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宋 Song · 词 Ci lyric

如梦令·昨夜雨疏风骤

Dreamlike Song: Last Night the Rain Was Sparse, the Wind Fierce

李清照

Li Qingzhao

时序Seasons 愁思Sorrowful Reflection

昨夜雨疏风骤。
浓睡不消残酒。
试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。
知否。
知否。
应是绿肥红瘦。

Last night the rain was sparse, the wind fierce.
Deep sleep did not dissolve the leftover wine.
I try asking the one who rolls the blind,
And she says the crabapple is still as before.
Do you know?
Do you know?
It should be the green grown fat and the red grown thin.

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Meaning

One of Li Qingzhao's most famous early ci. After a night of sparse rain and fierce wind, the poet, still half-dazed from wine, asks her maid who rolls the blind how the crabapple fares. The maid answers carelessly that it is 'still as before'—but the poet knows better: 'the green grown fat and the red grown thin,' the leaves lush and the blossoms fallen after the storm. The poem holds no word of sorrow, yet the sorrow for the fading spring, the passing of the season, and the passing of youth runs through every line, its new-coined phrase 'green grown fat, red grown thin' startling the whole age.

昨夜雨点稀疏而风势狂骤。酣睡了一夜，还没能消尽残存的酒意。试着问那卷帘的侍女：海棠花怎么样了？她却漫不经心地说：海棠依旧开得好好的。你知道吗？你知道吗？该是绿叶繁茂、红花憔悴了。

Appreciation

Thirty-three characters, yet complete in structure and full of turns. The opening two lines write the time and the state: 'the rain was sparse, the wind fierce' sets sparse against fierce, the rain and the wind each with its own bearing; 'deep sleep did not dissolve the leftover wine' writes the state of the poet, the deep sleep and the leftover wine answering each other—the wine not yet gone and the heart already awake to the spring, the wakefulness the poet's gift. The middle uses the dialogue as the hinge: 'I try asking the one who rolls the blind, and she says the crabapple is still as before'—the 'try' writes the poet's half-knowing anxiety, the 'but she says' the maid's carelessness; in the question and the answer the two characters and their difference stand plain—how sensitive the poet, how careless the maid. The close repeats 'do you know, do you know,' scolding and impatient, then points the truth: not 'the blossoms fallen' but 'the red grown thin,' not 'the leaves lush' but 'the green grown fat,' the personification of fat and thin writing the storm-battered crabapple in a phrase of perfect novelty.

【白话串讲】李清照写如梦令：“昨夜雨疏风骤。浓睡不消残酒”。“试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧”——“知否。知否。应是绿肥红瘦”——她说绿叶多红花少，春天要过去了。【意象与手法】以对话结构全篇，一问一答间见出人物情致；「绿肥红瘦」以肥瘦状叶与花，新奇精警；叠句「知否知否」如嗔如叹，加重语气。【情感与主旨】惜春即是惜华年：风雨摧花，红消香断，暗示青春易逝、好景难留，是李清照早期词中已有的人生感喟。【名句点睛】「绿肥红瘦」四字被宋人誉为「天下称之」的创语，全词亦成惜春词中传诵最广的小令。

Background

Li Qingzhao (1084–c. 1155), hao Yi'an Jushi, was a native of Jinan, born to a scholarly family: her father Li Gefei was one of the four later disciples of the Su school, and her husband Zhao Mingcheng was a scholar of epigraphy. The couple lived happily, devoted to collecting and collating bronze and stone inscriptions. This ci is an early work, generally dated to her maiden and early married years in Bianjing, around 1100. It writes a spring morning's question and answer on the fate of the crabapple after a stormy night, and its new phrase 'green grown fat, red grown thin' startled the ci world; Hu Zi's comments of the Southern Song quoted the saying that this phrase was 'very new.' The poet, barely twenty, had not yet known the catastrophe of the Jingkang incident, yet already showed her sensitivity to the passage of time and her cherishing of beauty.

