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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

碛西头送李判官入京

Seeing off Judge Li to the Capital at the Head of the Western Desert

岑参

Cen Shen

边塞Frontier 送别Farewell

走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆。
今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟。

Riding west I came, as if about to reach the sky;
Since leaving home I have seen the moon twice round.
Tonight I do not know where I shall lodge;
Ten thousand leagues of level sand, without a trace of human smoke.

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Meaning

Cen Shen writes from the far side of the desert as he sees a colleague off to the capital. He has ridden west until the land seems to run into the sky, and he measures his absence from home by two full moons. On this particular night he does not even know where he will sleep, for the flat sand stretches for thousands of leagues without a sign of human habitation. The poem joins two frontier emotions: the immensity of the landscape and the rootlessness of the man inside it, with the departure of a friend to the capital making the speaker's own exile the sharper.

走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆。今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] He has ridden west until it seems he will reach the sky; two moons have waxed full since he left home. Tonight he does not know where he will sleep: level sand for ten thousand leagues, with no smoke of any human dwelling. [Structure] Two couplets, journey and lodging. The first measures distance and time — west to the sky's edge, two months by the moon; the second measures emptiness, ending on a landscape with no one in it. [Imagery] Scale is the poem's obsession: the sky, two full moons, ten thousand leagues, and the absence of a single cooking fire. [Feeling] The full moon is the emotional hinge. It is the emblem of reunion, and it has now rounded twice while the traveller has not returned — the moon is complete and the man is not. Ending on empty landscape rather than on a word of farewell is the poem's characteristic austerity: feeling is put entirely into scenery.

【白话串讲】岑参写《碛西头送李判官入京》：“走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆”——“今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟”——他骑马西来，离家已两月——今夜不知宿在哪里，平沙万里没有人家——他写边塞的苍凉。【意象与手法】此诗写碛西送别，以边塞风光写羁旅，是岑参的名篇。前两句「走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆」写西来征程——「走马西来欲到天」写走马西来、欲到天边，「辞家见月两回圆」写辞家两月、见月两圆；后两句「今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟」写夜宿无依——「今夜不知何处宿」写今夜不知何处宿，「平沙万里绝人烟」写平沙万里、绝无人烟。全诗以边塞风光写羁旅，以平沙万里写苍凉，写尽边塞送别的苍茫，正是岑参「语奇体峻」诗风的本领。【情感与主旨】此诗写碛西（沙漠之西）送李判官入京。碛西指沙漠以西，唐代指今新疆哈密一带；判官是节度使的僚属。李判官从碛西入京，岑参送别。此诗写送别时的所见所感：走马西来，欲到天边，辞家已经见了两次月圆（两月）；今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里、绝无人烟。诗人以「走马西来欲到天」写边地的辽远——走马西来，仿佛要走到天边，「欲到天」写尽边地的辽远与征程的漫长；「辞家见月两回圆」写离家已两月，见月两圆，写尽离家的久远与对月的思念；「今夜不知何处宿」写今夜不知何处安宿，写尽羁旅的无依；「平沙万里绝人烟」写平沙万里、绝无人烟，写尽边地的荒凉。全诗以边塞风光写羁旅，以平沙万里写苍凉，写尽边塞送别的苍茫与羁旅的孤寂，正是岑参边塞诗「语奇体峻」的本领。【名句点睛】常考「走马西来欲到天」写边地的辽远；「辞家见月两回圆」写离家的久远；「今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟」写羁旅的无依与边地的荒凉；以及全诗以边塞风光写羁旅、以景写情的手法。

Background

Cen Shen (circa 715-770) was a native of Jiangling, present-day Jingzhou in Hubei, and with Gao Shi forms the pairing Gao and Cen, the two great frontier poets of the high Tang. He crossed the frontier twice and served on the staffs at Anxi and Beiting, so his pictures of desert and military life come from experience rather than convention. The western desert here denotes the region beyond the sands, in present-day Hami in Xinjiang; a judge was a staff officer attached to a military governor, and Li was returning to the capital while Cen Shen stayed behind. The poem is thus a farewell in which the speaker's own unending journey, rather than the friend's departure, becomes the real subject.

