清 Qing · 诗 Poem
赠柳生
To Master Liu
流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星。
江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听。
His bold spirit worn away, his temples flecked with grey.
How many affairs of the former dynasty lie in Jiangnan;
Told to the world, they are more than one can bear to hear.
Meaning
Liu Jingting, drifting through the world, has had his high spirit ground away and his temples have turned grey. Jiangnan holds so many stories of the former dynasty, and when they are told aloud no listener can bear to hear them through.
流落人间的柳敬亭啊，豪气消磨、两鬓已斑白。江南有多少前朝的旧事，说与人听竟叫人不忍卒闻。
Appreciation
In twenty-eight words this quatrain carries the weight of a whole change of dynasties. The first line calls the storyteller by name, which shows how well the poet knows him; the second, with its worn-out spirit and greying temples, sums up a hero in old age whose boldness has been rubbed away by time and disorder. The last two lines widen from the man to history, fusing Liu's fate with the fall of Jiangnan: the one who can tell the tales is already broken, the tales themselves are the grief of a lost dynasty, and the listeners cannot bear them. The word 'ruin' never appears, and yet the whole page is filled with the rise and fall of a state.
【白话串讲】 柳敬亭是明末最出名的说书人，明亡后流落人间。毛奇龄写他：“流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星”。“江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听”——他说的都是前朝旧事，听的人不忍心听。 【意象与手法】 此诗以极小篇幅写极深沧桑。首句‘流落人间柳敬亭’直呼其名，见相知之笃 【情感与主旨】 毛奇龄（1623—1716），字大可，号西河，浙江萧山人，明末清初学者、诗人 【名句点睛】 本诗为古典诗歌赏析中‘以小见大、借艺人写兴亡’的典型篇目。考点一
Background
Mao Qiling (1623-1716), styled Dake and known as Xihe, was a native of Xiaoshan in Zhejiang and a scholar and poet of the late Ming and early Qing. Liu Jingting was the most famous storyteller of that age; he had served in the headquarters of the general Zuo Liangyu, and after the fall of the Ming he drifted through Jiangnan, using his art to voice the grief of a ruined dynasty. This poem was written in the early Qing. Mao Qiling had lived through the same upheaval, and in presenting these lines to Liu he wrote of the man's decline and of the wearing away of his spirit while also hinting at his own sorrow for a lost state. The affairs of the former dynasty are the rise and fall of the Southern Ming, which Liu retold on his tongue until his hearers wept. Though addressed to a performer, the poem is an echo of the collective memory of a generation of loyalists.
《赠柳生》为清代毛奇龄所作，是赠柳敬亭的诗。毛奇龄（1623—1716），字大可，号西河，萧山人，清代经学家、文学家。此诗：流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星。江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听。全诗写柳敬亭说书、追述前朝之痛，是毛奇龄诗的名篇。
Art
The poem writes a vast change of times within the smallest possible compass. The opening line addresses Liu Jingting by his own name, which conveys the intimacy of true acquaintance; the seven words that follow, with the bold spirit gone and the temples flecked with grey, exhaust the image of a hero in his late years whose fire has been quenched by years and by war. The last two lines move from the man to history, welding his misfortune to the fall of Jiangnan: the teller has grown feeble, what he tells is the old bitterness of a ruined state, and the hearer cannot endure it, so the depth of the grief can be measured. Not one word says 'fall', and yet the fall of an age fills the paper; through the corner of one artist's life the whole landscape of the times appears, restrained and suggestive in the true manner of the old poets.
《赠柳生》艺术上以人物的特写与沧桑的感慨见长。全诗四句，层层写来：前二句写柳敬亭其人——“流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星”写流落人间、豪气消除、鬓已星星；后二句写前朝之事——“江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听”写江南前朝事、说与人不忍听。全诗以柳敬亭说书写前朝之痛，正是毛奇龄诗深沉感慨的笔法。
Allusions
The name Liu Jingting is itself a living allusion. Born to the Cao family, he was the master storyteller of the late Ming, served in Zuo Liangyu's army, wandered the rivers and lakes after the dynasty fell, and lodged his feelings in tales from The Water Margin and the Sui and Tang cycles; Kong Shangren also wrote him into The Peach Blossom Fan. By putting the real name into the poem Mao Qiling lays a personal fate over the memory of an age. The affairs of the former dynasty point to actual history, such as the collapse of the Hongguang court of the Southern Ming, and not to anything vague. The temples flecked with grey recast the imagery of Li Bai's white hair three thousand feet long and Pan Yue's starry white hairs to write the marks of age. The whole poem is built on a real person and real history rather than on ornament, and its grief is the deeper for it; it is a fine small example of early Qing poetic history.