李清照（1084—约1155），号易安居士，济南人，出身书香门第，父李格非为苏门后四学士之一，夫赵明诚为金石学家，夫妇琴瑟和鸣，致力于金石书画的搜集考订，早年生活优裕。此词为其早期作品，一般认为作于汴京闺中，约在少女及少妇时期（1100年前后）。词写春日清晨的一问一答，内容只是惜花，然以「绿肥红瘦」之警语震动词坛：宋人胡仔《苕溪渔隐丛话》引《漫叟诗话》云「近时妇人能文词，如李易安，颇多佳句……绿肥红瘦，此语甚新」。其时李清照年方二十上下，生活尚未经历靖康之变的剧变，然词中已有对时光流逝的敏感与对美好的珍重，可见其早慧与深于情。此词是李清照词「以寻常语度入音律」风格的早期典范，也是宋词小令中惜春题材的巅峰之作，与《如梦令·常记溪亭日暮》并为词人少女时代的一双明珠。此词一出，后世闺阁词人写春、写花、写愁，多不能出其范围。

Art

The art lies in the compact dialogue and the new coinage. The opening writes time and state in two lines, sparse against fierce, the leftover wine against the deep sleep. The middle is the hinge of dialogue: the poet's 'try asking' half-knowing and anxious, the maid's 'but she says' careless and offhand, the two characters and their difference plain in a question and an answer. The close repeats 'do you know, do you know,' scolding and impatient, then points the truth in the new-coined 'green grown fat, red grown thin'—the personification of fat and thin writing the storm-battered crabapple. The whole is the art of 'writing without writing': not a single word of sorrow, yet the sorrow for the fading spring and the passing youth fills the lines; not a single description of the fallen blossoms, yet the four characters 'green grown fat, red grown thin' say it all.

全词三十三字，却结构完整、波澜迭起。上片两句写时间与状态：「昨夜雨疏风骤」以「疏」「骤」对举，写出风雨之夜的动静相兼——雨疏而风骤，风雨交加而各有姿态；「浓睡不消残酒」转写人物，浓睡与残酒相对，见出宿醉未醒的情态，也为下文的「问卷帘人」作了铺垫——酒意未消，而惜春之心已先清醒，这清醒正是词人的慧心。中段以对话为枢纽：「试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧」，一个「试」字写出词人明知故问的忐忑，一个「却」字写出侍女的漫不经心，一问一答之间，人物情致、身份差异宛然纸上——词人何等敏感，侍女何等粗疏。结拍叠用「知否知否」，如嗔似怨，急迫地纠正侍女，随即点出「应是绿肥红瘦」：不说花落，而说红瘦；不说叶盛，而说绿肥，以「肥瘦」拟人状物，把风雨之后的海棠写得如在目前。全词以寻常口语入词，而神情飞动，正是「小令难工」的反证。通篇以问句收转、以叠句传情，一唱三叹，是小令「以少胜多」的典范。

Allusions

The ci almost uses no allusion, yet its images carry a deep inheritance. 'Storm and wind harming the spring' is one of the oldest motifs of classical verse, from the Book of Songs' 'wind and rain in the dark' to Meng Haoran's 'last night's sound of wind and rain, I know not how many blossoms have fallen'—asking the flowers, pitying the flowers, knowing the flowers fall; Li Qingzhao's ci may be read as the dialogue-form rewriting of Meng Haoran's poem, turning his one-way sigh into a question and answer between the poet and her maid. The crabapple has a deep lineage in Tang-Song verse: Zheng Gu of the Tang wrote a poem on the crabapple, and Su Shi's 'I only fear the flower sleeping in the deep night, so I burn a tall candle to light her red dress' writes the flower as a beauty. 'Rolling the blind' inherits the boudoir tradition, as in Wang Changling's 'the lady in the boudoir knows not of sorrow, spring days she dresses and climbs the green tower.'

