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七子之歌·澳门

Song of the Seven Sons: Macau

闻一多

Wen Yiduo

名篇Masterpiece 爱国Patriotism 拟人Personification

你可知妈港不是我的真名姓？
我离开你的襁褓太久了，母亲！
但是他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂。
三百年来梦寐不忘的生母啊！
请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门！

Do you know that Macau is not my true name?
I have been away from your swaddling-clothes far too long, Mother!
But what they carried off was my body;
you still keep my heart's soul.
Three hundred years — birth-mother whom I never forget, not even in dreams!
Call me by my childhood name; call me Macau, once.

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Meaning

The poem speaks for the occupied territory as a son separated from its mother country: it complains that a foreign name has been forced upon it, that three hundred years have passed since it left the cradle, and that while its body was carried away its soul remained with the mother. The whole poem is a plea to be called by its own name — Macau — and hence a demand for return.

你可知道，「妈港」并不是我的真实姓名？我离开你的襁褓已经太久了，母亲！虽然他们掳走的是我的肉体，你却依然保管着我内心的灵魂。三百年来，我做梦都忘不了的生身母亲啊！请呼唤儿的乳名，叫我一声「澳门」吧！

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] A lost territory speaks: 'you may call me Macau, but that is not my real name; I was taken from your arms three hundred years ago; my body was seized, my soul stayed with you.' [Structure] The poem moves from a question about a name, through the grievance of separation, to the climax of a request: call me by my childhood name. [Device] The central invention is the personification of territory as son and China as mother, which turns a political claim into a family plea. [Language] Plain almost to the point of colloquial, yet every clause is loaded, and the contrast between body and soul carries the whole argument. The result is that abstract sovereignty becomes something a reader can feel in the bones.

【白话串讲】闻一多写《七子之歌·澳门》：“你可知妈港不是我的真名姓？我离开你的襁褓太久了，母亲”——“但是他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂”——“请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门”——1999年澳门回归时唱遍全国。【意象与手法】这是拟人化的爱国杰作：把被殖民的国土澳门写成离开母亲怀抱的「儿子」，以骨肉亲情写领土主权，化政治为至情；呼告、反问、对比（肉体／灵魂）层层推进，语言直白而情感炽烈，具有不可抗拒的感染力。【情感与主旨】全诗写被掳国土对祖国的刻骨思念与归宗渴望，控诉殖民统治对肉体的掳掠，彰显灵魂不灭的民族气节，是近代中国「失土之痛」与「回归之望」最动人心魄的抒写。【名句点睛】「你可知妈港不是我的真名姓」「请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门」二句，1999年澳门回归时经谱曲传唱，响彻神州，成为一代人的共同记忆。

Background

Wen Yiduo (1899–1946), from Xishui, Hubei, was a Xingyue-school poet and later a scholar and democratic activist, author of 'Red Candle' and 'Dead Water'. The group poem 'Song of the Seven Sons', of which Macau is the first, was written in March 1925 while he was studying in the United States; the seven 'sons' are Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Weihaiwei, Guangzhou Bay, Kowloon and Lüda, all lost or leased to foreign powers. Portugal first landed at Macau in 1553 and the Sino-Portuguese treaty of 1887 regularised its administration, hence the 'three hundred years'. The poem was set to music by Li Haiying and sung in 1999 by Rong Yunlin at Macau's handover, making it the voice of a generation.

《七子之歌·澳门》是闻一多组诗《七子之歌》的第一首，写于1925年3月，当时闻一多正在美国留学。闻一多（1899—1946），湖北浠水人，中国现代著名诗人、学者、民主斗士，新月派代表诗人，著有诗集《红烛》《死水》。《七子之歌》共七首，分别以澳门、香港、台湾、威海卫、广州湾、九龙、旅大（旅顺大连）七个被列强侵占、租借的中国领土为「七子」，以拟人化的口吻倾诉失养于祖国、受虐于异邦的悲愤。诗中「七子」皆为当时中国近代史上被帝国主义列强割占租借的国土：澳门自明嘉靖三十二年（1553）葡萄牙人借口晾晒货物登陆，至清光绪十三年（1887）《中葡和好通商条约》正式承认葡萄牙对澳门的管治，前后约三百余年。闻一多在美国留学期间，亲历中国人在海外的屈辱与歧视，痛感国势衰微、列强环伺，遂以「七子」喻国土，以「母亲」喻祖国，写下这组饱含血泪的诗篇。1925年7月，闻一多归国，《七子之歌》随即发表，引起强烈反响。1999年12月20日澳门回归祖国，《七子之歌·澳门》被作曲家李海鹰谱曲，由澳门少女容韵琳演唱，传遍神州，成为澳门回归的时代之声。

