明 Ming · 诗 Poem
小车行
Song of the Little Cart
小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽。
出门茫茫何所之？
青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜。
风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝。
叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。
The husband pushes, the wife pulls.
Out of the door, and the world is boundless - where can we go?
Green elm leaves to still our hunger;
We want a land of plenty where we may share a pot of gruel.
The wind blows the yellow wormwood;
We catch sight of walls and roofs,
And think that some master of the house will feed us.
We knock: no one answers, and the room has no cauldron.
We loiter in the empty lane, and our tears fall like rain.
Meaning
Written in the famine years at the end of the Ming, this yuefu-style poem reports a single episode: a couple driving a hand-cart out of town in search of food. They eat elm leaves, dream of a land of plenty, catch sight of a walled house and hope for bread, then find the door shut and the pot empty, and end weeping in the lane. The poem's power lies in its refusal to comment; the disaster is reported, not arranged.
小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽。出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜。风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝。叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。
Appreciation
【Plain Paraphrase】The poem follows a married couple out of town: the cart rumbles in the dusk dust, the husband pushes and the wife pulls; they ask where the world has taken them, they eat green elm leaves to appease hunger and wish for a land of plenty where they might share a pot of gruel; they see walls and roofs and expect to be fed; they knock, no one comes, there is no cauldron in the house; and they linger in the empty lane with tears like rain.<br>【Structure】Pure factual sequence from the first line to the last; the poem develops nothing but advances through events.<br>【Imagery】Elm leaves, wormwood, walls, an empty lane, a dry cauldron - the catalogue is entirely literal, and that literalness is where the pity lies.
【白话串讲】 陈子龙写《小车行》：“小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽”——“出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜”——“叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨”——他写逃难的夫妇——愿得乐土共哺糜。 【意象与手法】 “小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽”以白描写逃难夫妇；“出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥”以设问写无路可走；“叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨”以叩门无人、泪如雨写绝境。以纪实笔法写民生，白描直叙。 【情感与主旨】 悯农写实之作，写战乱中逃难夫妇的流离之苦，是陈子龙反映明末民生疾苦的乐府诗，以客观白描见批判力量。 【名句点睛】 常考“出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥”以设问写逃难无路；“叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨”以叩门无人写绝境。
Background
Chen Zilong (1608-1647), courtesy name Wozi, was from Songjiang (present-day Songjiang, Shanghai); he was a leading poet of the late Ming and a member of the Revival Society, and after the fall of the Ming committed himself to resistance in the south, dying in 1647 — sources differ on whether by drowning while pursued or while escaping custody. 'Song of the Little Cart' belongs to the group of his poems on famine and refugees, in which he used the old yuefu form to report conditions he had himself seen. It is among the most famous Ming poems of pity for the poor.
《小车行》为明末诗人陈子龙所作诗。陈子龙（1608—1647），字卧子，号轶符，松江华亭（今上海松江）人，明末诗人、抗清志士。此诗写悯农写实，为小车行之作。诗中「小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽」写小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽；「出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜」写出门茫茫何所之，青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜；「风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝」写风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝；「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」写叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。陈子龙此诗以悯农写实、踯躅空巷泪如雨写其悯农之情，慷慨悲凉，是陈子龙诗中的名篇。此篇《小车行》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《小车行》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。
Art
The method is a plain, unhurried sequence: the cart, the pushing, the question of where to go, the elm leaves, the hope of a land of plenty, the sight of walls, the promise of food, the knocking, the silence, the tears. Not one word of the speaker's feeling is offered; the emotion is placed in the final four characters, "loitering in the empty lane, tears like rain", where the simile supplies both the amount and the reason. The short three-character lines produce a clipped, labouring rhythm that slows into longer lines as the family's situation worsens, and the last image - a dry cauldron - is the cruellest line in the poem because it describes an absence.
此诗艺术上以「慷慨悲凉、以实写情」见长。全诗共五层，由小车班班黄尘晚、出门茫茫何所之而风吹黄蒿、叩门无人室无釜。起「小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽」写小车班班黄尘晚：小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽；「出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜」写出门茫茫何所之：出门茫茫何所之，青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜；「风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝」写风吹黄蒿：风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝；结「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」写踯躅空巷泪如雨：叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。全诗以实写情，由小车班班黄尘晚而踯躅空巷泪如雨，慷慨悲凉，是陈子龙诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。
Allusions
"'Land of plenty' (le tu) (a land of plenty)" comes from the Book of Songs, where flight to a happy land is the standing formula of the oppressed; using it here makes the couple's wish a quotation, a phrase that once guaranteed escape and now only mocks them. "Elm" (yu) and "yellow wormwood" (huang hao) are the famine foods of the northern plain. The promise that some master of the house would feed you is left unfulfilled, and the fruitless knocking echoes the classical topos of the cold house that will not open - the tradition used here only to be undone.
