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她是睡着了

She Is Asleep

徐志摩

Xu Zhimo

新月派Crescent Moon School 情诗Love poem 唯美抒情Aesthetic lyricism

她是睡着了——星光下一朵斜欹的白莲；
她入梦境了——香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟。

She is asleep — a white lotus leaning under the starlight; she has entered dream — a wisp of blue-spiral smoke rising from the censer.

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Meaning

Two lines from a longer poem on the sleeping beauty of a beloved. The first describes the body at rest, the second the mind at work behind the closed eyes, and together they turn an ordinary hour into a small religious or aesthetic vision. The poet watches rather than addresses, and the eyes stay shut throughout.

她睡着了——星光下，像一朵斜斜倚着的白莲；她进入梦境了——香炉里袅袅升起一缕碧螺般的轻烟。

Appreciation

[Structure] Two sentences of the same shape, each with a dash before its image, and the images in the two halves answer each other: the lotus under starlight outside, the smoke from the censer inside. [Imagery] The lotus is the classical figure for a woman's purity, leaned and half-fallen, so that even the stillness is slightly inclined; the smoke is the classical figure for something ungraspable, and it is used here to hold the dream at a distance from the sleeping body. [Motion] The two verbs chosen are the poem's whole dynamism: one object is leaning, the other is rising, and the poem is balanced between the two directions. [Tone] Nothing is addressed and nothing is explained, and the restraint is what gives the lines their tact; the poet is watching rather than speaking, and its love is all in the choice of what to watch.

【白话串讲】徐志摩写《她是睡着了》：“她是睡着了——星光下一朵斜欹的白莲”。“她入梦境了——香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟”——他把睡着的她比作白莲。【意象与手法】以意象写人，白莲喻睡姿、碧螺烟喻梦境，比喻精妙；由实入虚，从形体的安眠写到梦境的飘忽；语言柔美，色彩（白、碧）、动静（欹、袅）搭配和谐，是新月派「绘画美」的典范。【情感与主旨】以审美的眼光凝视爱人的睡态，满含怜爱与欣赏，把女性睡眠之美写得圣洁如莲、迷离如烟，是唯美主义情诗的极致。【名句点睛】常考「星光下一朵斜欹的白莲」的比喻——以白莲写睡姿之净美，「斜欹」二字传神；「香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟」以烟写梦，虚实相生。

Background

Xu Zhimo (1897–1931) studied in Britain and the United States, taught at Peking University and other colleges, and died at thirty-four in a flying accident. He was the leading theorist of the Crescent Moon school, which insisted on polish and on the three beauties of music, colour and architecture; among his best known volumes are the poems written in the second half of the 1920s for the woman who became his wife. This poem belongs to that group and was written around 1925. The tradition of the sensitive poet loving a married woman was one he shared with many of his contemporaries, and what distinguishes this poem is the detachment of its eye.

徐志摩（1897—1931），浙江海宁人，新月派代表诗人，曾留学英美，深受西方浪漫主义与唯美主义影响，归国后任教于北京大学、光华大学等，1931年因飞机失事罹难，年仅三十四岁。其诗风柔美飘逸，追求闻一多所倡导的「音乐美、绘画美、建筑美」，以《再别康桥》《雪花的快乐》《偶然》等名篇享誉诗坛。《她是睡着了》是徐志摩1925年前后的作品，收入其第二部诗集《翡冷翠的一夜》（1927年），是他写给恋人陆小曼的情诗系列之一。全诗较长，以细腻的笔触铺写所爱女子睡态之美，此节选为其开篇两行，奠定了全诗的意象基调。徐志摩与陆小曼的爱情当时承受巨大社会压力，诗人于热恋与苦闷交织中写下大量情诗，此诗不见愁苦，唯见凝视的柔情与审美的沉醉，正是诗人「爱、自由、美」三位一体的人生信仰的诗化表达。1920年代中国新诗正处于从「白话诗」向「艺术诗」的转型期，新月派力矫初期白话诗的散漫，提倡格律与意象的经营，此诗以精雕细琢的意象写瞬间情态，正是这一艺术自觉的产物。

