游玉隆宫四首 其三

Meaning

Written on the winter solstice during a solitary visit to the Daoist temple Yulong Palace on the Western Mountains, the quatrain records a rare interval of rest in a life of toil. With no companion for the village wine, the poet sits alone before a single stick of incense in the temple's clear emptiness. The joy of repose is edged with loneliness, and the loneliness in turn resolves into quiet transcendence.

逍遥自在,暂且欢喜,终于可以歇一歇长年的奔波劳碌。山村里买来的酒,却无人可以共饮,只能独自面对道家清虚的境界,守着一炉清香。

Appreciation

The first couplet writes the fatigue of travel and the relief of rest, the second the solitude of having no drinking companion and the stillness of incense — movement into stillness, clamor into clarity. The words 'briefly' and 'only' are the poem's eyes: the first confesses that this leisure is a stolen pause in an otherwise rushed life, so that gladness already hides melancholy; the second sweeps aside every worldly thought, leaving one curl of smoke in a great silence. The village wine and the incense of the Void, one common and one refined, set loneliness against transcendence, and the closing line leaves an aftertaste that does not disperse.

【白话串讲】 曹勋写游玉隆宫：“至日西山道路长，逍遥暂喜息奔忙”。“无人共饮山村酒，只对清虚一炷香”——他写山中的清静。 【意象与手法】 前两句写游程之劳与息肩之喜,后两句转写独处之寂与焚香之静,由动入静,由闹入清。暂、只二字皆诗眼:暂喜见其清闲不过忙里偷闲,只对则把万般俗念悉数屏去。山村酒与清虚香一俗一雅对举,以无人共饮写落寞,以独对一香写超然。 【情感与主旨】 诗人身历靖康之变,备尝国难与奔劳,至日独游西山道观,于清虚一炷香前觅得片刻安宁。无人共饮暗含宦游倦客的孤寂,焚香独对则见其于热闹场中别寻清净的出世之想,喜中有怅,怅中有悟。 【名句点睛】 “只对清虚一炷香”一个只字将山村酒、无人、奔忙尽数撇开,只留一炉清香、一片清虚,于万籁俱寂中自得妙趣,余香袅袅,回味无穷。

Allusions

The diction dissolves Daoist sources without a trace. The Western Mountains are the twelfth of the thirty-six grotto-heavens of Daoism, where Xu Xun rose to heaven with his whole household, and Yulong Palace stands on his altar site; a solstice visit there coincides with the Daoist idea of the return of yang at winter's deepest yin, unspoken but present. 'Free and easy' comes from the first chapter of Zhuangzi, the highest condition of his philosophy, here borrowed to write the joy of setting down a burden, natural and apt. 'Rushing about' is stock Tang diction — Bai Juyi's 'the busy ones run their errands' — set against free-and-easy, one still, one busy, exactly the Zhuangzian bondage of the body in service. The village wine descends from late-Tang lines like Du Mu's pray, where may a tavern be found, wine setting off loneliness. As for incense, the Daoist tradition weighs it heavily — the Yunji Qiqian says the cultivator of truth must reach the real by way of incense — so facing one stick alone is the gate-of-no-action, stillness-as-ancestor state. Note too the pairing of village and monastery: the village wine is the world's consolation, the incense of the Void the Dao's refuge, one common, one refined, one solid, one empty, with 'no one' standing between them as the pivot of the solitary traveler's mind. Such pairing of secular and Daoist images has Tang precedents in the poems of roaming immortals — Li Bai's Question and Answer in the Mountains, with its peach blossoms gone and a world apart — but Cao Xun flattens the marvel into the everyday of one stick of incense and one cup of tea, the Song transformation of immortal fancy into philosophic calm, the marvels of the immortals no longer paraded but found between a burner and a cup.

