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近现代近现代 · 诗 Poem

天上的街市

The Market in the Sky

郭沫若

Guo Moruo

名篇Theme 想象Theme 星空Starry sky

远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星。
天上的明星现了，好像点着无数的街灯。
我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市。
街市上陈列的一些物品，定然是世上没有的珍奇。

Far off the street lamps are lit,
as if they flashed with numberless stars.
The stars in the sky have appeared,
as if they were numberless street lamps being lit.
I think that in the misty, fathomless air
there certainly is a beautiful market;
some of the goods on display there
are certainly treasures the world has never had.

Listen

Meaning

Looking up from a street where the lamps have just come on, the poet sees the stars as lamps and the lamps as stars, until the two are indistinguishable. From that exchange he moves to a larger guess: in the misty void above there must be a beautiful market, and the goods displayed there must include treasures that no shop on earth can offer. The poem is Guo Moruo's answer to a dark world — an imagined city in the sky where what is scarcest on earth is common — and it is meant to be read as a wish rather than a description.

远处街上的路灯亮起来了，好像闪烁着无数的明星。天上的星星出现了，好像点着无数的街灯。我想那迷蒙缥缈的空中，一定有一个美丽的街市。街市上陈列的各种物品，一定是世间没有的珍奇。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The poem has only two movements, and both are short. It turns the street lamps the poet is standing under into stars, then turns the stars into lamps, and having made the exchange both ways it arrives at a conclusion: the air above must hold a market, and that market must hold what the world lacks. [Structure] The first stanza is entirely about light; the second is entirely about belief. The hinge between them is the single phrase wǒ xiǎng — 'I think' — which moves the poem out of description and into imagination without ever breaking the calm voice. [Imagery] The poem's effect depends on seeing one thing as another in a direction that runs upward: lamps to stars, stars to lamps, and finally the void to a market. Every image is made of light, so the whole poem is bright without ever being loud. [Tone] The sentence is plain — the vocabulary is almost entirely words of one or two syllables — and the word dìngrán ('certainly') is placed where a reader would expect doubt. That combination, childlike language and unshakable certainty, is what gives the poem its peculiar force: it believes out loud.

【白话串讲】郭沫若写《天上的街市》：“远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星”。“天上的明星现了，好像点着无数的街灯”——“我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市”——“那隔着河的牛郎织女，定能够骑着牛儿来往”——他写天上的理想国。【意象与手法】这是联想与想象的杰作：街灯与明星的「互喻」回环巧妙，由实入虚的过渡水到渠成；「缥缈」写幻境之朦胧，「定然」写信念之坚定，一虚一实，张力十足；语言明白如话，意境清新如童话。【情感与主旨】五四退潮后的郭沫若，身处黑暗现实之中，仰望星空，想象天上有一个陈列「世上没有的珍奇」的美丽街市——这是对理想社会的向往，也是以想象对抗现实的浪漫主义姿态。【名句点睛】「远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星」「我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市」两节互喻回环，清新隽永，是现代新诗中最著名的星夜想象之一。

Background

The poem was written in October 1921 and published in 1922; it was later collected in the poetry collection Starry Sky. Guo Moruo (1892–1978) was from Leshan, Sichuan, the leading romantic poet of modern China and a pioneer of the May Fourth new poetry; his Goddess, published in 1921, had opened a new era in a single volume. He wrote this poem after the May Fourth wave had subsided, when the movement itself was dividing and the country was still torn by warlord fighting and hardship — the gap between what the young poets had promised and what the world offered had never been wider. In that mood he looked up. The Starry Sky collection, whose title comes from Tagore's line about stars burning in the deep, is the work of a man trying to keep faith in beauty at exactly the moment when faith had become difficult, and this poem is its most popular poem.

《天上的街市》写于1921年10月，发表于1922年，后收入诗集《星空》，是郭沫若早期新诗的代表作之一。郭沫若（1892—1978），四川乐山人，中国现代文学史上浪漫主义诗人的代表，五四新文学运动的先驱，1921年出版诗集《女神》，开一代诗风。写作此诗时，五四运动的浪潮已经过去，新文化运动内部出现分化，社会现实依然黑暗，郭沫若本人也正处于「五四退潮」后的苦闷与彷徨之中——1921年他自日本留学归国，目睹国内军阀混战、民生凋敝的景象，深感理想与现实的巨大落差。在这样的心境下，他仰望星空，想象天上有一个美丽繁华的街市，那里陈列着「世上没有的珍奇」，以此寄托对理想社会的向往与对现实的不满。《天上的街市》正是这种「苦闷中的仰望」的产物：诗人把目光从污浊的人间转向「缥缈的空中」，在天上街市这一瑰丽的想象里，为自己也为读者构建了一个精神的避难所与理想的乌托邦。本文所录为全诗的前两节，写街灯与明星的互喻及天上街市之美的悬想。