诗中「小车班班黄尘晚夫为推妇为挽」「出门茫茫何所之青青者榆疗吾饥愿得乐土共哺糜」「风吹黄蒿望见墙宇中有主人当饲汝」「叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨」等语，皆含典故故实。「小车班班黄尘晚夫为推妇为挽」写小车班班黄尘晚夫为推妇为挽；「出门茫茫何所之青青者榆疗吾饥愿得乐土共哺糜」用乐土之典（乐土写《诗经》乐土），写出门茫茫何所之青青者榆疗吾饥愿得乐土共哺糜；「风吹黄蒿望见墙宇中有主人当饲汝」写风吹黄蒿望见墙宇中有主人当饲汝；「叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨」写叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨。诗人以乐土之典入诗，不着痕迹，而把悯农写实之情写得慷慨淋漓，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。
Commentary
Readers of the Ming and after have prized the poem for reporting rather than declaiming. Qing anthologists placed it in the tradition of the yuefu song of pity; modern critics connect it with Chen's engagement in the Revival Society and with the late Ming's poetry of current affairs. It is often quoted beside his other famine poems as evidence that late Ming verse could still fulfil the classical claim that poetry is a mirror of the age - and that the plainest lines could carry the most grief.
这首《小车行》，是陈子龙写悯农写实之作，写小车班班黄尘晚、出门茫茫何所之、风吹黄蒿、踯躅空巷泪如雨之情，慷慨悲凉。起「小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽」——小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽。写小车班班黄尘晚：小车班班黄尘晚、夫为推、妇为挽——小车班班、夫推妇挽；「出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜」——出门茫茫何所之（用乐土之典），青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜。写出门茫茫何所之：出门茫茫何所之、青青者榆疗吾饥、愿得乐土共哺糜——茫茫何所之、榆疗饥、愿得乐土；「风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝」——风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝。写风吹黄蒿：风吹黄蒿、望见墙宇、中有主人当饲汝——风吹黄蒿、望见墙宇；结「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」——叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。写踯躅空巷泪如雨：叩门无人室无釜、踯躅空巷泪如雨——叩门无人、泪如雨。这「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」，是全诗之结：以踯躅空巷泪如雨写其悯农。全诗慷慨悲凉，以实写情，正是陈子龙诗中的名篇。
Prosody
Line by line
小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽。
The cart rumbles, yellow dust at dusk; / The husband pushes, the wife pulls.
小车班班黄尘晚，夫为推，妇为挽。
The little cart creaks in the yellow dust of dusk; the husband pushes, the wife pulls.
起句写小车班班黄尘晚，起笔即见其行。「小车班班黄尘晚」写小车班班黄尘晚，「小车班班」写小车班班、「黄尘晚」写黄尘晚；「夫为推」写夫为推，「夫」写夫、「为推」写为推；「妇为挽」写妇为挽，「妇」写妇、「为挽」写为挽。三句一写小车班班黄尘晚、一写夫为推、一写妇为挽，以小车班班黄尘晚写小车黄尘、以夫为推写夫推、以妇为挽写妇挽，写尽小车班班黄尘晚、夫为推、妇为挽之情。以行起兴，慷慨而悲凉，是「以行起兴」的妙笔。
The cart. The little cart creaks in the yellow dust of dusk; the husband pushes, the wife pulls. The creaking cart in the yellow dusk and the husband-pushes-wife-pulls are the opening. To have pushed and pulled the cart would be a labor; the little-cart-creaks-in-the-yellow-dust-of-dusk-the-husband-pushes-the-wife-pulls is the labor.
出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜。
Out of the door, and the world is boundless - where can we go? / Green elm leaves to still our hunger; / We want a land of plenty where we may share a pot of gruel.
出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥，愿得乐土共哺糜。
Out the door, vast and vague—whither? The green elms will cure our hunger; may we reach a land of peace where we may share gruel.
此三句写出门茫茫何所之，是全诗写流民之态的关键。「出门茫茫何所之」写出门茫茫何所之，「出门茫茫」写出门茫茫、「何所之」写何所之；「青青者榆疗吾饥」写青青者榆疗吾饥，「青青者榆」写青青者榆、「疗吾饥」写疗吾饥；「愿得乐土共哺糜」用乐土之典写愿得乐土共哺糜，「愿得乐土」写愿得乐土、「共哺糜」写共哺糜。三句一写出门茫茫何所之、一写青青者榆疗吾饥、一写愿得乐土共哺糜，以出门茫茫何所之写茫茫何之、以青青者榆疗吾饥写榆疗饥、以愿得乐土共哺糜写愿得乐土，写尽出门茫茫何所之、青青者榆疗吾饥、愿得乐土共哺糜之情。以实写情，慷慨而悲凉，是「以实写情」的点睛之笔。
The elms. Out the door, vast and vague—whither? The green elms will cure our hunger; may we reach a land of peace where we may share gruel. The whither-nowhere question and the elm-leaves curing hunger and the hoped-for land of peace are the refugee's plea. To have eaten elm leaves from hunger would be a hunger; the out-the-door-vast-and-vague-whither-the-green-elms-will-cure-our-hunger-may-we-reach-a-land-of-peace-where-we-may-share-gruel is the hunger.
