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汉 Han · 古诗 Ancient poem

驱车上东门

Driving My Carriage Out at the Upper East Gate

古诗十九首（无名氏）

Anonymous (Nineteen Old Poems)

隐逸/忧愤reclusion / indignation 悼亡/怀人mourning and remembrance

驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。
白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路。
下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮。
潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤。
浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露。
人生忽如寄，寿无金石固。
万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度。
服食求神仙，多为药所误。
不如饮美酒，被服纨与素。

I drive my carriage out at the Upper East Gate
and gaze far off at the graves north of the wall.
How the white poplars sough and sigh; pines and cypress line the broad road.
Below them lie the long dead, sunk far away into unending night.
They sleep deep beneath the Yellow Springs and for a thousand years never wake.
Vast and ceaseless, dark and light change places; our span of years is like the morning dew.
Life passes in a moment, a lodging on the road; no lifetime is firm as metal or stone.
Age after age they escort each other out; not even the wise and the sage can pass beyond it.
Those who take elixirs to become immortals are for the most part undone by the drug.
Better to drink good wine and clothe oneself in fine white silk.

Listen

Meaning

I drive my carriage out through the Upper East Gate and look far off at the burial fields north of the city. How the white poplars rustle and sigh; pines and cypresses stand on either side of the broad road. Below them lie those long dead, gone dimly away into an endless night. They sleep deep beneath the Yellow Springs and for a thousand years will never wake again. Vast and unresting, darkness and light change places, and the years of our life are like the morning dew that soon dries. Life is over in a moment, a mere lodging on the road, and no span of years is firm as metal or stone. Generation after generation men escort one another to the grave, and even the wise and the sage cannot escape it. Those who take drugs in the hope of becoming immortals are for the most part ruined by the drug. It is better to drink good wine and to dress in fine white silk.

驱车驶出上东门，遥望城北墓田。白杨何等萧萧，松柏夹立大路。下有久死之人，幽幽便入长夜。深眠黄泉之下，千年永不再醒。光阴浩浩推移，年命如朝露易晞。人生忽如寄居，寿数无金石之固。万代更相送走，贤圣也不能度脱。服药求做神仙，多被丹药所误。不如痛饮美酒，身穿纨素之服。

Appreciation

This is one of the Nineteen Old Poems, standing thirteenth in the Anthology of Literature. The collection is not the work of one man or one time; most of the pieces come from lesser gentlemen of the later Han and were polished by literary hands before the Jian'an era. The poem moves in three stages, from looking at the graves to understanding the law of life and then to dispelling the grief, and the movement is entirely natural. It opens with a journey, the carriage going out at the gate and the eye reaching the burial fields on Mang Hill, and the bleak avenue of poplars and cypresses brings forward the long dead who lie below. The middle turns to reflection, and the two homely comparisons of the morning dew and of life as a lodging make the fragility and brevity of existence unbearably vivid, while the line that even the wise and the sage cannot pass beyond pushes the helplessness to an absolute. The last two lines look like the ease of a man who has let go, but the ease is drawn from the double disillusion of death close at hand and the emptiness of the search for immortality, and beneath the wine and white silk lies a very cold grief.

【白话串讲】 “驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”——驾车出东门，望见城北的墓地。“下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮”——地下躺着死去的人。“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”——人生像朝露。“服食求神仙，多为药所误”——求仙的人，反被药误。【意象与手法】本诗结构以“望墓—悟理—遣怀”三层递转，浑成自然【情感与主旨】《驱车上东门》为《古诗十九首》之一（在《文选》中列第十三）【名句点睛】本诗中高考要点：一、“白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”的景物描写与氛围营造

Background

This piece is one of the Nineteen Old Poems, standing thirteenth in the Anthology of Literature. The Nineteen Old Poems are not the work of a single time or a single hand; most of them came from lesser gentlemen of the later Han, were worked over by literary men, and were gathered together before the Jian'an era. The Upper East Gate is the eastern gate of Luoyang, and the graves north of the wall are the burial fields of Mang Hill north of the city, the standard image in Han writing for the boundary between life and death. The poem was produced in the last years of the Eastern Han, when politics were dark, war frequent and life uncertain from one day to the next, and when educated men, seeing the graves lie thick before them and knowing the search for immortality to be empty, at a time when alchemy and elixirs were much in vogue, were left with nothing but the present moment.