Art

The power of the poem rests on a single conceit. By making the occupied land a son and China a mother, and by putting the speech in the son's mouth, the poet converts territorial loss into the pain of a family separation, and patriotic feeling into a child's cry for recognition. Second, the address is direct: 'you know', 'Mother', 'birth-mother' — the poem is an address, not a description, and it reads like weeping aloud. Third, the contrast of body and soul: what was taken away was the body, the soul is still kept, and the contrast turns the violence of the coloniser into the proof of an unbroken nation. Fourth, plainness: the diction is close to spoken Chinese, and the raw feeling supplies all the force that ornament might have dissipated. Patriotism thus becomes the cry of a son asking to be named.

《七子之歌·澳门》是闻一多爱国诗的杰作，其艺术力量首先来自独特的拟人化构思。诗人把被列强侵占的国土澳门写成离家三百年的「儿子」，把祖国写成「母亲」，以第一人称「儿」的口吻向「母亲」倾诉，赋予无生命的国土以血肉与情感，使领土沦丧的屈辱化为骨肉分离的痛楚，「澳门」「母亲」之间的血缘关系让抽象的爱国主题有了最直观的感染力。其二，呼告手法的运用。全诗以「你可知」「母亲」「生母啊」等呼语直呼对方，如当面泣诉，声泪俱下；「请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门」的请求更把呼告推向高潮，一个「请」字写尽游子对母亲呼唤的渴盼。其三，对比与矛盾的张力。「他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂」以「肉体／灵魂」对举：肉体被掳，灵魂仍在，身之辱与心之贞的对照，把殖民统治的暴力与民族气节的坚守写得惊心动魄。其四，直白与深情统一。全诗语言朴素直白，几近口语，却因情感的极度真挚而具有不可抗拒的感染力，正是「至情无文」的体现。这首诗把政治抒情转化为骨肉亲情，让爱国成为「认母」的呼唤，是闻一多「诗化爱国」艺术的极致。

Allusions

'Macau' is itself an allusion: Portuguese settlers landed near the A-Ma Temple, asked the local name, were answered 'Ma-gao', and transliterated it as Macau, so 'Ma-gao' is a colonial misnomer for a Chinese place. The question 'do you know that Macau is not my true name?' therefore makes a fight over a name serve as a fight over sovereignty. 'Swaddling-clothes' draws on the universal image of the infant in its mother's arms, and turns the territorial relationship into the most familiar of human bonds — a striking instance of the Chinese habit of conceiving the state through the family. 'Childhood name' (rustic given name) is the name a mother uses most tenderly, so to ask for it is to ask for recognition and return. The 'three hundred years' is an approximation — Portuguese presence ran some three and a half centuries to 1925 — and the round number adds grief to the complaint.

《七子之歌·澳门》的意象与文化内涵，深植于中国的历史记忆与家族伦理。「妈港」一词是澳门别称的音译：葡萄牙人16世纪中叶初抵澳门时，在今妈阁庙一带登陆，问当地地名，居民以「妈阁」答之，葡人遂音译为「Macau」，故「妈港」实为「妈阁」之讹变；闻一多借这个洋化的名字发问「你可知妈港不是我的真名姓」，一语戳破殖民者强加的名字与中华故土真名「澳门」的错位，名字之争即主权之争，寓意深远。「襁褓」指包裹婴儿的布带，喻婴孩时期，「我离开你的襁褓太久了」把澳门比作幼时离开母亲的婴儿，三百年漂泊仍怀恋母亲的怀抱，以人生至亲的伦理关系写国土与祖国的关系，是中国人「家国同构」观念的极致体现。「乳名」即儿时的小名，中国习俗中母亲呼唤乳名最显亲昵，「请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门」以认母归宗为最高渴望，乳名之呼即是承认回归之亲。「三百年」虽为约数（自1553年葡人登陆至1925年作诗约三百七十二年），却以整数的悲怆写尽岁月之漫长。全诗以母子伦理承载民族大义，将家国之痛化为儿女之呼，是中国抒情传统中「以家喻国」的现代绝唱。

Commentary

Of the 'Seven Sons', the Macau poem is the most famous, and its stature grew with the handover. On 20 December 1999 it was set by Li Haiying and sung by the young Macau singer Rong Yunlin, and the line 'do you know that Macau is not my true name?' was heard across China; for two decades afterwards the song accompanied Macau's development and became a collective memory of 'coming home'. Historically, the group appeared in 1925, when the national crisis was at its worst, along with Liang Qichao's 'On the Youthful China' and Guo Moruo's 'Coal in the Furnace'; Wen Yiduo himself was assassinated by secret police in 1946 for opposing the civil war, proving his claim that a poet is also a soldier. In literary history the poem opened a vein of patriotic verse in which the nation is figured as a family, and its influence reaches later songs of return such as 'My Heart Belongs to China' and 'Nostalgia'.