风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝。
The wind blows the yellow wormwood; / We catch sight of walls and roofs, / And think that some master of the house will feed us.
风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝。
The wind blows the yellow weeds; I see walls and eaves—some master in there will feed you.
此三句写风吹黄蒿，是全诗写望见之态的关键。「风吹黄蒿」写风吹黄蒿，「风吹」写风吹、「黄蒿」写黄蒿；「望见墙宇」写望见墙宇，「望见」写望见、「墙宇」写墙宇；「中有主人当饲汝」写中有主人当饲汝，「中有主人」写中有主人、「当饲汝」写当饲汝。三句一写风吹黄蒿、一写望见墙宇、一写中有主人当饲汝，以风吹黄蒿写风吹黄蒿、以望见墙宇写望见墙宇、以中有主人当饲汝写主人饲汝，写尽风吹黄蒿、望见墙宇、中有主人当饲汝之情。以景写望，慷慨而悲凉，是「以景写望」的点睛之笔。
The walls. The wind blows the yellow weeds; I see walls and eaves—some master in there will feed you. The wind-blown weeds and the seen walls and the master-will-feed-you are the hope. To have hoped the master would feed them would be a hope; the wind-blows-the-yellow-weeds-I-see-walls-and-eaves-some-master-in-there-will-feed-you is the hope.
叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。
We knock: no one answers, and the room has no cauldron. / We loiter in the empty lane, and our tears fall like rain.
叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨。
I knock; no one answers, no cauldron in the room; I linger in the empty lane, tears like rain.
结句写踯躅空巷泪如雨，是全诗立意的落点。「叩门无人室无釜」写叩门无人室无釜，「叩门无人」写叩门无人、「室无釜」写室无釜；「踯躅空巷泪如雨」写踯躅空巷泪如雨，「踯躅空巷」写踯躅空巷、「泪如雨」写泪如雨。两句一写叩门无人室无釜、一写踯躅空巷泪如雨，以叩门无人室无釜写叩门无人、以踯躅空巷泪如雨写泪如雨，写尽叩门无人室无釜、踯躅空巷泪如雨之情。以泪写情，慷慨而悲凉，是全诗最动人处，也是「以泪写情」的点睛之笔。
The tears. I knock; no one answers, no cauldron in the room; I linger in the empty lane, tears like rain. The knocked-on empty door and the empty room without a cauldron and the tears like rain are the close. To have knocked on an empty door would be an emptiness; the I-knock-no-one-answers-no-cauldron-in-the-room-I-linger-in-the-empty-lane-tears-like-rain is the emptiness.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Liu Yong's 'Eight Beats of a Gaodie' is the classic of the traveller's grief, with its figure on a tower watching for sails that never come; Chen Zilong's 'Song of the Little Cart' brings the same sentiment down to a roadside and a lane. One grieves in the grand manner of the tune, the other in plain words that could not be more ordinary. Read together they show the two registers available for suffering in Chinese poetry - the ornate key and the documentary one.
柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写羁旅流离、悲慨难胜，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；陈子龙《小车行》则以「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」「出门茫茫何所之？青青者榆疗吾饥」写泪如雨、茫茫何所之。两诗同写羁旅流离、悲慨难胜：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨、以叩门无釜写流离；一为柳永之清丽、一为陈子龙之悲凉，并读正可见诗写「羁旅流离」的两种笔法，皆于流离之中见悲慨。
浣溪沙·一曲新词酒一杯 Huanxisha - A Tune of the Western Stream: A New Song, a Cup of Wine 晏殊 · 同写感怀言志、无可奈何，一写无可奈何花落去、一写叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨，皆于感怀之中见无可奈何 Both write of feeling unable to help - Yan Shu over fallen flowers and returning swallows, Chen Zilong over an empty lane and a dry cauldron - and both leave the reader with a sense of things past reclaiming them.Yan Shu's 'Huanxisha', with "there is nothing to be done about fallen flowers, and returning swallows seem familiar", accepts the turn of the seasons as something to be endured with a cup of wine; Chen Zilong's 'Song of the Little Cart' answers the same thought with a question about a cart and a door. One finds consolation in time's regularity, the other insists on the particular case. The contrast is between a philosophy of change and a report of a specific family, and it is the latter that history has remembered.
晏殊《浣溪沙·一曲新词酒一杯》「无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来」，写感怀言志，是宋词小令的名篇；陈子龙《小车行》则以「叩门无人室无釜，踯躅空巷泪如雨」「风吹黄蒿，望见墙宇，中有主人当饲汝」写泪如雨、风吹黄蒿。两诗同写感怀言志、无可奈何：一写无可奈何花落去、以花落燕归写惜时，一写叩门无人室无釜踯躅空巷泪如雨、以叩门无釜写无可奈何；一为晏殊之温润、一为陈子龙之悲凉，并读正可见诗写「感怀无可奈何」的两种笔法，皆于感怀之中见无可奈何。