明 Ming · 诗 Poem
塞下曲
Song Below the Frontier
暝色满西山，将军猎骑还。
隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关。
the general's hunting riders come home.
Across the river a beacon fire is seen—
arrogant raiders by night draw near the pass.
Meaning
Evening light lies over the western hills as the general leads his hunting horsemen home. Across the river a beacon fire is seen burning: the arrogant raiders are pressing up to the pass under cover of night.
暮色笼罩着西山，将军率领狩猎的骑兵归来。隔着河流望见燃起的烽火，骄横的敌虏在夜里逼近了关隘。
Appreciation
Xie Zhen (1495-1575), courtesy name Maoqin and styled the Mountain Man of the Four Seas, was a commoner poet and in the early years the real leader of the Later Seven Masters, author of the Siming Collection and of Plain Words on Poetry. In twenty words the piece is complete in structure. The opening lays dusk over the western hills and makes the world vast and dim; the general's hunting party riding home adds a human figure and, on a tense frontier, an air of unhurried ease that only stores up force for what follows. The third line breaks in with an alarm across the river, and the last drives the crisis home, with arrogant for the raiders and night for the suddenness of the raid. Stillness sets off motion and leisure sets off urgency; feeling hides inside scene, and a short piece carries the momentum of a long one, in the true Tang manner of saying much with little.
【白话串讲】 “暝色满西山，将军猎骑还”——谢榛写塞下：暮色满山，将军打猎归来。“隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关”——隔河看见烽火，敌人在夜里逼近边关。二十个字，紧张感拉满。 【意象与手法】 全诗仅二十字而章法完密。起句暝色满西山以暮色铺底，境界苍茫 【情感与主旨】 谢榛（1495—1575）字茂秦，号四溟山人，明代布衣诗人，后七子初期实际领袖，著有《四溟集》《诗家直说》 【名句点睛】 此诗为明谢榛之作，精要赏析详见下方深度赏析。
Background
Xie Zhen (1495-1575), courtesy name Maoqin, styled the Mountain Man of the Four Seas, was a commoner poet of the Ming and in its early phase the real leader of the Later Seven Masters, author of the Siming Collection and of Plain Words on Poetry. He argued for the imitation of High Tang models, excelled at regulated verse and quatrains, and wrote lines that ring with well-settled words. Song Below the Frontier is an old Tang frontier yuefu title, which Xie Zhen borrows to write of the Ming autumn watch on the northern border: the general returning at dusk from the hunt suggests the composure of a garrison town, while the beacon fire suddenly raised across the river and the arrogant raiders pressing up by night convey that the frontier is not yet at peace and that vigilance may not be relaxed. The poem is a practical demonstration of his doctrine that scene is the matchmaker and feeling the embryo, using a spare frontier landscape to lodge a sense of military crisis.
《塞下曲》为明代谢榛所作，是写边塞暮色、将军夜猎的诗。谢榛（1495—1575），字茂秦，号四溟山人，临清人，明代诗人。此诗：暝色满西山，将军猎骑还。隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关。全诗写边塞暮色、将军夜猎、虏骑临关，是谢榛诗的名篇。
Art
In twenty words the poem is complete in structure. The opening, dusk filling the western hills, lays down evening as a ground and makes the scene vast and dim; the general's hunting riders coming home follows with a human figure, writing composure and leisure in a tense frontier region and thereby storing up force for what comes after. The turning line, a beacon fire seen across the river, breaks in as an alarm, and the closing line, arrogant raiders drawing near the pass at night, presses the crisis into view, with arrogant rendering the insolence of the enemy and night the abruptness of the raid. Stillness sets off motion and ease sets off urgency; feeling is hidden inside scene, so that a short piece carries the momentum of a long one, deep in the Tang quatrain's wonder of using little to sum up much.
《塞下曲》艺术上以边塞暮色的描摹与边警的紧张见长。全诗四句：首写暝色满山——“暝色满西山”写暝色满西山；中写将军猎还——“将军猎骑还”写将军猎骑而还；末写虏骑临关——“隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关”写隔河烽火、骄虏夜临关。全诗以四句写边塞暮色、边警，正是谢榛诗凝练的笔法。
Allusions
The poem uses almost no allusion, and its images are all the common speech of the frontier. Song Below the Frontier belongs with the Tang yuefu titles Out of the Pass and Into the Pass, on which Li Bai, Wang Changling and Lu Lun all left famous pieces; Xie Zhen follows the title but writes Ming frontier affairs, imitating the ancients yet producing something new. The beacon fire refers to the old system of piled brushwood set alight to signal alarm on the border, mentioned in the Mozi and the Book of Zhou; the pass means the strongholds along the Great Wall. The phrase for arrogant raiders derives from Pan Yue's Rhapsody on the Western Campaign, with its martial ministers roused to the attack, and became a common term in verse and prose for an insolent enemy. The words are shallow and the sense deep: without borrowed learning the poem is complete in spirit and full in breath.
