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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

木兰柴

Mulan Chai (the Mulberry Fence)

王维

Wang Wei

写景Scenery writing 辋川Wangchuan

秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣。
彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所。

The autumn hills gather up the last of the light; the flying birds follow the one before them.
Their colours and their green are at times clear, at times lost; the evening haze has nowhere to rest.

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Meaning

A corner of the Wangchuan villa at dusk. The hills have drawn in the remaining sun, and birds are flying home in single file after their leader. Then the light changes: the blue-green of the slopes brightens and dims as the cloud moves, and the evening mist comes on with no fixed place, filling and thinning as it goes. The poem ends on that last image — a haze with no shape — which is the poet's way of leaving the scene unfinished and the eye resting on nothing in particular.

秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣。彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] Four short lines and two moments. The first couplet is nearly concrete: hills, the last sun, birds following a leader. The second couplet becomes a study of light and mist, and the poem stops there. [Structure] A five-character quatrain. The first couplet has a subject and a verb — the hills gather, the birds follow; the second has no subject that acts, only colours that appear and a haze that is nowhere. [Imagery] 'Gather up the last of the light' gives the hills a deliberate gesture; 'follow the one before them' gives the birds a procession. Then the colours come and go, and the mist is defined by the absence of a place. [Emotion] The emotion, if it can be called that, is the quiet of the place. Wang Wei's landscape poems rarely state a mood; here the mood is in the choice to end on a haze that has no boundaries, which leaves the reader with the same empty, drifting eye the poet had. The poem also carries his Buddhist habit of seeing in appearance the sign of what does not stay.

【白话串讲】王维写《木兰柴》：“秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣”——“彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所”——他写秋山的夕照与飞鸟——彩翠忽明忽暗，夕岚飘忽不定——他写辋川的景色。【意象与手法】此诗写木兰柴秋景，以写景写秋色，是王维的名篇。前二句写秋山：「秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣」写秋山敛余照、飞鸟逐前侣——写尽秋山的夕照；后二句写夕岚：「彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」写彩翠时分明、夕岚无处所——写尽夕岚的迷离。全诗以写景写秋色，写尽木兰柴秋景，是王维的代表作。【情感与主旨】此诗写木兰柴秋景，以写景写秋色，是王维的名篇。木兰柴是王维辋川别业的景点之一，此诗为《辋川集》二十首之一。此诗写秋日黄昏木兰柴的景色：秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣——写秋山敛余照、飞鸟逐前侣，写尽秋山的夕照；彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所——写彩翠时分明、夕岚无处所，写尽夕岚的迷离。全诗以写景写秋色——那「秋山敛余照」写尽秋山的夕照，「夕岚无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离，写尽木兰柴秋景，是理解王维山水诗的重要篇章。【名句点睛】常考「秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣」写秋山的夕照；「彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」写夕岚的迷离；以及全诗以写景写秋色、以画入诗的手法。

Background

Wang Wei (701-761), a great landscape poet and painter, retired to a villa at Wangchuan in Lantian; the twenty poems of the Wangchuan Collection were written with his friend Pei Di on the twenty spots of that estate, each a quatrain on one place. Mulan Chai, the mulberry fence or stockade, is one of those spots. Wang Wei served in court but spent his later years here, and the collection is the clearest record of that life. He was a devout Buddhist and peers called him the Poet Buddha, which is why these poems are read as much for their stillness as for their pictures.