Art

The two lines are built on a symmetry that carries the whole poem. Each is a short statement of fact about sleep followed by a dash and then by an image placed in a location — under the starlight, in the censer; each image is named in the same order of colour and form; and the two locations put one outside under the sky and one inside in a room. The internal grammar is the same in both, so the reader hears the second line as a variation of the first rather than as a new statement, and the association between the two images does the work that a comparison would otherwise have to do. The verbs lean and rise provide the only movement, and they move in opposite directions, which is the poem's quietest piece of engineering.

此诗的艺术，集中体现为「意象写人」与「虚实相生」两大手法，两行之间结构对称而层次递进。首行「她是睡着了——星光下一朵斜欹的白莲」写睡者的形体：以「白莲」喻睡姿，取其洁白、端庄、出尘之意；「星光下」为睡者布景，星月之光辉映白莲，更显其清辉圣洁；「斜欹」二字是点睛之笔——「欹」即倾斜倚靠，写睡者斜卧之态，既是体态的写真，又暗含「不胜娇羞」的古典美人韵味，若用「斜躺」「横卧」则失其雅，唯「斜欹」兼得形神。次行「她入梦境了——香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟」写睡者的梦境：由形体转入精神，由实景转入虚景——以香炉中袅袅升起的碧螺烟喻梦境之迷离飘忽，烟之轻、之柔、之袅娜，正如梦之朦胧、之易逝、之缠绵；「碧螺」既写烟色之青碧，又暗含碧螺春茶的雅致联想，色香并具。两行对举：睡着了对应入梦境了，白莲对应碧螺烟，星光对应香炉——一个在户外星光下，一个在室内香炉旁，由外而内、由静入幻；「白」与「碧」的色彩呼应，「欹」与「袅」的动态相映，画面明净而气息幽微。全诗以「她」为凝视中心，抒情主体隐于意象之后，不着一字情语而怜爱自见，正是徐志摩「以象写情」的纯熟之境。

Allusions

The white lotus is the oldest of the figures: it appears in the Buddhist scriptures as the flower of the pure heart, and the Confucian essayists had made it the flower that grows out of mud without soiling itself, and the poets had used it for the beauty of a woman's face. Leaning, and half overturning, draws on the tradition of the fair individual slightly overcome by a faintness. The censer and its smoke bring back a whole indoor tradition of the boudoir, the incense burning while the night goes by, and the smoke's own literary history is one of things half seen and half gone. The two together are the Chinese poetic inheritance speaking through a modern poem without a single archaism in the wording.

此诗虽为现代新诗，其意象却深植于中国古典文化传统。「白莲」是中国文学与宗教中最圣洁的意象之一：佛家以莲喻净（《华严经》「莲花出淤泥而不染」），文人以莲喻德（周敦颐《爱莲说》「出淤泥而不染，濯清涟而不妖」），而「月光下的白莲」更承六朝以来「美人如花」的比兴传统——李白「云想衣裳花想容」、白居易「梨花一枝春带雨」，皆以花写美人；徐志摩以「星光下的白莲」写睡者，取其高洁、清冷、出尘，把女性的睡眠之美提升到近乎神性的境界。「斜欹」的睡姿亦暗通古典仕女画与《诗经》「寤寐思服」的传统，只是把「寤寐」之思化为「斜欹」之态。「碧螺烟」的意象则汇合三重文化记忆：一是香炉与焚香的闺阁传统（温庭筠「玉炉香，红蜡泪」、李清照「瑞脑消金兽」），写女子居室之幽雅；二是「烟」的幻灭美学——李商隐「蓝田日暖玉生烟」的迷离意象、古典诗词「一缕轻烟」的缥缈情致，正合梦境的虚幻特质；三是「碧螺」之名暗含碧螺春茶的清芬，色香具足。睡者如莲，梦者如烟，一实一虚、一洁一幻，皆是中国美学「以物写人、遗貌取神」传统的现代回响。

