清平乐

Meaning

A lyric of autumn sorrow, written by the late Song poet Zhang Yan after the fall of the Song dynasty. The season's crickets cry, broken and desolate; men speak on the bank in the west wind. The moon has set, the sand lies level, the river stretches like silk; the poet gazes to the end of the reeds, and there are no wild geese — no messengers, no letters, no hope. In secret the autumn makes his heart wither like the wanderer Yu Xin of old, whose homesickness bound his heart night after night. And the close is the poem's famous miniature: there is only one branch of the wutong leaves, and one does not know how much autumn sound it holds — the single leaf that contains the whole season's grief.

候蛩凄断。人语西风岸。月落沙平江似练。望尽芦花无雁。暗教愁损兰成，可怜夜夜关情。只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The season's crickets cry, broken and desolate. Men speak on the bank in the west wind. The moon has set, the sand is level, the river like silk. I gaze to the end of the reeds — there are no wild geese. In secret it makes the wanderer's heart wither; pitiable, night after night he is bound with longing. Only one branch of wutong leaves remains — and one does not know how much autumn sound it holds. [Structure and Thought] The lyric moves from the outer autumn (the crickets, the west wind, the moonless river) through the empty gaze (no wild geese) to the inner withering (the wanderer's sorrow) and the final miniature of the single leaf. [Key Technique] The poem's art is the transfer of the whole autumn into the single wutong leaf: after the wide scene of crickets, wind, river and reeds, the close narrows everything to one branch — and the question, how much autumn sound does it hold, makes the one leaf carry the whole season and the whole grief. [Emotional Tone] Desolate and refined: the sorrow of the conquered wanderer is stated in the lightest terms — the withered heart, the bound longing, the single leaf — and the restraint is itself the depth.

【白话串讲】 张炎写《清平乐》：“候蛩凄断。人语西风岸”——“月落沙平江似练。望尽芦花无雁”——“暗教愁损兰成，可怜夜夜关情”——“只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声”——他写秋声——不知多少秋声。 【意象与手法】 “候蛩凄断。人语西风岸”写秋景凄清；“月落沙平江似练。望尽芦花无雁”以江似练写秋江；“暗教愁损兰成，可怜夜夜关情”以兰成（庾信）自比写愁；结以“只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声”以梧叶写秋声。含蓄深婉。 【情感与主旨】 张炎写秋景怀人之作，写秋夜凄清与身世之愁，以“一枝梧叶”“多少秋声”写秋愁之深，是张炎词中清空凄婉的代表。 【名句点睛】 常考“只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声”以梧叶写秋声无限；“暗教愁损兰成，可怜夜夜关情”以兰成自比写愁。

Allusions

'The wild geese' are the letter-bringing birds of Chinese poetry; that there are no geese at the end of the reeds means no letters, no messengers, no hope — the gaze into the empty sky of the exile. 'Lancheng' (the wanderer, literally 'the man of Lan') is Yu Xin, the great poet of the Northern and Southern Dynasties who was detained in the north and spent the rest of his life longing for his home in the south; his name is the standard figure of the involuntary exile, and 'the sorrow of Lancheng' is homesickness made flesh. 'The wutong' is the tree of autumn par excellence, whose single leaf falling is the signal of the season; the question of how much autumn sound one branch holds is the lyric's compressed version of the ancient theme — 'the falling of one leaf knows the autumn of the whole world.'

词中「候蛩凄断」「人语西风岸」「月落沙平江似练」「望尽芦花无雁」「暗教愁损兰成」「可怜夜夜关情」「只有一枝梧叶」「不知多少秋声」等语，皆含典故故实。「候蛩凄断」写候蛩凄断（候蛩为秋虫）；「人语西风岸」写人语西风岸；「月落沙平江似练」用江似练之语（谢朓余霞散成绮澄江静如练），写月落沙平江似练；「望尽芦花无雁」写望尽芦花无雁（芦花雁为秋景，雁传书）；「暗教愁损兰成」用庾信之典（庾信字兰成，羁旅北国），写暗教愁损兰成；「可怜夜夜关情」写可怜夜夜关情；「只有一枝梧叶」写只有一枝梧叶；「不知多少秋声」写不知多少秋声。词人以谢朓澄江练、庾信兰成等语入词，不着痕迹，而把秋景怀人之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

This lyric is one of the most admired works of the late Song, quoted for the perfect compression of its closing image. 'There is only one branch of the wutong leaves, and one does not know how much autumn sound it holds' is often ranked among the finest closing couplets in the history of the ci, the single leaf standing for the whole weight of the conquered dynasty's autumn. Critics praise the lyric's restraint: the sorrow of the fall of Song is never named, yet the withered heart, the bound longing and the one leaf say all that needs to be said.

这首《清平乐》，是张炎写秋景怀人之作，写候蛩凄断、愁损兰成、不知多少秋声之情，含蓄深婉。上片写候蛩凄断与江似练：「候蛩凄断。人语西风岸」——候蛩凄断，人语西风岸。写候蛩凄断：候蛩凄断、人语西风岸——候蛩凄断、人语西风岸；「月落沙平江似练。望尽芦花无雁」——月落沙平江似练（用江似练之语），望尽芦花无雁。写江似练：月落沙平江似练、望尽芦花无雁——沙平江似练、望尽芦花无雁。下片写愁损兰成与不知多少秋声：「暗教愁损兰成，可怜夜夜关情」——暗教愁损兰成（用庾信兰成之典），可怜夜夜关情。写愁损兰成：暗教愁损兰成、可怜夜夜关情——愁损兰成、夜夜关情；「只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声」——只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声。写不知多少秋声：只有一枝梧叶、不知多少秋声——一枝梧叶、多少秋声。这「只有一枝梧叶，不知多少秋声」，是全词之结：以不知多少秋声写其怀人。全词含蓄深婉，清空以情，正是张炎词中的名篇。

Prosody

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