathering place of all the dead; the question whose is it admits no owner. It gathers all souls, without distinction of wise or fool—death's democracy is the song's whole point. To have asked where the dead go would be a myth; the unnamed land that gathers wise and fool alike is the myth.

鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰。

How urgently the lord of ghosts urges us on; a human life may not linger even a moment.

鬼伯何等相催促，人命不得稍稍停留。

How fiercely the ghost-king presses; a human life may not linger for even a moment.

末二句写鬼伯催命、人命不得踟蹰，是全诗丧歌人命无常的归结。“鬼伯一何相催促”写鬼伯催促——“鬼伯一何”写鬼伯何等，“相催促”写相催促——鬼伯何等催促；“人命不得少踟蹰”写人命不得踟蹰——“人命不得”写人命不能，“少踟蹰”写稍稍停留——人命不得少踟蹰。二句写鬼伯催命、人命不得踟蹰：鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰。以“鬼伯一何相催促”写鬼伯催命之急，以“人命不得少踟蹰”写人命无常、不得停留，正是汉乐府丧歌写人命无常的归结——鬼伯催之，人命不留。

The reaper. How fiercely the ghost-king presses; a human life may not linger even a moment. The lord of the dead is a bailiff, hurrying. The word even-a-moment measures how little delay death allows. To have said death comes quickly would be a fact; the ghost-king's urging and the life that may not linger are the fact.

Study

Word focus

蒿里 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “蒿里谁家地”之“蒿里”，写人死魂魄所归之地，是全诗丧歌的核心词。“蒿里”写蒿里（古人谓魂魄归蒿里山）——蒿里谁家之地。这一词写死归之处：不是生人之地，而蒿里；不是可居之乡，而魂魄所聚。以“蒿里谁家地，聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写人死魂归蒿里、不分贤愚，正是汉乐府丧歌写人命无常的笔法。

聚敛魂魄 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “聚敛魂魄无贤愚”之“聚敛魂魄”，写聚敛魂魄，是全诗写死归蒿里的关键词。“聚敛”写聚敛（收聚），“魂魄”写魂魄——聚敛魂魄。这一词写魂之聚：不是各归之魂，而聚敛魂魄；不是可免之聚，而皆归蒿里。以“聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写蒿里聚敛魂魄、不分贤愚，正是汉乐府丧歌的笔法。

无贤愚 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “聚敛魂魄无贤愚”之“无贤愚”，写不分贤愚，是全诗写死之平等的关键词。“无贤愚”写不分贤者愚者——聚敛魂魄，不分贤愚。这一词写死之平等：不是有择之死，而无贤愚；不是可免之人，而贤愚同归。以“聚敛魂魄无贤愚”写死归蒿里、贤愚无别，正是汉乐府丧歌写人命无常的笔法。

鬼伯 To call the soul-taking demon an earl is a popular personification, cold and yet frightening, and it makes the abstraction of death something one can see and feel. “鬼伯一何相催促”之“鬼伯”，写勾魂之鬼，是全诗写催命之急的归结词。“鬼伯”写勾魂之鬼（司命之鬼）——鬼伯何等相催促。这一词写催命之鬼：不是可缓之使，而鬼伯；不是可拒之催，而一何催促。以“鬼伯一何相催促，人命不得少踟蹰”写鬼伯催命、人命不留，正是汉乐府丧歌写人命无常的归结。

蒿里