此诗写木兰柴秋景，以写景写秋色，是王维的名篇。王维（701—761），字摩诘，河东蒲州（今山西永济）人，唐代伟大的山水田园诗人，人称「诗佛」。木兰柴是王维辋川别业的景点之一（柴通砦，即栅栏、山居之意），此诗为《辋川集》二十首之一。《辋川集》是王维与好友裴迪同咏辋川二十景的组诗，每首皆以景为题，短小精悍而诗中有画。此诗写秋日黄昏木兰柴的景色：「秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣」写秋山敛余照、飞鸟逐前侣——写尽秋山的夕照（秋山收敛了最后一抹夕照，飞鸟追逐着前行的伴侣）；「彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」写彩翠时分明、夕岚无处所——写尽夕岚的迷离（山色的彩翠时隐时现，夕岚弥漫而无处所）。全诗以写景写秋色，写尽木兰柴秋景，是理解王维山水诗的重要篇章。还需说明《辋川集》的成诗背景：王维中年后在蓝田辋川购得宋之问旧墅，与裴迪浮舟往来、弹琴赋诗，因辑咏辋川二十景为《辋川集》，每景一绝，共四十首。此诗咏木兰柴，写的是柴栅一带秋日黄昏之景。王维于此组诗中多写静境，而此首独以「飞鸟逐前侣」「彩翠时分明」写动态与光色，正见其在静中观动、于色中见空的禅悟——那飞鸟之逐、彩翠之明，皆是刹那生灭的物象，而「夕岚无处所」正归于空无，可见王维「以禅入诗」的本色。

Art

The poem works by a single quiet contrast. The first couplet is full of motion and intention — hills that gather, birds that follow — and the second couplet is full of things that will not settle: colours that appear at one moment and are gone the next, and a mist that is explicitly nowhere. That progression from clear figures to unfixed haze is the poem's whole argument. Two verbs are picked out: 'gather' for the hills, which gives the landscape a hand, and 'follow,' which gives the birds a leader; both make the visible world look purposeful, and the second couplet then withdraws that purpose. The light changes are reported without any comment, which is exactly the painter's method — colour observed and left unlabelled. There is no moral and no mood-word; the poem ends on the haze so the reader is left with the same unhurried attention.

此诗的艺术特色可从四个方面解析。其一，以写景写夕照。「秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣」以写景写夕照——那「敛余照」写尽秋山收敛夕照、「飞鸟逐前侣」写尽飞鸟相逐，以写景写尽秋山的夕照。其二，以动态写生机。「飞鸟逐前侣」以动态写生机——那「逐前侣」写尽飞鸟相逐的动态，以动态写尽秋山的生机。其三，以光色写迷离。「彩翠时分明」以光色写迷离——那「彩翠时分明」写尽山色彩翠时隐时现，以光色写尽夕照的变幻。其四，以虚笔写夕岚。「夕岚无处所」以虚笔写夕岚——那「无处所」写尽夕岚弥漫无定，以虚笔写尽夕岚的迷离。此外，此诗前二句写实景（秋山、飞鸟），后二句写虚景（彩翠、夕岚），由实而虚，正是王维「诗中有画」而兼善光色的本领。四重手法，使此诗以写景写秋色，写尽木兰柴秋景，是王维的代表作。此诗尤可注意其光色处理：首句「敛余照」以「敛」字写夕照收束之态，二句「逐前侣」以「逐」字写飞鸟归飞之势，三句「时分明」写光色之变幻，四句「无处所」写岚雾之缥缈——四句之中，一敛一逐、一明一无，虚实相生，正是「计白当黑」的画理。全诗二十字，宛如一幅秋山夕照图：上句为山、为鸟之实景，下句为光、为岚之虚境，读来如见水墨点染，正合苏东坡评王维「诗中有画，画中有诗」之语。

Allusions

Nothing in the poem needs outside knowledge, and its power comes from that. The images belong to the inherited landscape vocabulary: the shepherd's hills at evening and the birds going home come from the Shijing and from Tao Yuanming's 'the hill vapour is fine at evening, the flying birds coming back' — the source that the poem's second half quietly reverses, since here the birds follow their leader rather than returning as a flock to a calm end. 'Coloured and green' continues the Tang habit of naming the mountain's blue-green, the same family as the 'empty green that wets the clothes' in Wang Wei's own poem 'In the Mountains.' 'Evening haze' is the standard word for the mountain mist. The poem is therefore a conversation with that tradition conducted entirely by changing one detail.