此诗写碛西（沙漠之西，今新疆哈密一带）送李判官入京，是岑参的名篇。岑参（约715—770），江陵（今湖北荆州）人，盛唐著名边塞诗人，与高适并称「高岑」。岑参两度出塞，曾在安西、北庭等地幕府任职，对边塞风光与军旅生活有深切的体验。碛西指沙漠以西，唐时在今新疆哈密一带；判官是节度使、观察使的僚属，李判官从碛西入京，岑参送别。此诗写送别时的所见所感：「走马西来欲到天」写走马西来、仿佛要到天边——「欲到天」写尽边地的辽远与征程的漫长；「辞家见月两回圆」写离家已经见了两次月圆（约两月）——「见月两回圆」写尽离家的久远与望月思乡；「今夜不知何处宿」写今夜不知何处安宿——写尽羁旅的无依；「平沙万里绝人烟」写平沙万里、绝无人烟——写尽边地的荒凉。此诗以边塞风光写羁旅，以「走马西来欲到天」写辽远，以「辞家见月两回圆」写久远，以「今夜不知何处宿」写无依，以「平沙万里绝人烟」写荒凉，写尽边塞送别的苍茫与羁旅的孤寂。全诗仅二十八字，却是理解岑参边塞羁旅诗与盛唐边塞风光的重要篇章。

Art

Four techniques carry the quatrain. First, hyperbole: riding west until one nearly reaches the sky gives distance as a felt experience rather than a measurement. Second, time told through an image: rather than saying two months, the poet says he has twice seen the moon full, and because the full moon means reunion, the image carries homesickness inside a statement of duration. Third, a question: 'tonight I do not know where I shall lodge' gives rootlessness as a literal uncertainty about the next hour. Fourth, closure by landscape: the last line offers vast emptiness — ten thousand leagues of sand with no smoke — and leaves feeling to the reader. The poem's admired quality is precisely this combination of strangeness and plainness: extraordinary scenery, undecorated language.

此诗的艺术特色可从四个方面解析。其一，以夸张写辽远。起句「走马西来欲到天」写走马西来、欲到天边——那「欲到天」以夸张写边地的辽远，仿佛走到天边，写尽边地的辽阔与征程的漫长。其二，以月圆写久远。「辞家见月两回圆」写辞家见月两回圆——那「见月两回圆」写离家见了两次月圆，以月圆写时间（两月），写尽离家的久远与望月思乡。其三，以设问写无依。「今夜不知何处宿」以设问写今夜不知何处宿——那「不知何处宿」以设问写尽羁旅的无依，今夜尚无安宿之处。其四，以景语收束。「平沙万里绝人烟」以平沙万里、绝无人烟的景语收束——那「平沙万里」写边地的辽阔，「绝人烟」写荒凉，以景语写尽边地的荒凉与羁旅的孤寂，以景结情，余韵苍凉。四重手法，使此诗以边塞风光写羁旅，以景写情，正是岑参「语奇体峻」诗风的本领。尤其值得玩味者，「辞家见月两回圆」不直言离家两月，而以「见月两回圆」的月圆意象写时间的流逝——月圆本是团圆之象，而征人离家万里，月圆两回而人不得归，正以月圆写人未圆，暗含深沉的思乡；「平沙万里绝人烟」更以「万里」与「绝人烟」的对照，写尽边地的辽阔与荒凉，为「今夜不知何处宿」的无依作结，以景结情，苍茫入骨。

Allusions

Riding west belongs to the vocabulary of frontier campaigning. Reaching toward the sky recalls the northern song in which the heavens are grey and the wastes boundless, and the ambition to exhaust a thousand leagues with one look. Leaving home and seeing the moon full belongs to a long tradition in which the moon is the shared object of separated people; the fullest statement of it is that the moon above one's home is the brightest, and the commonest that one looks up at the bright moon and bows one's head to think of home. The level sand is Cen Shen's own signature image from his campaign ballads. The absence of cooking smoke evokes the far country beyond the jade gate, where spring wind does not pass.