Art

The poetry's machinery is a single rhetorical figure used twice in opposite directions: the lamps are compared to the stars, then the stars to the lamps. Because the two comparisons are exact mirrors, the poem dissolves the boundary between the ground the reader stands on and the sky above it, and the imagined market becomes less an invention than a discovery. Two small words do the real work. piāomiǎo ('mist, indefinite') keeps the imagined place just outside focus, so that it remains a wish and not a plan; dìngrán ('certainly') then states its existence flatly. The tension between the two — a place that is vague but a claim that is emphatic — is the poem's artistic center, and it reflects the poet's own conviction: the darker the world, the more firmly the sky must be asserted. Formally the poem is a free verse of four four-line stanzas, each stanza linked to the next by a single word (lamps, stars, market, treasures), so the whole piece advances like a chain.

《天上的街市》是现代自由诗的代表作，其艺术魅力首先来自奇妙的联想与想象。全诗由实入虚、由近及远：第一节写地上的街灯与天上的明星交相辉映，「远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星」「天上的明星现了，好像点着无数的街灯」，两个比喻相互回环，街灯与明星互为喻体，构成一个上下交融、亦真亦幻的光的世界；第二节由此自然引出「我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市」的想象，由眼前之景跃入心中之境，过渡如水到渠成。诗中「缥缈」「定然」两个词尤见匠心：「缥缈」写天上的街市若隐若现、似有似无，保持着想象应有的朦胧；「定然」则语气笃定，不容置疑——明知是想象，偏要说得确凿，正见诗人对理想世界的执着信念。结构上，全诗四节，每节四行，节与节之间环环相扣：街灯——明星——街市——珍奇，一物引一物，如链条般推进。语言上，全诗明白如话，不用生僻字、不用艰深典，却自有一种清新的诗意，这正是郭沫若「绝端的自由」新诗观的体现。

Allusions

The imagined market has parents in both Chinese and foreign tradition. The stars themselves are read as a market because Chinese astronomy has done so for two thousand years: Tianshiyuan (the Enclosed Market Wall) is the name of a constellation group outside the Purple Forbidden enclosure, described in the Jin shu of the 22 stars that 'preside over weights and measures and the gathering of the multitudes'; Buddhist texts likewise place a market in Trayastrimsa heaven. The poem also carries the Niu Lang and Zhi Nü legend, which the later stanzas make explicit — the cowherd and the weaver girl crossing a river of stars, riding an ox and carrying a lantern — and that legend, traced back to the Book of Songs, has been the Chinese people's poetic figure for love and reunion for two thousand years, Guo rewrites it here into a story of free, unhurried visits. The lights themselves belong to two ages at once: lanterns of the Chinese poetic tradition and electric street lamps of the modern city, which is what makes the mutual comparison possible at all.

《天上的街市》以星空为背景展开想象，其意象与文化内涵渊源有自。天上街市的核心意象，暗含着中国民间传说中「牛郎织女」的美丽神话——原诗后两节写到「那隔着河的牛郎织女，定能够骑着牛儿来往」「不信，请看那朵流星，那是他们提着灯笼在走」，可见诗人想象中的天街，正是以牛郎织女传说为底本的。牛郎织女故事源自《诗经·小雅·大东》「跂彼织女」「睆彼牵牛」的星象描写，至汉魏已定型为七夕鹊桥相会的动人传说，历来是中国人关于爱情与团圆的诗意想象；郭沫若在诗中让牛郎织女「骑着牛儿来往」「提着灯笼在走」，改写了传说中一年一度的悲伤结局，赋予他们自由往来、幸福美满的生活，这实际上是诗人借传说之壳装理想之核——被压迫者获得解放，苦难化为幸福，正是五四时代「人的解放」精神的投射。「明星」「街灯」的光意象，则承中国文学中灯火的温暖传统（如「灯火阑珊」「何当共剪西窗烛」），又与近代都市文明的街灯新景结合，古典的温馨与现代的繁华在诗中浑然一体，构成一个超越现实污浊的光明世界。

Commentary

The Market in the Sky is among the most widely loved short poems in modern China, and its place in the history of new poetry is as a proof of work. Early May Fourth verse ran either to direct argument or to a translation-influenced difficulty; Guo manages, in a poem every schoolchild knows, to be free in form and clear in language at the same time, and so it served as a model of what vernacular poetry could be. Its way of thinking — from the lamps on the street to the stars overhead to a market in the sky — has become a standard example of how a modern poem may move by association. The contrast it draws, a bright imagined world against a dark actual one, links it to the romantic tradition of setting imagination against reality, and to the fire imagery of Goddess in particular, though here the posture is a gentle look upward rather than a storm. Today 'the market in the sky' still means an ideal world to Chinese readers, and the poem's gentle, stubborn faith is why it has outlived the occasion that produced it.