Commentary

The poem is among the best known of the Crescent Moon lyrics, and the two lines are among the most frequently quoted in modern Chinese verse. Its reputation rests on two things: the precision of the imagery, which is the school’s principle carried to its limit, and the absence of any explicit feeling, which is what made it readable at a time when much verse of the period was declaring. later poets have returned to these two lines for the model of how much can be held in a comparison, and the phrases are still borrowed by songwriters. As a document of the 1920s it also records how completely the classical vocabulary had been absorbed.

《她是睡着了》是徐志摩情诗中的精品，也是新月派「唯美抒情」的标本，此节选两行更以意象的精妙著称。从文学史看，此诗体现了1920年代新诗艺术化的最高成就之一：初期白话诗（胡适等）重「明白清楚」而少意象经营，徐志摩与新月派诸人则把古典诗词的意象传统与西方象征主义的修辞技巧引入新诗，使新诗由「说理言志」转向「以象传情」——此诗以白莲、碧螺烟两个意象写尽睡态与梦境，正是这一转型的实证。从接受史看，徐志摩情诗以「爱」为宗教，此诗所写的女性睡态之美，与《再别康桥》的离别之美、《雪花的快乐》的飞扬之美，共同构成徐志摩诗歌的柔美主调，影响了几代新诗读者的审美趣味；诗中「斜欹的白莲」的意象，被后世诗人与歌词作者反复化用，成为「睡美人」母题在中国新诗中的经典表达。从思想史看，此诗写于徐志摩与陆小曼热恋而承受社会压力的时期，诗中不见苦闷只余沉醉，恰见其「艺术化生活」的人生态度——以美的凝视超越现实的烦恼，把爱情升华为纯粹的审美。如今读来，这两行诗仍如星光下的白莲，清辉不减，是新诗抒情传统中不可磨灭的一页。

Prosody

Form Modern new poetry, unrhymed but closely measured; a two-line lyric in the manner of the Crescent Moon school现代新诗（自由诗，新月派抒情短诗）

Rhyme The two lines rhyme with each other on the final word of each image, lotus and smoke, both closing on the same open nasal, and the reader hears the rhyme as a pair closing rather than as a scheme.两行诗虽短，而音乐性极强：首行「莲」与次行「烟」押「an」韵，形成呼应；「斜欹」「袅起」等词声调柔婉；句中「她是睡着了」「她入梦境了」以「了」字拖音，如叹息般舒缓，全诗气息绵长。

Tone pattern Each line falls into three movements: a short statement, a pause marked by the dash, and then a slowly unfolding picture. The pause is what gives the poem its art; the reader is held before the image is placed.两行结构对称——「她是睡着了——」「她入梦境了——」两个短句以破折号领起意象，一实一虚；节奏先平后扬、先叙后喻，语调轻柔舒缓，如夜话低语，正合「睡」的主题。