本词几乎不用典，而意象承袭深厚。其一，「风雨伤春」是古典诗词最古老的母题之一，《诗经》已然「风雨如晦」，唐人孟浩然《春晓》「夜来风雨声，花落知多少」正是此词直接的先声——问花、惜花、知花落，一脉相承；李清照此词可视为《春晓》的对话体重写，把孟诗的单向感叹化为词人与侍女的一问一答。其二，「海棠」意象在唐宋诗词中尤有渊源：唐郑谷有《海棠》诗，苏轼咏海棠有「只恐夜深花睡去，故烧高烛照红妆」之句，以美人喻花、以花写情；李清照此处则以海棠之「瘦」写春之将尽，是惜花传统的延续。其三，「卷帘」意象承古诗闺阁传统（如王昌龄「闺中少妇不知愁」的帘内情态），卷帘人（侍女）一问一答的写法，则开后世戏曲中主仆问答场面之先河。其四，「绿肥红瘦」四字自铸伟词，以色彩词（绿、红）加性状词（肥、瘦）组合，化抽象为具体，实开后世「红肥绿瘦」之类生新语之先。凡此，皆见其于传统意象的化用自如。

Commentary

This little ci is a model of Li Qingzhao's art of 'writing deep feeling in plain words,' and a peerless piece among Song short ci. Song critics already praised the novelty of 'green grown fat, red grown thin'; Li Panlong of the Ming praised its 'new words, fine meaning, and full feeling'; Huang Liyuan of the Qing noted that 'one question is most full of feeling... in a few words, the layers turn and are full of flavor.' The whole is the art of 'writing without writing': not a single word of sorrow, yet the sorrow for the fading spring and the passing youth fills the lines; not a description of the fallen blossoms, yet the four characters 'green grown fat, red grown thin' say it all. In the history of ci, this piece proves that a short ci may hold question, psychology, and comment, opening the path of 'winning more with less' for the lyrical school.

这首小令是李清照词「以浅语写深情」的典范，也是宋词小令中的绝品。宋人即已称赏「绿肥红瘦」之新，明人李攀龙《草堂诗余隽》评其「语新意隽，更有丰情」，清人黄蓼园《蓼园词选》谓「一问极有情……只数语中，层次曲折有味」。全词妙在「不写之写」：通篇不见一个「愁」字，而惜春之愁、惜华年之愁弥漫字里行间；不写花落之状，而以「绿肥红瘦」四字尽之，举重若轻。就词史而言，此词证明小令虽短，亦可涵纳问答、心理、议论等多种手法，为婉约词开拓了「以少胜多」的路径；其口语化的对话体，更开启了后世词曲中主仆问答、闺阁絮语的写法。今日读之，「知否知否」的娇嗔仍如在耳际，一个聪慧善感、珍重美好的少女形象呼之欲出，这正是此词千年不衰的魅力所在。更可注意者，此词写于李清照词风尚未成熟之时，而「绿肥红瘦」已开其以寻常语写奇警思的先声，后来的「莫道不销魂，帘卷西风，人比黄花瘦」，正是此词一脉的延续。

Prosody

Form Tune 'Dreamlike Song' (monotone, thirty-three characters, seven lines, five oblique rhymes with one repeated)如梦令（单调三十三字，七句五仄韵一叠韵）

Rhyme Rhymes on the twelfth rhyme-group, rising and falling tones joined: zhou, jiu, jiu, fou, fou, shou, one rhyme to the end押词韵第十二部（尤侯幽）上去声韵：骤、酒、旧、否、否、瘦（骤、旧、瘦为去声宥韵，酒、否为上声有韵，上去通押），一韵到底。

Tone pattern The whole is boned on oblique tones, every line ending on an oblique except the level words of 'the one who rolls the blind' and 'the crabapple is still as before'; the last three lines, 'do you know, do you know, it should be the green grown fat and the red grown thin,' press in quick rhythm, like pearls falling on a plate全词以仄声字为骨，句句仄收，仅「卷帘人」「海棠依旧」等处以平声调节；末三句「知否。知否。应是绿肥红瘦。」节奏急促，如珠落玉盘，一叠一问，声情并茂。