此诗的用语深植于边塞与羁旅的传统。「走马西来」令人想到「走马」写骑马的意象，也令人想到「走马西来欲到天」的边塞行军；「欲到天」令人想到「天」写边地辽远的意象——「天苍苍，野茫茫」，也令人想到「欲穷千里目」的辽远；「辞家」令人想到「辞家」写离家的意象，也令人想到「辞亲远游」的羁旅；「见月两回圆」令人想到「月圆」写思乡的意象——「月是故乡明」（杜甫），也令人想到「举头望明月，低头思故乡」（李白《静夜思》）的望月思乡传统，更令人想到「月圆人未圆」的别离；「今夜不知何处宿」令人想到「今夜」写当下的意象，也令人想到「借问酒家何处有」的羁旅，更令人想到「日暮乡关何处是」（崔颢《黄鹤楼》）的日暮思乡；「平沙万里」令人想到「平沙莽莽黄入天」（岑参《走马川行》）的平沙意象，也令人想到「大漠孤烟直，长河落日圆」（王维《使至塞上》）的大漠意象；「绝人烟」令人想到「绝域」的荒凉，也令人想到「千山鸟飞绝」的无人，更令人想到「春风不度玉门关」（王之涣《凉州词》）的边地荒远。全诗化用走马、月圆、平沙、人烟的边塞羁旅意象，以边塞风光写羁旅，正是岑参「语奇体峻」、承边塞羁旅传统写苍茫的本领。

Commentary

The poem is counted among Cen Shen's finest works and as a representative Tang frontier farewell. Qing critics described it as desolate and strikingly original; modern readers single out the closing couplet as lines for all time. Its distinction is compression: in twenty-eight characters it conveys immense distance, two months of absence, an unsolved lodging for the night, and an uninhabited world. Read beside his campaign ballad on the River of Running Horses, with its sand yellow to the sky, it shows two moods of the same frontier — the tumult of an army and the solitude of a traveller. It also belongs with the tradition of frontier homesickness found in the line that asks where one's home country is at sunset.

此诗历来被推为岑参的名篇，也是唐人边塞送别诗的代表。历代论者对此诗评价极高：清人评此诗「以边塞风光写羁旅，苍凉奇逸」；近人更指出「今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟」写羁旅的无依与边地的荒凉，是千古名句。在诗歌史上，此诗的特殊价值在于：它以二十字的短章写尽边塞的苍茫与羁旅的孤寂——那走马西来的征程，那欲到天的辽远，那两回圆的月，那不知何处宿的今夜，那平沙万里的荒凉，都写尽了边塞送别的苍茫；那「平沙万里绝人烟」更写尽边地的荒凉。此诗与岑参的《走马川行奉送出师西征》（「平沙莽莽黄入天」）同为边塞名篇，一写送别的苍茫，一写行军的壮阔；又与崔颢《黄鹤楼》（「日暮乡关何处是」）同为写羁旅的名篇，可见唐人边塞羁旅诗的传统。对于今日读者，此诗是理解岑参边塞羁旅诗与盛唐边塞风光的窗口，也是中国诗写边塞送别的经典——那平沙万里的荒凉，穿越千年，仍在诉说着边塞羁旅的苍茫。

Prosody

Form Seven-character quatrain诗·七言绝句

Rhyme Lines one, two and four rhyme in a single level-tone rhyme.押平声先韵（天、圆、烟），三句皆押韵，平韵悠长，正合苍茫的悠长

Tone pattern A seven-character quatrain in a sustained level rhyme; the rhythm is unhurried and long, suiting the desolate vastness it describes.此诗为七言绝句，四句，前写征程，后写荒凉。全诗平起平收，节奏从容，于平易中见苍凉。