Reading note The poem is a good example of the Crescent Moon argument that free verse can still be built like a structure. Two lines, each with two pauses, each composed of the same parts in the same order, is as deliberate as any classical octave, and the rhymes, though they are only two, are enough because the last words of the lines are the words the poem is about. Read aloud, the longest lines seem longer than they are, which is the effect the poet is aiming at.此诗虽为自由诗，其分行与节奏却经营得极为讲究，堪称「分行成乐」的典范。两行诗各有两次停顿：首行「她是睡着了／——星光下／一朵斜欹的白莲」，次行「她入梦境了／——香炉里／袅起一缕碧螺烟」，句式完全对称——都是「主语＋谓语句」起，破折号后「地点／名词或动词短语」承接，形成严格的建筑美（新月派「三美」之一）。节奏上，每行内部由短到长、由急到缓：开头的「她是睡着了」五个字如轻轻叹息，破折号如屏息凝视的停顿，随后「星光下一朵斜欹的白莲」以舒缓的节奏徐徐展开画面，如镜头缓缓摇过；两个「了」字句的呼应、两个意象句的对偶，使两行诗如两段乐句，一咏一叹，回环往复。音韵上「莲」（lian）与「烟」（yan）同押「an」韵，韵脚在行末轻轻落下，如梦呓之收尾；「白莲」「碧螺烟」中「白」「碧」两个色彩字皆入声，读来有清脆的质感，与「斜欹」「袅起」的柔婉声调相映成趣。全诗以对称的建筑、回环的节奏、轻灵的韵脚，把「睡着了」的静谧写得如一首摇篮曲，正是徐志摩「诗是音乐」主张的绝佳注脚。

Line by line

她是睡着了——星光下一朵斜欹的白莲；

She is asleep — a white lotus leaning under the starlight;

她睡着了——在星光下，她像一朵斜斜倚靠着的白莲花。

She is asleep—a white lotus leaning beneath the stars;

首行写睡者的形体，是全诗意象的基石。「她是睡着了」以最朴素的口语起句，直陈事实，毫无修饰；破折号后笔锋一转，以「星光下一朵斜欹的白莲」为这朴素的事实披上诗意的光辉——「星光下」先布景，星光清冷而柔和，为白莲镀上梦幻的银辉；「白莲」是核心比喻，取莲花之洁白、端庄、出水之高洁，喻睡者之纯净安详；「斜欹」二字最为传神，写白莲（睡者）斜斜倚靠之态，既写体态的慵懒自然，又暗含古典美人的娇柔韵致。整句由实入喻，由「她」入「莲」，人花合一，把女性睡眠之美写得圣洁而不涉情欲，如一幅月下睡莲图。句中「星光」「白莲」皆冷色调意象，却因「斜欹」的柔态而温馨脉脉；句式上口语陈述与意象铺陈相接，破折号如镜头切换，由近景拉为全景，节奏舒展，正是徐志摩「以象写情、以美化情」的典型笔法。

The lotus. She is asleep—a white lotus leaning beneath the stars. The asleep and the leaning white lotus under the stars are the image. To have been the leaning lotus would be a being; the she-is-asleep-a-white-lotus-leaning-beneath-the-stars is the being.

她入梦境了——香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟。

she has entered dream — a wisp of blue-spiral smoke rising from the censer.

她进入梦境了——香炉里袅袅升起一缕碧螺般的轻烟。

She has entered her dream—a thread of turquoise smoke curls from the censer.

次行由形体转入梦境，是全诗由实入虚的转折，也是意象最迷离之处。「她入梦境了」与首行「她是睡着了」对举，由睡之形体递进到梦之精神，层次分明；破折号后以「香炉里袅起一缕碧螺烟」写梦——香炉是闺阁居室的雅物，袅起的烟轻、柔、飘忽、易散，正是梦境的绝妙对应：梦如烟，捉不住、留不下，一缕袅袅，须臾幻灭。「碧螺」一词极见匠心：写烟色之青碧，如螺髻之形、如碧螺春茶之清芬，色香并具，比「一缕轻烟」的泛写多了一层雅致的具体性；「袅起」之「袅」写烟之上升回旋之态，柔美绵长，与首行「斜欹」的静态形成动静呼应。整句以室内香炉的幽微之境写梦境之虚幻，由户外星光转入室内炉烟，空间转移而意境贯通——睡者如在星光下的白莲，梦者如香炉上的碧螺烟，一实一虚，一洁一幻，把「睡着」与「入梦」的两个层次写得浑然一体，正是新月派「绘画美」与「音乐美」兼备的佳句。

The smoke. She has entered her dream—a thread of turquoise smoke curls from the censer. The entered-dream and the curling turquoise smoke from the censer are the turn. To have entered the dream would be an entering; the she-has-entered-her-dream-a-thread-of-turquoise-smoke-curls-from-the-censer is the entering.