Reading note The tune's seven lines with a repeated 'do you know' make the close urgent and scolding, the quick rhythm matching the poet's impatience with her careless maid.如梦令原名《忆仙姿》，因后唐庄宗制词有「如梦，如梦，残月落花烟重」句而得名，为单调小令，共三十三字，七句，五仄韵，其中第四、五句为二言叠句，须叠用「平仄」二字。李清照此词是如梦令中最著名的一首，也是词牌与词情相合的典范。全词五韵皆押仄声（上去通押，合词韵第十二部尤侯幽），仄韵短促有力，与「雨疏风骤」的骤急之势相称；两处叠句「知否。知否。」二字一叠，如鼓点般急促逼问，把惜春的焦灼推向顶点——「知否」二字在词律上本为叠句，而李清照把它变成人物急切的发问，叠句之律与嗔问之情完美合一，是「因情生律、以律传情」的妙笔。随后以七言句「应是绿肥红瘦」缓缓收住，一急一缓，波澜天成。全词字数虽少，而句句合律、字字有声，足见李清照对音律的精通（她后来在《词论》中自诩「能协音律」），此词正是其词律观念的身体力行。

Line by line

昨夜雨疏风骤。

Last night the rain was sparse, the wind fierce. (The opening line writes the time and the storm: sparse against fierce, the rain and the wind each with its own bearing, the stormy night that has battered the crabapple.)

昨夜雨点稀疏，而风势却狂骤猛烈，一夜之间，想必吹落了不少春花。

Last night the rain was sparse and the wind fierce; in one night, no doubt it blew down many of the spring flowers.

起句六字写昨夜天气，是全词的因由所在，亦见炼字之精。「雨疏风骤」四字以对举写出风雨之夜的两种形态：雨是「疏」的，点点疏落；风是「骤」的，狂暴急遽——一疏一骤，动静相形，雨虽不密而风势凌厉，正是最能摧花的风雨。着一「昨」字点明时序，着一「夜」字定下场景，仿佛听得见一夜风声雨声。此句妙在藏情：句面只是记天气，而「疏」「骤」二字已暗藏对花的忧念——这样的风雨之后，海棠还能无恙吗？全词的惜春之情，其实从这六个字起就已暗暗萌动，为下文的问卷、断言作了伏笔，是「藏情于景」的起笔。

The opening six characters write last night's weather, the whole ci's cause, and the word-craft's fineness seen. The rain-sparse-wind-fierce four characters in the set-against writing the storm night's two shapes: the rain sparse, the drops scattered; the wind fierce, the wild urgency — one sparse one fierce, motion-and-stillness set against, the rain though not dense and the wind's force sharp, precisely the flower-breaking storm. The one word last naming the season's time, the one word night setting the scene, as if hearing the night's wind and rain. This line's wonder in the hidden feeling: the line surface only records the weather, and yet the sparse and fierce two words already secretly storing the flower's anxiety — after such a storm, can the begonias be unharmed? The whole ci's spring-pity feeling, in truth already secretly stirring from these six characters, storing the ground for the below's question and assertion, the hidden-feeling-in-scene opening.

浓睡不消残酒。

Deep sleep did not dissolve the leftover wine. (The second line writes the poet's state: the deep sleep and the leftover wine answering each other, the wine not yet gone and the heart already awake to the spring.)

酣睡了一夜，还没能消尽残存的酒意，醒来时犹带着几分宿醉的慵懒。

I slept deeply all night, yet the wine's remnant has not cleared; on waking I carry the listlessness of a hangover.

此句写人物的状态，是全词的转笔。「浓睡」写睡之酣沉，「残酒」写醉之未尽——一夜浓睡，宿酒犹存，可见昨夜饮得不少，也可见词人赖酒消愁、借醉入眠的情态；「不消」二字，既是酒意未消，更暗含愁绪未消——酒可以消醉意，却消不了心头的牵挂，于是酒醒之后，第一个念头便是帘外的海棠。此句上承「雨疏风骤」（风雨之夜正宜饮酒），下启「试问卷帘人」（酒醒即问花），是时间与情绪的双重过渡。词人不写愁字，而「浓睡」「残酒」「不消」六字，已把一夜的心事写得隐隐约约，正是婉约词「含蓄」的笔法。