Reading note The quatrain divides into a couplet of journeying, distance and time, and a couplet of lodging and emptiness, with the third line breaking the rhyme to prepare the turn. Read the first couplet broadly to convey distance, hesitate on the question in line three, and let the closing line fall away into silence, since the poem ends on an uninhabited vista.此诗为七言绝句，四句：前两句写征程（走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆），后两句写荒凉（今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟）。押平声先韵，韵脚「天、圆、烟」皆平声，悠长舒缓，正合苍茫的悠长。全诗以边塞风光写羁旅——首句「走马西来欲到天」写辽远，次句「辞家见月两回圆」写久远，三句「今夜不知何处宿」写无依，结句「平沙万里绝人烟」以景语写荒凉，起承转合，一气呵成。此诗最见岑参七绝的「语奇体峻」：前写征程、后写荒凉，以景结情。诵读此诗，宜以辽远的语调读「走马西来欲到天」的征程，以彷徨的语调读「今夜不知何处宿」的无依，结句「平沙万里绝人烟」要读得苍凉而有余韵，方能传达出岑参的羁旅苍茫。岑参七绝以「语奇」著称，此诗正是其边塞羁旅七绝的典范。

Line by line

走马西来欲到天，辞家见月两回圆

Riding west I came, as if about to reach the sky; since leaving home I have seen the moon twice round.

走马西来，仿佛要到天边；辞家已见了两次月圆。

Riding west, as if reaching the sky; since leaving home I have seen the moon full twice.

此联写西来的征程，以夸张写辽远，以月圆写久远。「走马西来欲到天」写走马西来、仿佛要到天边——那「走马西来」写骑马西行，「欲到天」写仿佛要到天边，以夸张写尽边地的辽远；「辞家见月两回圆」写辞家已见了两次月圆——那「辞家」写离开家乡，「见月两回圆」写见了两次月圆，写尽离家的久远。这句的深意在于：它以「走马西来欲到天」的夸张与「辞家见月两回圆」的月圆，写尽边地的辽远与离家的久远——走马西来，仿佛要到天边，那「欲到天」以夸张写尽边地的辽阔与征程的漫长；辞家已经见了两次月圆，那「见月两回圆」以月圆写时间（离家两月），写尽离家的久远；那「欲到天」写尽边地的辽远，那「两回圆」写尽离家的久远，一写空间之远，一写时间之久，写尽边塞征程的漫长与羁旅的孤寂；而月圆本是团圆之象，「见月两回圆」更暗写月圆人未圆的思乡。若换作直说「走了很远很久」，则失其形象；唯以「走马西来欲到天」的夸张写辽远、「辞家见月两回圆」写久远，写尽边塞征程的漫长，也让此联成为全诗征程的开篇。

The couplet writes the westward march, the distance through hyperbole and the length through the full moons. Riding west, as if reaching the sky is precisely the picture of the borderland's vastness; since leaving home I have seen the moon full twice precisely the picture of two months from home. The deep meaning: one writes the spatial distance, one the temporal length, exhausting the long march and the traveler's solitude; and the full moon, the sign of reunion, twice full while the man is not reunited, secretly writing the homesickness. Were it said plainly I have traveled very far and very long, the imagery would be lost; only through the reaching-the-sky hyperbole and the two full moons is the march exhausted, making the couplet the opening of the poem's journey.

今夜不知何处宿，平沙万里绝人烟

Tonight I do not know where I shall lodge; ten thousand leagues of level sand, without a trace of human smoke.

今夜不知何处安宿，平沙万里，绝无人烟。

Tonight I know not where to lodge; level sand, ten thousand li, not a trace of man.