《驱车上东门》为《古诗十九首》之十三，是写人生短促、及时行乐的诗。此诗：驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路。下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮。潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤。浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露。人生忽如寄，寿无金石固。万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度。服食求神仙，多为药所误。不如饮美酒，被服纨与素。全诗写人生短促、贤圣莫度，是《古诗十九首》的名篇。

Art

The poem is built in three turns, from looking at the graves to understanding the law of life and then to dispelling grief, and the whole is naturally formed. It opens with the journey, the carriage going out at the Upper East Gate and the eye reaching the burial fields north of the city, and then the bleak avenue with its sighing white poplars and its pines and cypresses brings forward the long dead. The lines about sinking dimly into endless night and never waking for a thousand years pass from scene to death itself, and their chill is severe. The middle section turns to reflection upon the years of the living: two extraordinarily sharp comparisons, the morning dew and the lodging on the road, write the fragility and brevity of life, and the line that not even the wise and the sage can pass beyond it pushes the helplessness to an absolute.

《驱车上东门》艺术上以墓地的萧瑟与人生短促的慨叹见长。全诗十六句，层层写来：前八句写墓地之景——“驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”写驱车上东门、遥望郭北墓、白杨松柏，“下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮。潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤”写陈死人、长暮黄泉；后八句写人生短促——“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露。人生忽如寄，寿无金石固”写阴阳移、年命如朝露、人生如寄，“万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度。服食求神仙，多为药所误。不如饮美酒，被服纨与素”写万岁更相送、服食求神仙之误、不如饮美酒。全诗以墓地写人生短促，正是《古诗十九首》的笔法。

Allusions

The imagery and references of this poem come chiefly from the Book of Songs, the Songs of Chu and the Daoist tradition. The white poplar and the pine and cypress are grave trees, and the sighing poplars belong to a motif of the old poems that also appears in the anonymous piece beginning 'I walk out at the eastern gate of the city'. The word applied to the dead means long, and paired with the word for dim and far it describes their unending sleep. The morning dew as a figure for the brevity of life goes back to the saying that life is like the morning dew, recorded in the Gleanings of Lost Records, and reappears in Cao Cao's line comparing life to the morning dew; it is a common comparison from the pre-Qin period through the Han. Life as a lodging derives from the Shizi, where it is said that man's life is a lodging on the way.

《驱车上东门》用典在“服食求神仙”“万岁更相送”。“服食求神仙”写服食求仙（汉代方术之风）；“万岁更相送”写万岁更迭相送（生死相续）；“年命如朝露”用《薤露》之典（汉乐府丧歌）写年命如朝露。全诗以这些意象写人生短促，用典自然而深沉自见，正是《古诗十九首》的笔法。

Commentary

Liu Xie, in the chapter on lyric poetry in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, says of the Nineteen Old Poems that 'looking at their loose structure, they are direct without being rustic, and they turn and cling to the objects they describe, wistful and close to feeling'. Zhong Rong, in his Gradings of Poets, praises them as 'warm and beautiful in language, sad and far-reaching in meaning, startling to the heart and soul; one may almost say that a single word is worth a thousand pieces of gold'. Fang Dongshu of the Qing, in his Zhao Mei Zhan Yan, says of this piece that 'it begins with a strange feeling and a strange scene, and thereafter changes from level to level, until the last two lines open out; this is what is meant by resentment without anger'.

《驱车上东门》是《古诗十九首》的名篇，也是汉末文人诗写人生短促的代表作。此诗写人生短促、及时行乐，向为论者称道。论者多赏其墓地的萧瑟与人生短促的慨叹——“驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”写墓地萧瑟，苍凉之极；“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”写年命如朝露，更见其慨。汉末文人感时伤逝，《古诗十九首》正以深沉之笔写人生短促，此诗正是其代表——以墓地写人生，正是其笔法。

Prosody

Form Ancient-style verse in five characters (Nineteen Old Poems)五言古诗

Rhyme The rhyme words graves, road, night, wake, dew, firm, beyond, drug and silk rhyme loosely in the old system《驱车上东门》为五言古诗，十六句，押仄声韵。此诗用韵：墓、路、暮（遇部）、寤、露、固（遇部）、度、误、素（遇部），一韵到底，音节深沉。