This line writes the person's state, the whole ci's turn. The deep sleep writing the slumber's heaviness, the remnant wine writing the drunkenness's incompleteness — the all-night deep sleep and the hangover yet remaining, seeing last night's much drinking, and the poet's wine-for-grief and drunken-sleep state; the not-cleared two words, at once the wine mood's non-clearing, and secretly the grief's non-clearing — the wine can dispel the drunkenness, and yet cannot dispel the heart's clinging, hence after the wine's waking, the first thought is the curtain-outside begonias. This line inherits the above's rain-sparse-wind-fierce (the storm night just the wine's fitting time), opening the below's try-asking-the-curtain-maid (the wine's waking and the flower's asking), the time and emotion's double transition. The poet not writing the grief word, and the deep sleep, remnant wine, and not-cleared six characters, already writing the all-night heart's affairs dimly, precisely the graceful ci's restraint brush.

试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。

I try asking the one who rolls the blind, and she says the crabapple is still as before. (The hinge of dialogue: the 'try' writes the poet's half-knowing anxiety, the 'but she says' the maid's carelessness, the two characters and their difference plain in a question and an answer.)

试着问那卷帘的侍女：海棠花怎么样了？她却漫不经心地说：海棠依旧开得好好的。

I try asking the curtain-rolling maid: how are the begonias? She answers carelessly: the begonias are as before.

此二句是全词的核心，以一问一答写尽两重情致。「试问卷帘人」之「试」字妙极：明知风雨摧花而不敢直问，只「试着」问一问，忐忑不安之态、明知故问之心宛然可见；「卷帘人」是侍女的代称，以动作代人物，写出闺阁清晨卷帘待起的场景。而「却道海棠依旧」之「却」字，是全词的神来之笔——侍女漫不经心地答「依旧」，正与词人惴惴不安的心情形成对照：粗心的侍女看不见风雨的痕迹，细心的词人却早已猜到花事已非。这一问一答之间，主仆二人对春天的敏感判然分明，惜春的深情便在这「试」「却」二字中曲曲传出，不着一字言情而情致全出，是对话体写情的典范。

These two lines are the whole ci's core, in one question and one answer exhausting the twofold grace. The try-asking-the-curtain-maid's one word try the most wondrous: knowing-the-storm-breaks-flowers-and-yet-the-not-daring-to-ask-directly, only the try-asking, the unease and the known-and-yet-asking heart as if before the eyes; the curtain-rolling maid the maid's byname, using the action for the person, writing the boudoir morning's curtain-rising-and-about-to-rise scene. And the but-says-the-begonias-are-as-before's one word but, the whole ci's inspired stroke — the maid's carelessly answered as-before, precisely setting off against the poet's anxiously uneasy mood: the careless maid not seeing the storm's trace, the careful poet already guessing the flower affair's non-as-before. Between this question and answer, the master and servant two's spring-sensitivity judged clear, the spring-pity deep feeling hence winding out within the try and the but two words, not one word of feeling written and the grace all out, the dialogue-form writes-feeling model.

应是绿肥红瘦。

It should be the green grown fat and the red grown thin. (The close names the truth: not 'the blossoms fallen' but 'the red grown thin,' not 'the leaves lush' but 'the green grown fat,' the personification of fat and thin writing the storm-battered crabapple.)

风雨之后，应该是绿叶繁茂、红花憔悴了，春色已在悄悄消退。

After the storm, the green leaves must be lush and the red flowers faded; the spring colors are quietly fading.

结句是全词的词眼，也是李清照名动千古的创语。「应是」二字下得极有分寸：词人并未亲见海棠，而是凭对春的敏感推断——不是「是」，而是「应是」，见出她与侍女「依旧」之说的分歧，也见出她对风雨摧花的笃定。而「绿肥红瘦」四字，以「肥瘦」状叶与花，把风雨之后海棠叶盛花稀的情态写得如在目前：不说「叶多花少」而说「绿肥红瘦」，以色彩代花叶、以人体状植物，新奇警拔，是宋词中化俗为新的典范。此四字还有更深一层：肥瘦之别，正是「春去」的见证——绿肥则春深，红瘦则花残，惜春之情尽在其中。全词至此戛然而止，而「知否知否」的娇嗔余音袅袅，千载之下，犹觉其声。