此诗的用语深植于山水与秋色的传统。「秋山敛余照」令人想到「秋山」写秋山的意象——「秋山敛余照」正是王维的名句，也令人想到「敛余照」写收敛夕照的意象——「山气日夕佳」（陶渊明）；「飞鸟逐前侣」令人想到「飞鸟」写飞鸟的意象——「飞鸟逐前侣」正是王维的名句，也令人想到「鸟倦飞而知还」（陶渊明）的飞鸟意象；「彩翠时分明」令人想到「彩翠」写山色青翠的意象——「彩翠时分明」正是王维的名句，也令人想到「空翠湿人衣」的山色；「夕岚无处所」令人想到「夕岚」写傍晚山岚的意象——「夕岚无处所」正是王维的名句，也令人想到「岚翠」写山间雾气的意象。全诗化用余照、飞鸟、彩翠、夕岚的意象，以写景写秋色，正是王维「诗中有画」而兼善光色、承山水传统写秋景的本领。更可玩味的是「彩翠」一词：彩翠即青翠而有光彩之色，唐人写山色多用之，如「岚翠」「空翠」；王维于此以「彩翠时分明」写夕照下山色的明灭，正是对「山色有无中」式光色变幻的细腻捕捉，亦与其《山中》「山路元无雨，空翠湿人衣」的设色同一机杼，可见王维对山色光影的敏感。

Commentary

The quatrain is one of the most praised of the Wangchuan Collection and a standard example of Wang Wei's picture-poetry. Qing readers called it a landscape rendered in painting terms; modern readers point to the second couplet as the proof that the poem is not only a picture — the colours that come and go and the haze with no dwelling place are the poet's way of showing appearance as something transient. It is usually read beside Lu Zhai in the same collection, where the same poet closes with the sunlight lying on the moss, and beside Tao Yuanming's drinking poem for the inheritance of the evening birds. The particular achievement is the use of an oblique-tone rhyme, rare in Tang quatrains, which leaves the lines stopping rather than ringing, and that is why the poem seems to fade at its end.

此诗历来被推为王维山水诗的名篇，也是《辋川集》的代表。历代论者对此诗评价极高：清人评此诗「以写景写秋色，诗中有画」；近人更指出「彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」写夕岚的迷离，是此诗的名句。在诗歌史上，此诗的特殊价值在于：它以四句的绝句写尽木兰柴秋景——那收敛余照的秋山，那追逐前侣的飞鸟，那时明时分的彩翠，那无处所的夕岚，都写尽了王维笔下的秋山夕照；那「彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」更写尽光色变幻的迷离。此诗与《辋川集》中《鹿柴》（「空山不见人」）同为山水名篇，一写「复照青苔上」的空山（鹿柴），一写「夕岚无处所」的秋山（木兰柴）；又与陶渊明「山气日夕佳，飞鸟相与还」的山水传统一脉相承，可见王维对陶渊明山水诗境的继承。对于今日读者，此诗是理解王维山水诗的窗口，也是中国诗写秋山夕照的经典——那无处的夕岚，穿越千年，仍在诉说着木兰柴的秋色。

Prosody

Form Poem — five-character quatrain (wu Yan jue ju)诗·五言绝句

Rhyme Five-character quatrain; rhymes on lü, suo (oblique tone, the sixth 'Yu' rhyme), one rhyme carried through in the upper rising tone五绝，押「侣」「所」韵（上声六语），一韵到底，音节清远

Tone pattern Oblique tone throughout, a stopped and level-buried sound; the rhymes are short vowels in the upper rising tone, so the lines stop rather than ring, which is why the poem seems to fade at its close.此诗为五言绝句，押仄声韵，一韵到底，音节清远，正合山水的清远。