Study

Word focus

斜欹 Leaning, tilted, half overturned. The word is what keeps the sleeping figure from being inert, and its refinement is why the poet chose it over any plainer word for lying down. 「斜欹」是首行写睡姿的词眼，两个字道尽白莲（睡者）的体态与神韵。「欹」即倾斜、倚靠，与「斜」连用为同义复词，写斜斜倚靠、自然松弛的睡姿——不是正襟危卧，不是横躺竖卧，而是略带倾斜的倚卧之态，慵懒而不失端庄，自在而不失优雅。这个词的妙处有三：其一，写实精准，睡者的体态正是「斜欹」；其二，写神入微，斜欹之态暗含「不胜娇羞」的古典美人韵味（如《红楼梦》写黛玉「闲静时如姣花照水，行动处似弱柳扶风」），把睡眠之美写得柔而不媚；其三，音节柔美，「斜欹」二字一平一仄，读来轻软绵长，正合睡态的舒缓。若易为「斜躺」「歪卧」则俗，易为「倚靠」则板，唯「斜欹」兼得形神与音韵，是徐志摩炼字「以雅驯写柔美」的典范，也可见其对新诗语言「含蓄蕴藉」的自觉追求。

碧螺烟 Blue-spiral smoke: smoke that is green-blue in colour and spiral in movement, the name of a fine green tea being what gives the phrase both its colour and its association of things made by hand. 「碧螺烟」三字是次行写梦境的意象核心，也是全诗最见才情的新造词。「碧」写烟色之青绿，「螺」写烟形之盘旋如螺髻，「烟」写其轻飘之质——三字连用，把一缕香烟写得有色、有形、有质：碧色如黛，螺形如髻，袅袅上升，盘旋轻扬。更为巧妙的是「碧螺」的联想义：碧螺春茶名满天下，其香清雅、其色碧翠，以「碧螺」状烟，仿佛连烟都带着茶香的清芬，色香并具，把闺阁香炉的幽雅写到了极致；而「螺」字亦暗合《诗经》「螺髻」之美与女子发髻的联想，使梦境与睡者若即若离——烟是梦，梦是她，她如烟。与「袅起一缕」配合，「一缕」写烟的纤细，「袅起」写烟的轻柔上升，三词共同构成「一缕碧螺烟」的完整意象，虚中有实、实中透虚。作为新诗的自造意象，「碧螺烟」融合古典雅趣与现代修辞，正是徐志摩「以古雅入新诗」的得意之笔，故能一字传神，千年生香。

袅 Winding, slender, rising slowly: the single verb that gives the smoke its motion, and the one word in the poem that moves. 「袅起」的「袅」字是次行唯一的动态词，写碧螺烟上升之态，也写梦境之质。「袅」本指烟气缭绕上升、轻柔绵长的样子（如「袅袅炊烟」「余音袅袅」），此处单用一「袅」字与「起」组合，把香烟写得柔若无骨、缓若游丝——不是直冲而上，而是回旋盘绕、袅袅升腾，如舞女的腰肢，如梦境的流转。这个字与全诗的意象系统丝丝入扣：其一，写梦之虚幻，烟袅袅而起、飘忽易散，正如梦境之迷离、之须臾；其二，写情之缠绵，袅袅的烟如缕缕的思念，不绝如缕，暗写抒情者对睡者的无限怜爱；其三，写境之幽静，香炉一缕、青烟袅袅，衬出居室之静谧，与「睡着了」「入梦境了」的静境相合。音节上「袅」字轻软上扬，读来如见烟起，与首行「斜欹」的柔缓遥相呼应，一静一动，共同织成全诗迷离幽微的意境，是徐志摩善用单字动词传神的明证。