行行重行行

Meaning

A short lyric in the manner of the later Han folk song, in which a traveller watches himself travel. Nothing happens: hills and waters are indifferent, willow seed drifts in the clear weather after rain, and the road is lined with the long and short pavilions where people part. What can be counted is only distance — how many stages of Jiangnan the chanting has reached — and even that count turns to an increase, for the hills of Jiangnan are only gradually green. The poem is a record of a departure that continues after the words about it have stopped.

山无情。水无情。杨柳飞花春雨晴。征衫长短亭。拟行行。重行行。吟到江南第几程。江南山渐青。

Appreciation

[Structure] Eight short lines in irregular rhythm; the first four are a scene, the last four are a computation, and the two halves meet in the word 征衫. [Imagery] 杨柳飞花 is the parting tree of the Chinese road, and 长短亭 the posts where farewell was formalised; both are already conventions, and the poem's cleverness is to reduce them to three syllables each. [Voice] The speaker keeps repriming himself — 山无情。水无情。 is a complaint that the world ignores him, and 拟行行。重行行。 is the same complaint turned into a decision. [The close] 江南山渐青 refuses to end on a summation; the last image is a slow colour that keeps advancing, as the journey does. The poem's chief beauty is that it never says the traveller is sad — nothing does that for him, since 山 and 水 are, by definition,无情.

【白话串讲】 古诗十九首《行行重行行》：“行行重行行，与君生别离”——“相去万余里，各在天一涯”——“道路阻且长，会面安可知”——“思君令人老，岁月忽已晚”——“弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭”——他写离别——与君生别离。 【意象与手法】 “行行重行行，与君生别离”以叠句起兴写离别；“相去万余里，各在天一涯”以空间写阻隔；“道路阻且长，会面安可知”写会面无期；“思君令人老，岁月忽已晚”以岁月写相思之深；结以“弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭”以劝勉收束。语言质朴、情真意切。 【情感与主旨】 思妇怀念远行游子的诗，写离别之久、相思之苦与自我宽慰，是《古诗十九首》中离别相思题材的开篇之作，情感真挚而节制。 【名句点睛】 常考“行行重行行，与君生别离”以叠句写离别；“弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭”以加餐饭写自我宽慰。

Allusions

Two inherited motifs are compressed here. 征衫长短亭 takes up the 长短亭 of the farewell roads: the long pavilion at ten li, the short one at five, where 折柳 and parting were performed, and the travel coat is the 征衫 of the frontier and frontier-farewell verse. The title's own 行行重行 行 is the opening of the Nineteen Old Poems' 行行重行行, 与君生别离 — the departure repeated until it becomes the whole of the poem. And 江南山渐青 accepts the convention by which the south was symbolised by green hills seen from a boat, as opposed to the northern symbol of dust and frontier stone.

词中「山无情」「水无情」「杨柳飞花春雨晴」「征衫长短亭」「拟行行重行行」「吟到江南第几程」「江南山渐青」等语，皆含典故故实。「山无情」写山无情；「水无情」写水无情；「杨柳飞花春雨晴」写杨柳飞花春雨晴；「征衫长短亭」写征衫长短亭（长短亭写送别之所，古有十里长亭五里短亭）；「拟行行重行行」写拟行行重行行（行行重行行用古诗行行重行行之意）；「吟到江南第几程」写吟到江南第几程；「江南山渐青」写江南山渐青。词人以行行重行行、长短亭等语入词，不着痕迹，而把羁旅写景之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

The piece has been read as a song of a travelling official, a soldier's complaint, or simply a serenade written in the folk manner; the safest note is the one the poem itself supplies, for it declines to name a speaker. Its reputation rests on the exactness of its economy — eight lines, no connotations beyond the two conventional ones, and an ending whose only movement is gradual greenness. Later readers of the anthology have preferred the fuller 行行重行行, with its 弃捐勿复道，努力加餐饭, but this compressed version is often thought the more modern in feeling and the more difficult to exhaust.

这首《行行重行行》，是写景羁旅之作，写山无情、征衫长短亭、江南山渐青之情，含蓄深婉。起「山无情。水无情。杨柳飞花春雨晴。征衫长短亭」——山无情，水无情，杨柳飞花春雨晴，征衫长短亭（用长短亭之意）。写山无情：山无情水无情、杨柳飞花春雨晴，征衫长短亭——山无情水无情、杨柳飞花、春雨晴、征衫长短亭；「拟行行。重行行。吟到江南第几程。江南山渐青」——拟行行，重行行（用行行重行行之意），吟到江南第几程，江南山渐青。写拟行行：拟行行重行行、吟到江南第几程，江南山渐青——拟行行重行行、吟到江南第几程、江南山渐青。这「吟到江南第几程。江南山渐青」，是全词之结：以江南山渐青写其羁旅。全词含蓄深婉，以景写情，正是词中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Line by line

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