《天上的街市》是郭沫若流传最广、最脍炙人口的短诗之一，也是中国现代新诗史上的经典名篇。在新诗发展史上，此诗具有承前启后的意义：五四初期的新诗多流于直白议论或欧化生涩，郭沫若能以如此清新自然、明白如话的语言写出具有童话色彩的抒情诗，证明新诗完全可以做到既自由又有诗意，为白话新诗的成熟提供了范本。此诗的想象方式——由地上的街灯联想到天上的明星，再悬想天上的街市——已成为现代诗歌联想与想象的经典范例，常被选入各种教材作为新诗入门的第一课。全诗「美丽」「缥缈」「珍奇」等词营造的理想世界，与当时黑暗的社会现实形成强烈反差，正体现了浪漫主义诗歌「以理想对抗现实」的精神传统，与《女神》中「凤凰涅槃」的烈火意象一脉相承，只是姿态由狂飙突进转为温柔仰望。时至今日，《天上的街市》依然是中国人心目中「星空诗意」的代表，那「浅浅的天河」与「提着灯笼在走」的牛郎织女，已成为几代人共同的文学记忆，其清新隽永的艺术生命力历久弥新。

Prosody

Form Modern free verse: four stanzas of four lines, no fixed line length and no fixed rhyme现代自由诗（无韵自由体，四节十六行）

Rhyme There is no end rhyme. The music comes instead from the repeated phrase structure of the opening lines and from the soft, open vowels that line them: the 'l...' and 's...' sounds of lamps and stars recur line after line, 'far' and 'stars' echo each other, and the 'i' vowel of 'misty, fathomless' and 'beautiful' gives the second stanza a thin, high resonance.全诗不押韵，韵律之美来自句式的复沓与节奏的舒缓。首节「明了／明星」「现了／街灯」形成回环复沓的句式结构，两节首句字数相同、结构相同，读来如波浪往复；「远远的」「无数的」等叠词与「的」字结构的大量使用，使节奏舒缓轻柔，恰合星夜仰望的情境。

Tone pattern The voice is level and unhurried throughout: the first stanza reports, the second believes. The one note of emphasis is dìngrán, which is placed so that it can be heard as firmness rising out of the softest part of the poem — the mist.语调温柔而笃定：前两节以陈述句写景，平静舒缓，如轻声细语；「我想」「定然」的出现使语气由描述转为宣示，肯定而坚决；全诗一气呵成，如行云流水。

Reading note This is free verse in the fullest sense: nothing is rhymed, nothing is measured by a fixed number of characters, and yet the poem is unusually regular in its music. Four stanzas of four lines, each stanza about the same length, each line ending in a soft or open sound; and the opening stanza is built from two sentences of exactly the shape 'X has appeared, as if ...' so that the whole poem begins with a kind of breathing that then repeats. The repeated structural words — hǎoxiàng twice, dìngrán twice, wǒ xiǎng once — do the work that a rhyme scheme would do elsewhere, and the effect is that the poem seems to be breathing rather than rhyming. When read aloud, the repetition of 'far off / as if' should not be hurried: the pause between the two halves of the comparison is where the poem's whole temptation lies.《天上的街市》是典型的现代自由诗，不讲究押韵与格律，其音乐性来自句式的安排与虚词的调度。全诗四节十六行，每节四行，节拍大体整齐：每行多为九至十二字，以「的」「了」「着」等词收尾或过渡，形成绵长的语流；「远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星」与「天上的明星现了，好像点着无数的街灯」两行结构完全同构，只在关键处掉换「街灯／明星」的位置，造成回环往复的复沓效果，读来如光影往返、如歌声绕梁。诗中叠词与轻声字（「远远的」「无数的」「美丽的」）密集，使节奏柔和绵软，仿佛夜色中低声的絮语，与星空的静谧浑然一体。「我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市」一句，「我想」的停顿与「定然」的重音，使语气在轻柔中透出坚定，情感层层推进。全诗虽无韵脚，却以句式的对称、词语的回环与虚词的抑扬自成一格，读来朗朗上口，余韵悠长，证明自由诗完全可以凭借内在节奏获得不亚于格律诗的音乐美。

Line by line

远远的街灯明了，好像闪着无数的明星。

Far off the street lamps are lit, as if they flashed with numberless stars.