《七子之歌·澳门》是闻一多《七子之歌》中最著名的一首，其历史意义与艺术价值在1999年澳门回归之际得到最充分的彰显。1999年12月20日零时，澳门回归祖国怀抱，《七子之歌·澳门》经作曲家李海鹰谱曲、澳门少女容韵琳演唱，在回归庆典与全国各大媒体上唱响，「你可知妈港不是我的真名姓」的歌声传遍神州，成为澳门回归的时代符号；此后二十余年，这首歌伴随澳门发展，常唱常新，是中国人关于「回家」的集体记忆。回望历史，组诗发表于1925年，正值中国近代民族危机深重的年代，闻一多以「七子」喻被侵占的国土，与梁启超《少年中国说》、郭沫若《炉中煤》等共同构成五四前后爱国文学的声浪，激励了无数国人为收复失地而奋斗；诗人本人更在1946年因反对内战、争取民主而遭特务暗杀，用生命践行了「诗人即战士」的誓言。在文学史上，此诗以拟人化手法写爱国主题，将政治抒情与骨肉亲情融为一体，开现代爱国诗「以家喻国」之先河，其影响及于当代的《我的中国心》《乡愁》等作品，堪称现代爱国诗歌的经典。

Prosody

Form Modern free verse (recitation verse, first of the group 'Song of the Seven Sons')现代自由诗（朗诵体，组诗《七子之歌》第一首）

Rhyme There is no rhyme scheme; the rhythm comes from the address itself. The opening question, the exclamations 'Mother!' and 'birth-mother', and the breaks marked by exclamation marks and ellipsis all produce a sobbing cadence, while the balanced 'body / soul' pair gives one firm, hammered beat that resists the weeping.全诗不押韵，节奏来自呼告的反复与句式的长短安排。「你可知」的设问、「母亲」「生母啊」的呼语、破折号与感叹号的停顿，共同构成泣诉式的韵律；「肉体／灵魂」「三百年／一声」等对举词组的安排，使诗行在直白中有顿挫，读来如哽咽泣诉。

Tone pattern The voice rises through three stages — the challenge of the question, the complaint of 'far too long', and the appeal of 'call me' — so the emotional temperature climbs line by line until 'call me Macau' reaches the top and stops. That stop, at the end, is what leaves the poem ringing.语调由质问（你可知）到泣诉（太久了，母亲）再到呼唤（请叫儿的乳名），层层推进、步步升高，如游子归途中的呐喊，情感浓度逐句递增，至「叫我一声澳门」达到顶点，余音回荡。

Reading note The poem's music is the music of a voice breaking. The first words come out as a question, urgent, like the first cry of a child who has been away too long; 'far too long' then drags before 'Mother!' breaks off short, and the space between them is where the sob is. The line about body and soul is deliberately even in length and structure, and the two nouns are balanced like a pair of scales, so that amid the sobbing there is one hard, unmoving beat. Then the long 'birth-mother whom I never forget, not even in dreams' draws the vowel out, and finally the short commands 'call me by my childhood name; call me Macau' cut, one after another, like a hand reaching and a hand closing on it. The poem is free verse with no prescribed tune, but its rising emotional curve and its falling cadence give it a shape no fixed metre could improve on.《七子之歌·澳门》是自由诗，不讲究押韵，其音乐性来自呼告语气与情感节奏的高度统一。全诗以「你可知」的设问开篇，语气急切，如游子见到母亲的第一声呼唤；「我离开你的襁褓太久了，母亲！」一句，「太久了」的拖长与「母亲！」的感叹形成语流的顿挫，如泣如诉；「但是他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂」两句字数相近、结构对称，「肉体／灵魂」对举，读来铿锵，是全诗最有力的节拍；「三百年来梦寐不忘的生母啊！」以「啊」字拉长尾音，如长叹；「请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门」以「请」字的恳切与「一声」的收束，使全诗在深情的呼唤中戛然而止，余韵悠长。整首诗由问而诉、由诉而唤，情感的递进与语气的渐强同步，虽是自由诗，却自有跌宕起伏的内在节奏，故能跨越七十余年，在被谱曲传唱后依然具有直击人心的力量。

Line by line

你可知妈港不是我的真名姓？

Do you know that Macau is not my true name?