The close is the ci's eye, and Li Qingzhao's through-the-ages creation. The must-be two words' placement the most measured: the poet has not seen the begonias, but infers through the spring's sensitivity — not the is, but the must-be, seeing her divergence with the maid's as-before saying, and her certainty of the storm's flower-breaking. And the green-fat-and-red-thin four characters, using the fat-thin for the leaves and flowers, writing the storm's aftermath begonia-leaves-lush-and-flowers-sparse state as if before the eyes: not saying leaves-many-and-flowers-few, but saying green-fat-and-red-thin, using color for leaf-and-flower and the human body for the plant, novel and sharp, Song ci's turn-the-vulgar-into-novel model. These four characters also one layer deeper: the fat-thin distinction, precisely the spring's-going witness — the green fat then the spring deep, the red thin then the flower faded, the spring-pity feeling all within. The whole ci here stopping suddenly, and the know-you-not know-you-not's coy reproach aftertone curling, through the ages, still feeling its sound.

Study

Word focus

疏 Sparse. Against the 'fierce' wind, 'the rain was sparse'—the rain and the wind each with its own bearing, the stormy night's two faces written in two words. 「昨夜雨疏风骤」之「疏」字，与「骤」字对举，是全词起句的点睛之字。疏者，稀疏、疏落也，写雨点之零落——雨并不密，甚至可以说雨不大；然而与「风骤」相连，疏雨加上骤风，恰恰是最能伤花的天气：雨疏故花不易折，风骤故花不能支，一疏一骤，一缓一急，写出风雨之夜的两种力道，也暗示了海棠「绿肥红瘦」的必然。着一「疏」字，还见出词人观物之细：她记得昨夜雨是疏的、风是骤的，记得如此分明，正因她一夜都在为花担心。以「疏」状雨、以「骤」状风，皆是极平常的字，而组合在一起，便有了「不著一字，尽得风流」之妙，是李清照「以寻常语入词」的典型。

却道 But she says. The maid's careless answer 'the crabapple is still as before,' set against the poet's anxious 'try asking'—the difference of the two characters, how sensitive the poet, how careless the maid, plain in a question and an answer. 「却道海棠依旧」之「却」字，是理解全词人物关系与情感层次的关键字。却者，转折之辞，此处写侍女应答之态：词人惴惴地问，侍女却漫不经心地答「依旧」——一个「却」字，把侍女的粗疏与词人的敏感、把问答之间的错位写得纤毫毕现。侍女说「依旧」，词人心里却不信，于是才有下文的「知否知否」与「应是绿肥红瘦」；「却道」二字正是这场问答的枢纽：它既写侍女之不经意（随意一答），又写词人之不以为然（我不信你的话），一问一答间的两重心理，全赖此二字传出。清人评此词「只数语中，层次曲折有味」，这「曲折」二字，主要就曲折在这「却道」二字上。

绿肥红瘦 Green grown fat, red grown thin. The new-coined phrase that startled the age: not 'the blossoms fallen' but 'the red grown thin,' not 'the leaves lush' but 'the green grown fat'—the personification of fat and thin writing the storm-battered crabapple in four characters. 「应是绿肥红瘦」之「绿肥红瘦」四字，是李清照独创的千古警语，也是宋词炼字的极致。其妙有三：其一，以色彩代花叶——不写海棠叶与花，而写「绿」「红」二字，绿者叶也，红者花也，色彩直入眼帘；其二，以人体状植物——「肥」「瘦」本是形容人胖瘦的词语，移以状叶之繁茂与花之憔悴，新奇警拔，令人过目不忘；其三，以肥瘦暗写风雨——一场风雨，绿叶吸饱雨水而愈肥，红花经雨摧折而愈瘦，风雨的痕迹全在这四字里。这四字打破了以「盛」「衰」「多」「少」写花事的陈套，化抽象为具体、化静态为动态，宋人谓之「语新意隽」，后世词人纷纷仿效，而终无能出其右者。