远处街上的路灯亮起来了，好像闪烁着无数的星星。

The distant street lamps have lit, like countless bright stars twinkling.

这是全诗的第一句，以街灯起笔，为全诗定下宁静而温暖的基调。「远远的」三字先拉开距离，把目光引向远方，制造出眺望的姿势；「街灯明了」写灯亮的过程，「明了」一词朴素之极，却带着动态的欣喜，仿佛灯光在眼前次第绽放；「好像闪着无数的明星」以明星喻街灯，把地上的灯火写成了天上的星辰，平凡的路灯顿时有了璀璨的诗意。这一句的妙处在于「以实引虚」：街灯是实景，明星是虚象，由实入虚的联想为全诗的想象打开了大门。同时，「明了」与「闪着」都是进行时态，画面是流动的、明亮的，与后文「天上的明星现了」的「现」字呼应，构成上下两界的光的交响。作为开篇，此句以极朴素的语言营造极优美的意境，足见郭沫若「深入浅出」的语言功力。

The lamps. The distant street lamps have lit, like countless bright stars twinkling. The lit street lamps as twinkling stars are the opening. To have lit the lamps would be a lighting; the the-distant-street-lamps-have-lit-like-countless-bright-stars-twinkling is the lighting.

天上的明星现了，好像点着无数的街灯。

The stars in the sky have appeared, as if they were numberless street lamps being lit.

天上的明星出现了，好像天上点着无数盏街灯一样，璀璨明亮。

The bright stars in the sky have appeared, like countless street lamps lit.

这是全诗第二节的第一句，与首句遥相呼应，构成回环互喻的奇观。首句以明星喻街灯，此句反以街灯喻明星，喻体与本体互相调换，形成「街灯如星、星如街灯」的双向比喻，这在修辞学上称为「互喻」或「回喻」，是极其高明的联想手法。经此一喻，地上与天上、人间与星空被彻底打通：仰望星空时，仿佛看见的是人间万家灯火；俯视人间时，仿佛看见的是天上灿烂星河。这种天地交融的幻象，正是诗人浪漫想象力的集中爆发，也为下文「我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市」做了最自然的铺垫——既然天上的星星如街灯般闪烁，那么天上当然有街市，街市上当然有「世上没有的珍奇」。「现了」与首句「明了」对举，「明了」写灯次第亮起，「现了」写星渐次出现，两界之光交相辉映，全诗的意境由此推至澄澈空明之境。

The stars. The bright stars in the sky have appeared, like countless street lamps lit. The appeared stars as lit street lamps are the reverse simile. To have appeared the stars would be an appearing; the the-bright-stars-in-the-sky-have-appeared-like-countless-street-lamps-lit is the appearing.

我想那缥缈的空中，定然有美丽的街市。街市上陈列的一些物品，定然是世上没有的珍奇。

I think that in the misty, fathomless air there certainly is a beautiful market; some of the goods on display there are certainly treasures the world has never had.

我想那迷蒙缥缈的空中，一定有一个美丽的街市。街市上陈列的各种物品，一定是世间没有的珍奇。

I think in that ethereal sky there surely is a beautiful market. The wares displayed there must be rarities not found on earth.

这是全诗由景入想的转折点，也是诗人理想世界的正式登场。「我想」二字标示由实入虚的转换——前面的街灯明星是眼前的实景，此后的街市珍奇是心中的悬想；「那缥缈的空中」点明想象的空间，「缥缈」二字写尽星空的高远迷蒙，为想象保留了朦胧的美感。两个「定然」是全句的诗眼：明明是「我想」出来的幻境，却以「定然」言之，语气笃定如铁，不容置辩。这看似矛盾的修辞，恰恰道出了诗人最深的心曲——正因为人间没有美丽的街市、没有珍奇的物品，诗人越要坚信天上一定会有；「定然」的肯定，是对现实缺憾的抗议，也是对理想世界的执着。后一句「街市上陈列的一些物品，定然是世上没有的珍奇」把想象推向具体：不是泛指天上繁华，而是具体到「陈列的物品」「珍奇」，使幻境有了人间烟火气，读来如在眼前。两句由「缥缈」而「定然」，一虚一实、一疑一信，把苦闷中的仰望写得如此坚定，正是此诗动人的力量所在。

The market. I think in that ethereal sky there surely is a beautiful market. The wares displayed there must be rarities not found on earth. The ethereal-sky beautiful market and the surely-rarities-not-on-earth are the close. To have thought the market surely is would be a thinking; the i-think-in-that-ethereal-sky-there-surely-is-a-beautiful-market-the-wares-displayed-there-must-be-rarities-not-found-on-earth is the thinking.