《塞下曲》用典在“塞下曲”“烽火”。“塞下曲”为乐府旧题；“烽火”写边塞报警之火。全诗以这些意象写边塞暮色、边警，不用深典而凝练自见，正是谢榛诗的笔法。
Commentary
Shen Deqian's Selected Ming Poems includes a number of Xie Zhen's pieces and praises his ringing lines and well-settled words. Modern critics of the Later Seven Masters say that Xie Zhen's quatrains are spiritually close to High Tang; this Song Below the Frontier writes a border alarm in twenty characters and, beside the grandeur of his Setting Out at Dawn from the Yu River, shows a distinct spare and clean manner, a gem among Ming frontier miniatures. That he could imitate the Tang and still show his own hand is exactly the true proof, in practice, of the Later Seven Masters' theory of poetry.
《塞下曲》是谢榛诗的名篇，也是明诗中写边塞的代表作。此诗写边塞暮色、将军夜猎、虏骑临关，向为论者称道。论者多赏其边塞暮色的描摹与边警的紧张——“暝色满西山，将军猎骑还”写暝色满山、将军猎还，凝练之极；“隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关”写隔河烽火、虏骑临关，更见其警。谢榛为后七子代表，其诗以凝练著称，此诗正是其代表——以四句写边塞边警，正是其诗风。
Prosody
Line by line
暝色满西山，将军猎骑还。
Dusk fills the western hills; the general returns from the hunt on horseback.
暝色满西山，将军猎骑还。
Dusk fills the western hills; the general's hunting riders come back.
首写暝色满山、将军猎还，是全诗写边塞暮色的起点。“暝色满西山”写暝色满山——“暝色满西山”写暮色布满西山——暝色满西山；“将军猎骑还”写将军猎还——“将军猎骑还”写将军猎骑而还——将军猎骑还。二句写暝色满山、将军猎还：暝色满西山，将军猎骑还。以“暝色满西山”写暮色布满西山之苍茫，以“将军猎骑还”写将军猎毕而还之从容，正是谢榛诗写边塞暮色的起点——暮色苍茫，将军猎归。
The hunt. Dusk fills the western hills; the general returns from the hunt on horseback. The dusk on the western hills and the general's hunting return are the opening. To have returned from the hunt would be a return; the dusk-fills-the-western-hills-the-general-returns-from-the-hunt-on-horseback is the return.
隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关。
Across the river the beacon fire is seen; the arrogant raiders approach the pass by night.
隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关。
Across the river the beacon blazes; the haughty raiders come by night to the pass.
末写隔河烽火、虏骑临关，是全诗写边警的归结。“隔河见烽火”写隔河烽火——“隔河见烽火”写隔河望见烽火（报警）——隔河见烽火；“骄虏夜临关”写虏骑临关——“骄虏夜临关”写骄横之虏夜临关塞——骄虏夜临关。二句写隔河烽火、虏骑临关：隔河见烽火，骄虏夜临关。以“隔河见烽火”写隔河望见烽火报警，以“骄虏夜临关”写骄虏乘夜临关，正是谢榛诗写边警的归结——烽火乍起，虏骑夜临。
The beacon. Across the river the beacon fire is seen; the arrogant raiders approach the pass by night. The beacon across the river and the night raiders at the pass are the alarm. To have sighted the beacon would be an alarm; the across-the-river-the-beacon-fire-is-seen-the-arrogant-raiders-approach-the-pass-by-night is the alarm.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Compare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
谢榛《榆河晓发》写晓发行旅之景，与本首同为谢榛诗。差异在情境：塞下曲写暮色边警；榆河晓发写晓发之行。一写“暮”之警，一写“晓”之行。两者并读，可见谢榛诗写边塞行旅的两种情境。
塞下曲 Song of the Frontier 卢纶 · 同为塞下曲写边塞，一写夜猎边警一写月黑雁飞，皆凝练 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
卢纶《塞下曲》“月黑雁飞高，单于夜遁逃”写夜猎边警，与本首同为塞下曲。差异在情境：谢榛塞下曲写暮色烽火；卢纶塞下曲写月黑雁飞。一写“暮”之警，一写“夜”之遁。两者并读，可见塞下曲写边塞的多种情境。
出塞 Beyond the Frontier 王昌龄 · 与本首相关联的同类或同作者作品，供对比阅读 Same (frontier verse / High Tang yuefu title)Both write the military business of the border; compare the sweeping breadth of the Tang with the spare cleanness of the Ming.
此处关联王昌龄《出塞》，与本首在主题、体裁或作者上相关联，可对比阅读以见其同异。