Reading note Four lines of five characters in the rare oblique-tone quatrain, rhyming on lü and suo in the sixth 'Yu' rhyme. Oblique-tone quatrains are uncommon in the Tang, and the effect here is a series of short checked line-ends, so no line is allowed to sound out; the whole piece runs out like a picture being left unfinished. There is no antithetical couplet, the first couplet giving the figures and the second the light. Read the first couplet plainly and the last line slowly, letting the stopped rhyme carry the mist. This is Wang Wei's landscape quatrain at its shortest and most exact.此诗为五言绝句，四句——「秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣。彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所」，押「语」韵（侣、所），一韵到底，音节清远。全诗以写景写秋色：前二句写秋山的夕照（秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣），后二句写夕岚的迷离（彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所）。四句短章，前写夕照，后写夕岚，正见王维「诗中有画」的本色。此诗押仄声韵（上声语韵），仄韵绝句在唐绝句中较少，读来更显清峭幽远。诵读此诗，宜以清远的语调读「秋山敛余照」的夕照，以缥缈的语调读「夕岚无处所」的夕岚，结句「夕岚无处所」要读得虚渺而有余韵，方能传达出王维的清远淡泊。王维绝句以「诗中有画」著称，此诗正是其山水绝句的典范。

Line by line

彩翠时分明，夕岚无处所

Their colours and their green are at times clear, at times lost; the evening haze has nowhere to rest

山色的彩翠时隐时现，夕岚弥漫而无处所。

Bright green gleams at moments, the evening mist has no abiding place.

此二句是全诗写夕岚的核心，以彩翠时分明写光色，以夕岚无处所写岚雾，写尽夕岚的迷离，是千古名句。「彩翠时分明」写山色的彩翠时隐时现——那「彩翠」写山色青翠，「时分明」写时隐时现，写尽山色的变幻；「夕岚无处所」写夕岚弥漫而无处所——那「夕岚」写傍晚的山岚，「无处所」写弥漫无定，写尽夕岚的迷离。这句的深意在于：它以「彩翠时分明」的光色与「夕岚无处所」的岚雾，写尽夕岚的迷离——山色的彩翠时隐时现，那「彩翠时分明」写尽山色的变幻——夕照下，山色彩翠时明时暗、时隐时现，那「时分明」写尽夕照下光色的变幻；夕岚弥漫而无处所，那「夕岚无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离——傍晚的山岚弥漫，飘忽不定而无处所，那「无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离；那「彩翠时分明」写尽山色的变幻，那「夕岚无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离，一写光色，一写岚雾，写尽夕岚的迷离——彩翠时明、夕岚无定，正是黄昏山色的迷离变幻；此二句以彩翠、夕岚写尽夕岚的迷离，也让此二句成为全诗写夕岚的核心与千古名句。若换作直说「山上雾蒙蒙的」，则失其光色；唯以「彩翠时分明」写光色、「夕岚无处所」写岚雾，写尽夕岚的迷离，也让此二句成为全诗写夕岚的核心。

The mist. Bright green gleams at moments, the evening mist has no abiding place. The bright-green-now-bright and the evening-mist-nothing-steadfast are the scene. To have gleamed at moments would be a gleaming; the bright-green-gleams-at-moments-the-evening-mist-has-no-abiding-place is the gleaming.

秋山敛余照，飞鸟逐前侣

The autumn hills gather up the last of the light; the flying birds follow the one before them

秋山收敛了最后一抹夕照，飞鸟追逐着前行的伴侣。

Autumn hills gather the last light; flying birds follow their mates ahead.