Study

Word focus

缥缈 'In the piāomiǎo air' — piāomiǎo describes something hovering just out of sight, faint and unfocused. Here it does not weaken the imagination but protects it: because the sky is vague, the market stays a wish rather than a claim about astronomy, and the poem's faith is free to be absolute. The word also carries a literary memory — the misty mountains and sea of immortals in the White-Haired Lady's song, where the realm is beautiful partly because it cannot be reached. 「缥缈」一词，写天上街市所处的空间状态，是全诗想象力的定调之词。「缥缈」本义为高远隐约、若有若无之貌，如白居易《长恨歌》「山在虚无缥缈间」，多用于描写仙境、幻境；郭沫若用它写「空中」，既写星空之辽远高邈，又写想象之朦胧虚灵——天上的街市不是清晰的实景，而是在云雾般迷蒙的星空中若隐若现的幻象，正因「缥缈」，才有想象的余地，才配得上「美丽」「珍奇」的形容。同时，「缥缈」与「定然」构成全诗最精彩的张力：一个说世界若有若无，一个说街市必定存在；「缥缈」是现实的写照（理想渺远），「定然」是信念的宣示（理想必达），一虚一实之间，诗人苦闷而坚定的心境呼之欲出。选词的精准，使这一个词成为理解全诗精神结构的钥匙。

定然 'There dìngrán is a beautiful market' — dìngrán ('certainly, beyond doubt') is the poem's most deliberate choice. The speaker is in fact inventing the world he describes, yet the adverb refuses to admit it. That refusal is the point: the poem wants to believe in the sky precisely at the moment when the earth is dark, and every dìngrán in the poem is a small act of faith stated as fact. Its echo in dìngránshì in the last line turns the whole poem into a double assertion. 「定然」一词在诗中两次出现，是全诗语气最重、最见精神的关键词。「定然」即「一定、必定」，是副词性的断定之辞；用在「我想」的虚拟语境之后，造成「明知是想象，偏说得斩钉截铁」的奇妙效果。这一效果正是《天上的街市》的独特魅力所在：诗人不是怯生生地说「天上也许有街市」，而是高声宣布「天上定然有街市」——这「定然」二字，是对黑暗现实的决绝否定（人间没有的，天上必有），也是对理想世界的无条件信仰。五四退潮后的郭沫若，身处理想幻灭的苦闷之中，却借两个「定然」把心中的乌托邦说得无比确凿，这种「以想象对抗现实」的姿态，正是浪漫主义精神的精髓。反复使用「定然」，还形成排比的节奏，朗读时如誓言般铿锵，使全诗的信念感扑面而来。一个副词，撑起整首诗的理想主义天空，堪称以虚词写精神的典范。

珍奇 'Treasures the world has never had' — zhenqi means rare and precious things, and the poem's economy rests on the word: the imagined sky is worth building only if it can offer what the earth cannot. Because the reader senses that the market does not exist, zhēnqí does double duty as irony and as consolation — the rarity the world lacks is precisely the rarity the sky is imagined to hold in abundance. 「珍奇」一词，写天上街市陈列之物，是诗人理想世界价值内涵的浓缩。「珍奇」即珍贵奇异的物品，在人间是难得的宝物；诗人说街市上陈列的物品「定然是世上没有的珍奇」，一语双关：既是说天上之物人间无有，更是暗喻理想社会的幸福与美好是人间的黑暗现实所不具备的。由此，「珍奇」一词便成了「理想」的代名词——诗人向往的并非物质之宝，而是一个没有剥削压迫、充满光明与幸福的社会图景，只不过借「物品」「珍奇」这样具体的意象写出，使抽象的乌托邦有了可触的质感。从结构看，「珍奇」是第一节「明星」「街灯」的光之联想的自然延伸：由光而物，想象步步落实；也是后文牛郎织女幸福生活的必要铺垫。选词之精，在于用一个最普通的词承载最深的意义，这正是郭沫若早期新诗「深入浅出」的妙处。