你可知道，「妈港」并不是我的真实姓名？我的真名，叫作澳门。

Do you know that Ama Harbor is not my true name?

这是全诗的开篇，也是振聋发聩的第一问。诗人让澳门以第一人称「我」向母亲发问：「你可知妈港不是我的真名姓？」——「妈港」是葡萄牙人对澳门的称呼「Macau」的音译，本是殖民者强加的名字，诗人以这一问戳破名字的错位：我的真名姓是「澳门」，是中华故土的名字，殖民者却让我以「妈港」之名流落海外。名字之争，实为主权之争、身份之争——一个「不是」，否定的不仅是名字，更是殖民统治的合法性。这一问以「你可知」的设问开篇，仿佛游子见到母亲的第一句话，委屈、急切、期盼交织；而「真名姓」三字更点出问题的核心：名字是身份的凭证，认名即认亲，归名即归宗。全诗由此一问拉开序幕，为下文「叫我一声澳门」的呼唤埋下伏笔，一开篇便以极短的诗行承载极深的国族之痛，正是闻一多炼句的功力所在。

The name. Do you know that Ama Harbor is not my true name? The is-Ama-Harbor-not-my-true-name question is the opening. To have questioned the name would be a question; the do-you-know-that-ama-harbor-is-not-my-true-name is the question.

我离开你的襁褓太久了，母亲！但是他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂。

I have been away from your swaddling-clothes far too long, Mother! But what they carried off was my body; you still keep the soul within me.

我离开你的襁褓已经太久了，母亲！虽然他们掳走的是我的肉体，你却依然保管着我内心的灵魂。

Too long I have left your swaddling clothes, Mother! But it is my body they have seized; my inner soul you still keep.

这是全诗情感最沉痛的两句，写尽三百年的分离之痛与灵魂不灭的坚守。「我离开你的襁褓太久了」把澳门比作幼时离开母亲怀抱的婴儿：「襁褓」指包裹婴儿的布带，是母亲怀抱的象征，一个「太久了」写尽三百余年的漂泊无依，字字含泪；「母亲！」的呼告是儿女对至亲的泣诉，一声「母亲」，把国土与祖国的关系还原为最本真的骨肉亲情。「但是他们掳去的是我的肉体，你依然保管着我内心的灵魂」是全文的警句：「掳去」写殖民者强盗式的掠夺，毫不掩饰其暴虐；「肉体／灵魂」对举，形成尖锐的张力——肉体可以被他者霸占，灵魂却始终属于母亲，身可辱而心不屈，物可夺而志不移。这十六个字，既是澳门三百年的屈辱史，也是中华民族不屈的精神宣言：殖民者能占我土地，夺不走我的文化认同与民族之魂。两句由痛而贞，沉痛中有傲骨，是全诗的精神脊梁。

The soul. Too long I have left your swaddling clothes, Mother! But it is my body they have seized; my inner soul you still keep. The too-long-from-the-swaddling-clothes and the seized-body-but-kept-soul are the lament. To have kept the soul would be a keeping; the too-long-i-have-left-your-swaddling-clothes-mother-but-it-is-my-body-they-have-seized-my-inner-soul-you-still-keep is the keeping.

三百年来梦寐不忘的生母啊！请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门！

Three hundred years — birth-mother whom I never forget, not even in dreams! Call me by my childhood name; call me Macau, once!

三百年来，我做梦都忘不了的生身母亲啊！请呼唤儿的乳名，叫我一声「澳门」吧！

Mother, my birth mother, dreamed of for three hundred years! Please call me by my childhood name—call me Macau!