此二句是全诗写夕照的核心，以秋山敛余照写夕照，以飞鸟逐前侣写动态，写尽秋山的夕照，是千古名句。「秋山敛余照」写秋山收敛了最后一抹夕照——那「秋山」写秋山，「敛余照」写收敛了最后一抹夕照，写尽秋山的夕照；「飞鸟逐前侣」写飞鸟追逐着前行的伴侣——那「飞鸟」写飞鸟，「逐前侣」写追逐前行的伴侣，写尽飞鸟的动态。这句的深意在于：它以「秋山敛余照」的夕照与「飞鸟逐前侣」的动态，写尽秋山的夕照——秋山收敛了最后一抹夕照，那「秋山敛余照」写尽秋山的夕照——秋山之上，夕照将敛，正是日暮的山色，那「敛余照」写尽夕照的将尽；飞鸟追逐着前行的伴侣，那「飞鸟逐前侣」写尽飞鸟的动态——归巢的飞鸟，追逐着前行的伴侣，正是日暮归鸟的动态，那「逐前侣」写尽飞鸟的归飞；那「秋山敛余照」写尽秋山的夕照，那「飞鸟逐前侣」写尽飞鸟的动态，一写夕照，一写飞鸟，写尽秋山的夕照——夕照将敛而飞鸟归飞，正是黄昏山色的动态画面；此二句以夕照、飞鸟写尽秋山的夕照，也让此二句成为全诗写夕照的核心与千古名句。若换作直说「傍晚的山上很安静」，则失其画面；唯以「秋山敛余照」写夕照、「飞鸟逐前侣」写动态，写尽秋山的夕照，也让此二句成为全诗写夕照的核心。

The birds. Autumn hills gather the last light; flying birds follow their mates ahead. The autumn-hills-gathering-last-light and the flying-birds-following-their-mates are the close. To have gathered the last light would be a gathering; the autumn-hills-gather-the-last-light-flying-birds-follow-their-mates-ahead is the gathering.

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Word focus

敛 In 'the autumn hills gather up the last of the light,' lian is to draw in, to gather and hold back. It is the first couplet's key verb: it makes the hills collect the sun as they would gather a thing into themselves, so the evening is shown as an act of taking in rather than as an absence of light. 「秋山敛余照」之「敛」字是写夕照的字眼，一个「敛」字写尽秋山收敛夕照的动态。敛者，收敛、收束也。王维以「秋山敛余照」写夕照，这个「敛」字至少有双重意味：其一，写夕照之收——那「秋山敛余照」写秋山收敛了最后一抹夕照，那「敛」字写尽夕照的收束——秋山敛起余照，正是日落山间，那「敛」字写尽夕照的收束；其二，写山色之静——那「敛」字更是写山色——山敛余照，正是山色的沉静，那「敛」字写尽秋山的静美。以「敛」字写夕照，正是王维写秋景的枢纽——若换作「收」「掩」等字，则或失其写收敛的凝练，或失其与「余照」的配合；唯「敛」字，以秋山敛余照写尽夕照的收束与秋山的静美，与「飞鸟逐前侣」的逐相合，写尽秋山的夕照，也让「秋山敛余照」成为全诗写夕照的名句。

无处所 In 'the evening haze has nowhere to rest,' wu chu suo means no place, nowhere to be found. It is unusual for a five-character line to end on three characters with this plainness, and the effect is to name the mist by its lack of location, so the haze is present only as an absence — which makes the poem close on emptiness. 「夕岚无处所」之「无处所」是写夕岚的字眼，一个「无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离。无处所者，无处可寻其所在也。王维以「夕岚无处所」写夕岚，这个「无处所」至少有双重意味：其一，写岚之迷离——那「夕岚无处所」写夕岚弥漫而无处所，那「无处所」写尽夕岚的迷离——岚雾弥漫，无处可寻，那「无处所」写尽夕岚的缥缈；其二，写境界之虚——那「无处所」更是写境界——夕岚无处所，正是山色的虚幻，那「无处所」写尽境界的虚渺。以「无处所」写夕岚，正是王维写迷离的枢纽——若换作「无定所」「何所在」等词，则或失其写无处所的音节，或失其与「夕岚」的配合；唯「无处所」三字，以夕岚无处所写尽夕岚的迷离与境界的虚渺，与「彩翠时分明」的时分明相合，写尽夕岚的迷离，也让「夕岚无处所」成为全诗写夕岚的名句。

木兰柴