此联是全诗的收束，以设问写无依，以景语写荒凉，是千古名句。「今夜不知何处宿」写今夜不知何处安宿——那「今夜」写当下的夜晚，「不知何处宿」以设问写不知何处安宿，写尽羁旅的无依；「平沙万里绝人烟」写平沙万里、绝无人烟——那「平沙万里」写平沙的辽阔，「绝人烟」写绝无人烟，写尽边地的荒凉。这句的深意在于：它以「今夜不知何处宿」的设问与「平沙万里绝人烟」的景语，写尽羁旅的无依与边地的荒凉——今夜不知何处安宿，那「不知何处宿」以设问写尽羁旅的无依，夜幕将临而尚无安宿之处，正是征人日暮的彷徨；平沙万里、绝无人烟，那「平沙万里」写尽边地的辽阔，「绝人烟」写尽荒凉——万里平沙，绝无人烟，正是边地的荒凉，也是羁旅者无所依傍的写照；那「不知何处宿」写尽无依，那「绝人烟」写尽荒凉，一设问一写景，写尽边塞羁旅的苍茫与孤寂，以景结情，余韵苍凉。若换作直说「边地很荒凉」，则失其含蓄；唯以「今夜不知何处宿」的设问写无依、「平沙万里绝人烟」的景语写荒凉，以景结情写尽羁旅的苍茫，也让此联成为全诗的千古名句。

The couplet is the close of the poem, writing the helplessness through a question and the desolation through scene, an immortal line. Tonight I know not where to lodge is precisely the picture of the traveler's helplessness as night falls; level sand, ten thousand li, not a trace of man precisely the picture of the border's wilderness. The deep meaning: the question of lodging and the scene of the level sand, exhausting the solitude of the border road; ending emotion in scene, the aftertone desolate. Were it said plainly the borderland is very desolate, the restraint would be lost; only through the question and the level sand is the desolation exhausted, making the couplet the immortal close of the poem.

Study

Word focus

欲 In 'as if about to reach the sky,' the word means on the point of, nearly. It turns distance into sensation: the rider is not simply far west but on the verge of arriving at the sky, so that the frontier becomes boundless rather than measurable. 「走马西来欲到天」之「欲」字是写辽远的关键字，一个「欲」字写尽边地的辽远。欲者，将要、仿佛要也。岑参以「欲到天」写走马西来，这个「欲」字至少有双重意味：其一，写辽远之极——那「欲到天」写仿佛要到天边，那「欲」字写尽边地的辽远——走马西来，仿佛要走到天边，以「欲」字写尽征程的漫长；其二，写夸张之奇——那「欲」字更是写夸张——欲到天，本不可能，却以「欲」字写其仿佛，那「欲」字写尽边地辽远的夸张奇逸。以「欲」字写辽远，正是岑参开篇的枢纽——若换作「将」「已」等字，则或失其夸张的意味，或失其与「到天」的配合；唯「欲」字，以一字写尽走马西来仿佛要到天边的辽远与夸张，与「辞家见月两回圆」的久远相合，写尽边塞征程的漫长，也让「走马西来欲到天」成为全诗辽远的开篇。

绝 In 'without a trace of human smoke,' the word means utterly cut off, entirely without. It closes the poem on absolute emptiness — not merely few dwellings but none at all — and converts a landscape into a statement of the traveller's isolation. 「平沙万里绝人烟」之「绝」字是写荒凉的关键字，一个「绝」字写尽边地的荒凉。绝者，绝无、断绝也。岑参以「绝人烟」写平沙，这个「绝」字至少有双重意味：其一，写人烟之无——那「绝人烟」写绝无人烟，那「绝」字写尽边地人烟断绝的荒凉；其二，写荒远之极——那「绝」字更是写荒远——平沙万里而绝人烟，那「绝」字写尽边地的荒远与羁旅的孤寂。以「绝」字写荒凉，正是岑参收束全诗的枢纽——若换作「无」「少」等字，则或失其与「平沙万里」的配合，或失其荒凉力度；唯「绝」字，以一字写尽平沙万里而人烟断绝的荒凉，与「今夜不知何处宿」的无依相合，写尽边塞羁旅的苍茫，也让「平沙万里绝人烟」成为千古名句。