Tone pattern Five-character ancient verse without the tonal rules of later regulated poetry; the language turns naturally五言古诗以音节深沉、情致苍凉见长。此诗写人生短促、及时行乐，音节深沉而苍凉。全诗以五言贯底，声调与人生短促之慨的内容相合，是《古诗十九首》中深沉苍凉的一路。

Reading note Placed thirteenth in the Anthology of Literature, a famous late Han poem of grief at the shortness of life.《驱车上东门》为《古诗十九首》之十三，是写人生短促、及时行乐的诗。此诗以“驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧”写墓地之景，以“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”写人生短促，以“不如饮美酒，被服纨与素”写及时行乐。写人生短促，正是《古诗十九首》的名篇。

Line by line

驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路。下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮。

I drive out the Shangdong Gate and gaze far at the tombs north of the wall. How the white aspens sigh; pines and cypresses line the broad road. Below lie the long-dead, gone dark into the long night.

驱车出上东门，遥望郭北之墓。白杨何萧萧，松柏夹着广路。下有陈死人，杳杳即入长暮。

I drive out the Shangdong Gate and gaze far at the tombs north of the outer wall. How the white aspens sigh; pines and cypresses line the broad road. Below lie the long dead, darkly entering the long night.

前六句写墓地之景，是全诗人生短促之慨的起点。“驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓”写驱车望墓——“驱车上东门”写出上东门（洛阳东门），“遥望郭北墓”写遥望郭北之墓——驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓；“白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”写白杨松柏——“白杨何萧萧”写白杨何萧萧（萧瑟），“松柏夹广路”写松柏夹着广路——白杨萧萧，松柏夹路；“下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮”写陈死人长暮——“下有陈死人”写下有陈死人，“杳杳即长暮”写杳杳即入长暮（幽冥）——陈死人，杳杳长暮。六句写墓地之景：驱车上东门遥望郭北墓、白杨何萧萧松柏夹广路，下有陈死人杳杳即长暮。以“驱车上东门，遥望郭北墓”写驱车出城、遥望墓地，以“白杨何萧萧，松柏夹广路”写白杨萧萧、松柏夹路之萧瑟，以“下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮”写陈尸杳杳、入于长暮，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促之慨的起点——望墓而兴叹，死生之感生。

The cemetery. I drive out the Shangdong Gate and gaze far at the tombs north of the wall; the aspens sigh, the pines and cypresses line the road; below lie the long dead, gone dark into the long night. The drive to the cemetery is the poem's whole thought. The sighing aspens and the long-night dead are the standard mausoleum imagery of the period. To have described the Luoyang cemetery would be a scene; the drive out to the northern tombs, the sighing aspens, and the long-dead gone into the long night are the scene.

潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤。浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露。人生忽如寄，寿无金石固。

They sleep hidden under the Yellow Springs, never waking for a thousand years. Vastly the dark and light turn; the years of life are like morning dew. Life passes in a flash, a mere lodging; no longevity is firm as metal or stone.

潜寐黄泉之下，千载永不醒。浩浩阴阳推移，年命如朝露。人生忽如寄居，寿命不如金石之固。

Hidden, they sleep beneath the Yellow Springs, waking never for a thousand years. Vastly the yin and yang turn; life's span is like morning dew. Life is a flash, a mere lodging; no longevity is firm as metal or stone.

此六句写人生短促，是全诗感慨的深化。“潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤”写潜寐黄泉——“潜寐黄泉下”写潜寐黄泉之下，“千载永不寤”写千载永不醒——潜寐黄泉，千载不寤；“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”写年命如朝露——“浩浩阴阳移”写浩浩阴阳推移，“年命如朝露”用《薤露》之典写年命如朝露——阴阳移，年命如朝露；“人生忽如寄，寿无金石固”写人生如寄——“人生忽如寄”写人生忽如寄居，“寿无金石固”写寿命不如金石之固——人生如寄，寿无金石固。六句写人生短促：潜寐黄泉下千载永不寤、浩浩阴阳移年命如朝露，人生忽如寄寿无金石固。以“潜寐黄泉下，千载永不寤”写死后永眠，以“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”写阴阳推移、年命如露，以“人生忽如寄，寿无金石固”写人生如寄、寿不如金石，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促之慨的深化——人寿有尽，死不可逃。

The mortality. They sleep hidden under the Yellow Springs, never waking; the seasons turn, life is like morning dew; life is a flash, a lodging, not firm as metal or stone. The three metaphors (morning dew, traveler's lodging, non-metal) are the Han poetry's standard mortality figures, accumulated here. To have said life is short and death is final would be a statement; the thousand-year sleep, the morning-dew years, the flash-like lodging, and the non-metal longevity are the statement.