此诗语多本于道家典籍与唐人游仙之作而浑化无迹。至日西山,西山为道教三十六洞天之第十二洞天,许逊于此拔宅飞升,玉隆宫即其坛址,曹勋至日游此,暗合道家一阳来复之机,冬至为阴尽阳生之节,与仙家炼养之说相通,虽不明言而意味自存。逍遥一词出《庄子·逍遥游》,本为庄子哲学的最高境界,作者以逍遥状息肩之乐,借道家语写游观之喜,自然而贴切。奔忙二字,唐人诗习见,如白居易忙者自奔波,与逍遥对举,一静一忙,正见庄周所谓形役之困。山村酒,承晚唐体诗语,如杜牧借问酒家何处有,以酒衬孤寂。清虚一炷香,香之为物,道门尤重,焚香乃斋醮之始,《云笈七签》言修真之士必以香通真,只对一炷香,正是以无为为用、清静为宗的道门境界。至于只、暂、喜等虚字,皆自宋人习用语中炼出,浅而实深。更可玩味者,是诗中村与观的对照:山村酒是尘世的慰藉,清虚香是道境的依归,一俗一雅,一实一虚,作者于两者之间取舍分明,而又以无人为介,写出独游者的特殊心境。这种以世俗物象与道教意象对举的写法,在唐代游仙诗中已有先例,如李白山中问答的桃花流水窅然去,别有天地非人间,曹勋承之而更趋平淡,正是宋人以理趣化仙趣的结果,仙家之事至此不复炫奇,而归于日常的一炷香、一盏茶之间。

Commentary

Cao Xun's name is less lustrous than his forebears', yet the Songyin Ji kept its reputation into the late Song. Wu Zhizhen's Songshi Chao, including the Songyin Ji, judged his poetry peaceful and warm, at times with the air of the Way, the mountain and forest pieces especially unencumbered. The Siku editors wrote that Cao Xun lived through the northern captivity and his friends were all men of loyalty and honor, hence his songs ring with vigor, while his outings to mountains and searches for the Dao are pure and remote from the dust — the very words for this piece. Li E's Songshi Jishi favored the Yulong Palace set, finding its manner very like Wang Wei's pastoral quatrains; Qian Zhongshu's Anthology of Song Poetry, though it omits Cao Xun, remarks generally that the southern-crossing poets often wrote mountains, monasteries, and Daoist scenes to carry their grief for the lost north — and Cao Xun, who lived through the catastrophe, writes precisely such meaning into his excursions. In form the first couplet records travel, the second records the mind; the record is limpid, the mind serene, heir to Tao Qian and Xie Lingyun. For historians of Song poetry, who pair Neo-Confucianism and Chan but often pass over the Daoist strain, the poem is precious evidence of how closely Song literati kept company with the Daoist church, and of how the early Southern Song literati, after the national disaster, sought a spiritual home in mountains and temples.

曹勋诗名虽不及其父辈显赫,然《松隐集》诗作在宋末尚为论家所称。清人吴之振《宋诗钞》收松隐集,评其诗谓:和平温厚,时有道气,山林登览之作,尤觉萧散。四库馆臣于《四库全书总目提要》论《松隐集》云:勋身经北狩,交游皆忠义之士,故发为吟咏,多慷慨之音,而其游山访道之作,则清迥绝尘。此诗正属后者,所谓清迥绝尘四字,恰可移评。清人厉鹗《宋诗纪事》录曹勋诗多首,于此游玉隆宫诸作尤加青眼,以为风调绝似王维田园山水之什。近人钱锺书《宋诗选注》虽未收曹勋,然于宋诗一般论调中每言南渡诗人多写山林道释之境,以寄黍离之悲,曹勋身历国难,其游仙访道之作正含此意。合观诸评,皆许其清雅淡远,此诗以至日独游、对香清坐写去就自得的怀抱,正是松隐集中萧散一格的代表。复就诗体言,四句之中,前两句纪行,后两句写心,纪行则明净,写心则冲和,得陶谢田园山水诗之遗意。曹勋本以勋臣子入仕,而能于道观山水间有此清远之思,亦见其涵养之深。后世论宋诗者,每以理学与禅悦并举,而于道教文学一脉,往往语焉不详,此诗正可作为考察宋代士大夫与道教关系的一则材料,其价值固不只在词章之美而已,亦可见南宋初期士人于国难之后寻求精神归宿的普遍路径。

Prosody

Line by line

Related Reading