这是全诗的高潮与归宿，也是闻一多爱国之情的喷薄处。「三百年来」回扣上文的「太久了」，以整数的悲怆写尽岁月之漫长：三百多年的日日夜夜，澳门无时无刻不在思念母亲；「梦寐不忘」四字写这种思念已深入骨髓——不是清醒时的偶尔想起，而是睡梦中都不曾忘记，「生母」前冠以「梦寐不忘」，把游子的痴情写到极致。「请叫儿的乳名，叫我一声澳门」是全部情感的总爆发：「乳名」是儿时母亲呼唤的名字，最是亲昵，澳门所求的不是别的，只是母亲唤一声自己的乳名，承认自己还是母亲的儿子；「叫我一声澳门」的「一声」，写尽渴望之微与渴望之切。至此，全诗完成了从「问名」（妈港不是真名姓）到「归名」（叫我一声澳门）的完整回环：名字的回归即身份的回归，身份的回归即领土的回归。两句如游子扑入母亲怀中的一哭，字字是泪，是《七子之歌》中最动人的呼唤，也是澳门同胞与全体中国人共同的心声。

The call. Mother, my birth mother, dreamed of for three hundred years! Please call me by my childhood name—call me Macau! The three-hundred-years dreamed mother and the call-me-Macao are the close. To have called Macao would be a call; the mother-my-birth-mother-dreamed-of-for-three-hundred-years-please-call-me-by-my-childhood-name-call-me-macau is the call.

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Word focus

妈港 Ma-gang, the Chinese rendering of the Portuguese Macau. Portuguese sailors landed near the A-Ma temple in the mid-16th century, were told the place was called 'Ma-gao', and spelled it Macau. The poem turns this borrowed name into an accusation: it is a foreign sound put on Chinese soil, and the true name is 'Macau' in Chinese. 「妈港」一词，是全诗的第一关键词，也是殖民历史在语言上的烙印。「妈港」是澳门葡文名「Macau」的音译：16世纪中叶，葡萄牙人抵达澳门妈阁庙附近，询问地名，当地人以闽粤方言「妈阁」答之，葡人音译为「Macau」，再转译为汉语即成「妈港」。诗人以「你可知妈港不是我的真名姓」开篇，正是抓住这个名字大做文章：殖民者以洋名「妈港」称呼这片土地，仿佛给它换了姓氏，抹去它作为中国领土的身份；而「澳门」这个真名，才是中华文明赋予它的身份印记。一个「不是」，否定的不仅是名字，更是殖民者强加的异姓与异籍。值得注意的是，「妈港」虽含「妈」字，却是陌生的洋腔；「澳门」才是母亲的呼唤——同是「妈」，一为殖民之名，一为归宗之号，诗人正是借这名字的错位，写出国土身份认同的百年之痛。

襁褓 Swaddling-clothes, the cloth wrapped round an infant. The poet uses it to say the land was taken from its mother's arms in babyhood, so the separation is not a historical event but a state of childhood deprivation; the image also makes the waiting feel intimate and endless. 「襁褓」一词，是理解全诗比喻体系的关键。「襁褓」指包裹婴儿的布带与被子，引申为婴儿时期、母亲的怀抱；诗人以「我离开你的襁褓太久了」写澳门与祖国的分离，把领土关系彻底人伦化、亲情化——澳门不是被「割让」的领土，而是离开母亲怀抱太久的「儿子」，国土的沦丧成了骨肉的离散。这一比喻的妙处在于，它把抽象的政治概念（殖民、租借、主权）转化为最柔软、最普遍的亲情体验：襁褓是每个人生命最初的记忆，离开襁褓太久是每个人都能体会的分离之痛，读者不必懂得近代史，便能理解澳门三百年的思念。「太久了」三字，更以时间的漫长加重情感的浓度——襁褓之忆本是婴儿期的短暂，而澳门的离怀竟有三百年，一词之中，历史的悲怆与亲情的绵长交织，正是闻一多「以家喻国」诗艺的精华。

掳去 To carry off by force. The verb normally describes kidnapping people and livestock; by applying it to land, the poet denudes the seizure of any legal colour and makes the coloniser a bandit, so that the rhyme with the 'body' that follows is both violent and pitiful. 「掳去」一词，写殖民者侵占澳门的方式，是全诗对殖民暴行最直接的指控。「掳」本义为俘获、抢夺人口牲畜，多用于强盗绑票、敌人掳掠，带有强烈的暴力色彩；诗人不说「占据」「割让」「租借」这些政治术语，而用「掳去」，正是要揭穿殖民统治的强盗本质——澳门不是合法交易的对象，而是被强盗掳走的「孩子」。「但是他们掳去的是我的肉体」一句，「掳去」与「肉体」相连，把殖民者写得如掳人肉票的绑匪，其行径之暴虐、澳门之无辜，跃然纸上。更妙的是，「掳去」与下句「你依然保管着我内心的灵魂」形成对照：肉体可以被掳，灵魂却保管在母亲手中——「掳」字的暴力，恰恰反衬出灵魂的不可侵犯。一字之间，殖民者的暴行与民族气节的坚守同时呈现，正是「一字千钧」的炼字之功。