万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度。服食求神仙，多为药所误。不如饮美酒，被服纨与素。

Ten thousand years pass, one generation seeing off the next; sages and worthies cannot escape it. Those who ate the immortals' drugs, most were betrayed by the drugs. Better to drink fine wine, and dress in silk.

万岁更迭相送，贤圣莫能超度。服食求神仙，多为药所误。不如饮美酒，穿着纨与素。

Ten thousand years pass, generation seeing off generation; sages cannot cross it. Those who took drugs to seek immortality were mostly undone by the drugs. Better to drink fine wine and wear silk.

末六句写贤圣莫度、不如饮酒，是全诗感慨的归结。“万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度”写贤圣莫能度——“万岁更相送”写万岁更迭相送，“贤圣莫能度”写贤圣莫能超度（免死）——万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度；“服食求神仙，多为药所误”写服食求仙之误——“服食求神仙”写服食求神仙，“多为药所误”写多为药所误——服食求仙，多为药误；“不如饮美酒，被服纨与素”写不如饮美酒——“不如饮美酒”写不如饮美酒，“被服纨与素”写穿着纨与素——饮美酒，服纨素。六句写贤圣莫度、不如饮酒：万岁更相送贤圣莫能度、服食求神仙多为药所误，不如饮美酒被服纨与素。以“万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度”写生死相续、贤圣莫免，以“服食求神仙，多为药所误”写求仙之误，以“不如饮美酒，被服纨与素”写不如及时行乐，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促之慨的归结——生不能免，唯乐而已。

The conclusion. Ten thousand years pass; sages cannot escape it; those who took immortality drugs were betrayed by them; better to drink fine wine and wear silk. The poem rejects both sainthood and alchemy, and chooses wine and silk—the poem's famous hedonism, which is really despair. To have said life is short so we should enjoy it would be a maxim; the sages who cannot escape, the drug-takers betrayed by their drugs, and the fine wine and silk are the maxim.

Study

Word focus

陈死人 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮”之“陈死人”，写陈腐之死人，是全诗写墓地之景的关键词。“陈死人”写陈尸已久之人——下有陈死人。这一词写死者之久：不是新亡之人，而陈死人；不是可见之尸，而杳杳入暮。以“下有陈死人，杳杳即长暮”写陈尸杳杳、入于长暮，正是《古诗十九首》写生死之感的笔法。

年命如朝露 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”之“年命如朝露”，用《薤露》之典写年命如朝露，是全诗写人生短促的比喻词。“年命”写年寿命运，“如朝露”写如清晨之露——年命如朝露。这一词写人寿之短：不是久长之命，而年命如朝露；不是可恃之寿，而朝露易晞。以“浩浩阴阳移，年命如朝露”写阴阳推移、年命如露，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促的笔法。

人生忽如寄 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “人生忽如寄”之“人生忽如寄”，写人生忽如寄居，是全诗写人生无常的关键词。“人生忽”写人生忽然，“如寄”写如寄居——人生忽如寄居。这一词写人生之暂：不是久居之生，而如寄；不是可恃之生，而忽如过客。以“人生忽如寄，寿无金石固”写人生如寄、寿不如金石，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促的笔法。

贤圣莫能度 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度”之“贤圣莫能度”，写贤圣莫能超度（免死），是全诗写死不可免的归结词。“贤圣”写贤人圣人，“莫能度”写莫能超度——贤圣莫能超度。这一词写死之不免：不是可逃之人，而贤圣；不是可度之死，而莫能免。以“万岁更相送，贤圣莫能度”写生死相续、贤圣莫免，正是《古诗十九首》写人生短促之慨的归结。