《赠柳生》用典在“鬓星星”“前朝事”。“鬓星星”写头发花白（用左思“星星白发”之意）；“前朝事”写前明之事。全诗以柳敬亭说书写故国之思，不用深典而沧桑自深，正是毛奇龄诗深沉感慨的笔法。
Commentary
Liu Jingting was a favourite subject of early Qing poets and prose writers, but Mao Qiling's quatrain wins by economy. In modern times Deng Zhicheng remarked that Xihe's short poems often carry a desolate note and that this one is the finest of them. Scholars of Qing poetry usually place it in the loyalist line, praising it for writing all the blood and tears of a dynastic change in twenty-eight words and for lighting up the whole history of Jiangnan from the corner of one performer's life; the poem shows how lightly a great weight can be carried and how restrained deep pain can be.
《赠柳生》是毛奇龄诗的名篇，也是清代诗中写遗民之痛的代表作。此诗赠柳敬亭（明末清初说书艺人），写其说书追述前朝之痛，向为论者称道。论者多赏其人物的特写——“流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星”写柳敬亭流落人间、豪气消除，其人已见；“江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听”写说前朝事不忍听，更见故国之痛。毛奇龄为明末遗民，其诗以深沉感慨著称，此诗正是其代表——以赠人写故国之思，正是其诗风。
Prosody
Line by line
流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星。
Liu Jingting, adrift among men, his bold spirit worn away and his temples flecked with grey.
流落人间的柳敬亭，豪气已经消除，鬓发已经花白。
Liu Jingting, fallen on hard times in the world, his bold spirit gone, his temples streaked with gray.
前二句写柳敬亭其人，是全诗赠人的起点。“流落人间柳敬亭”写其流落——“流落人间”写流落人间，“柳敬亭”点其人——流落人间的柳敬亭；“消除豪气鬓星星”写豪气鬓星——“消除豪气”写豪气已经消除，“鬓星星”写鬓发已经花白——豪气消除，鬓已星星。二句写柳敬亭其人：流落人间柳敬亭，消除豪气鬓星星。以“流落人间柳敬亭”写其沦落之遇，以“消除豪气鬓星星”写其豪气消除、鬓发花白，正是毛奇龄诗写柳敬亭沧桑之态的笔法——当年说书豪杰，今已流落而鬓星。
The first two lines write the man Liu Jingting, the starting point of the poem's gift. Fallen on hard times in the world, Liu Jingting writes his fall — fallen in the world writes the drifting, Liu Jingting names the man. His bold spirit gone, his temples streaked with gray writes the spirit gone and the temples gray — his bold spirit spent writes the heroism long dissipated, temples streaked with gray writes the hair already grizzled. Two lines write the man Liu Jingting: fallen in the world, Liu Jingting, the bold spirit gone, the temples gray. Writing his fallen lot through fallen in the world, writing the spent heroism and grizzled temples, precisely Mao Qiling's brush for Liu Jingting's weathered look — the old story-telling hero, now fallen and grizzled.
江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听。
How many affairs of the former dynasty lie in Jiangnan; told to the world, they cannot be borne.
江南有多少前朝旧事，说与人听，让人不忍听闻。
How many tales of the former dynasty in Jiangnan — told to the world, and the world cannot bear to hear them.
末二句写前朝之事，是全诗故国之痛的归结。“江南多少前朝事”写江南前朝事——“江南多少前朝事”写江南有多少前朝旧事；“说与人间不忍听”写说与人不忍听——“说与人间”写说与人听，“不忍听”写让人不忍听闻。二句写前朝之事：江南多少前朝事，说与人间不忍听。以“江南多少前朝事”写柳敬亭所说之前朝旧事（其说书多述前明兴亡），以“说与人间不忍听”写不忍听闻，正是毛奇龄诗写故国之痛的归结——前朝旧事，闻之不忍，正是遗民之痛。
The last two lines write the tales of the former dynasty, the resolution of the poem's grief for the fallen state. How many tales of the former dynasty in Jiangnan writes the old tales of Jiangnan. Told to the world, and the world cannot bear to hear them writes the telling to the world and the unbearable hearing. Two lines write the tales of the former dynasty: how many old tales of the former dynasty in Jiangnan, told to the world, unbearable to hear. Writing the former tales Liu Jingting tells (his storytelling mostly of the Ming's rise and fall), writing the unbearable hearing, precisely the resolution of the grief for the fallen state — old tales of the former dynasty, unbearable to hear, precisely the loyalist's grief.
Study
Word focus
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