宋 Song · 诗 Poem
次禹弼同游滕王园池之韵 其一
Following the Rhymes of Yu Bi on Our Shared Visit to Prince Teng's Garden Pool (No. 1)
当时歌舞竞韶华，银烛烧残始上车。
堂上旧欢何处觅，春风无计问桃花。
Where in those halls can the old joys be sought? The spring wind has no means to ask the peach blossoms.
Meaning
Visiting the garden pool of Prince Teng's estate, the poet recalls the banquets of former days—song and dance racing the glorious hours, guests leaving only as the candles guttered—and then asks where those vanished pleasures can be found. Since even the spring wind cannot question the peach blossoms that still bloom, the poem meditates on how splendor passes and no one, not even the season itself, can recover or explain what time has taken.
当年这里歌舞争胜,竞逐着美好时光;直到银烛快要燃尽,宾客们才登车离去。昔日厅堂上的欢乐如今到哪里去寻觅呢?春风也无法替我问那依旧开放的桃花。
Appreciation
A twenty-eight-character quatrain in the manner of Tang historical laments, the poem builds its effect by contrast and indirection: two lines of remembered plenty, one question of loss, one image of futility. The word "vied" animates the whole former scene, while "burned low" plants decay inside the very height of festivity. The close refuses direct statement and hands the burden of feeling to the spring wind and peach blossoms, an ending on scenery that lets the sorrow dissolve into a misted landscape—dense then sparse, solid then empty—the essence of the reticent Tang manner carried into Song sensibility.
【白话串讲】 黄裳写滕王园池：“当时歌舞竞韶华，银烛烧残始上车”——当年多么热闹。“堂上旧欢何处觅，春风无计问桃花”——如今旧欢何处寻。 【意象与手法】 七绝四句,先写昔日歌舞之盛,竞字写满堂喧阗;银烛烧残写宴久散迟,盛极转衰已伏其中。第三句旧欢何处觅直击盛衰之变,末句借春风桃花一问宕开,以景结情,前实后虚,前密后疏,尽得唐人怀古七绝含蓄蕴藉之神髓。 【情感与主旨】 诗人同游滕王园池,由昔日歌舞联想起所有盛筵难再的主题。银烛烧残、旧欢何处,皆直指繁华易逝之理;末句翻用崔护人面桃花之典,更进一层:不仅人面已非,连问桃花的春风亦无计可施,把古今同悲、无从追问的怅惘写到尽头,寄兴亡之思于桃花一物。 【名句点睛】 “春风无计问桃花”以景语作结,桃花岁岁在春风中自开自落,诗人欲问桃红何以不识旧日欢乐,而春风亦无可如何,一问之中物我俱寂,满腹盛衰之叹尽化于空濛景色之中。
Background
Huang Shang, courtesy name Mianzhong and studio name Yanshan, was a native of Nanjianzhou in the Northern Song who took first place in the palace examination of 1082 and served through five reigns; his collected works survive as the Yanshan Collection. Yu Bi was a friend with whom he toured the garden pool of Prince Teng, and Huang followed the rhymes of Yu Bi's poem, hence "following the rhymes" in the title. The site at Hongzhou (modern Nanchang) was built around the Pavilion of Prince Teng in the Tang, its gardens and pools still a noted relic in Song times, praised by Wang Bo and visited by Su Shi. Huang rose through the reforms and factional struggles of the late Northern Song and lived to see the splendor of Kaifeng dissolve like an illusion, so his poems on historic sites habitually carry thoughts of rise and fall. Though this is a poem written to match another's rhymes, its lament is heartfelt rather than social convention: starting from the pavilion's vanished song and dance, it reaches the universal truth that no feast returns, and ends by fixing all of that in the single image of a peach blossom.
黄裳,字冕仲,号演山,南剑州剑浦人,北宋神宗元丰五年进士第一,历仕神、哲、徽、钦、高五朝,著有《演山集》。禹弼为其友人,同游滕王园池,先有诗作,黄裳依其韵脚和之,故题下次韵。滕王园池在洪州南昌,唐显庆间滕王李元婴筑滕王阁,阁畔有园林池沼,至宋代犹存胜迹,苏轼、王勃辈皆有题咏。诗为游园怀古之作,写当日歌舞之盛与今日寻欢无处之慨。考黄裳生平,早年以文章受知于王安石,晚岁宣和间奉祠家居,目睹北宋由盛转衰、汴京繁华如梦幻泡影,故其集中咏怀古迹之作,每寄兴亡之思。此诗由滕王阁的昔日歌舞联想起所有盛筵难再的普遍主题,银烛烧残、旧欢何处,皆直指繁华易逝之理,末句春风无计问桃花,以问句作结,将古今盛衰之叹凝于桃花一物,风流蕴藉。滕王阁自王勃作序以来,宴饮之盛甲于东南,此诗借其遗址抒沧桑之感,正是宋人咏史怀古惯用的以盛衬衰手法。考黄裳生平,元丰五年廷试第一,历仕元祐、绍圣、元符、建中靖国诸朝,亲见新党旧党互为倾轧,又值汴京承平之末,繁华满眼而危机伏于其中,故其于胜迹题咏,往往从繁华入手,而以销歇收场,寄托自己经世阅变后的深沉感慨。此诗虽为和作,而其感慨则发自肺腑,非泛泛应酬可比。滕王阁自唐世以还,游者络绎,题咏盈壁,宋人于此多兴沧桑之叹,黄裳此作,正是其中以少总多、以淡写浓的一篇,读之可以想见作者登临之际,俯仰今古、低徊不能自已的神情。
Art
The quatrain moves through four beats: the splendor of the past, the hour of dispersal, the emptiness of the present, and a final question swung open. Images—song and dance, silver candles, old joys, spring wind, peach blossoms—advance in layers, the real and the virtual generating each other. The opening "back then" plunges the reader into bygone revelry, with "vied" capturing the whole racing, contending scene; "only when the silver candles burned low did they mount their carriages" turns the blade: the candles' burning out marks how long the feast ran and how late it broke up, the very peak of splendor being the beginning of dispersal. The third line, "where can the old joys in those halls be sought," drops from narrative into interrogation and names the change outright. The last line refuses to answer: the blossoms open and fall each year in the spring wind regardless, and even the wind—the poet's would-be messenger—has no way to ask them, so that in one question both self and world fall silent. Dense writing for the first half, sparse for the second; narration then question then sigh; the rhythm loosening exactly as after a banquet's last note—the utmost in restrained effect from the fewest words.
此诗七言四句,章法上先写往昔之盛,次写散场之状,再写今日之空,终以一问宕出,全篇以歌舞、银烛、旧欢、春风、桃花诸意象层层递进,虚实相生。首句当时歌舞竞韶华,以当时领起,把读者带入昔日歌吹沸天的盛景,竞字写尽赛乐竞舞、争逐韶光的场面。银烛烧残始上车,笔锋陡转,写欢会终宵、烛残将尽才各自登车归去,以银烛烧残点明宴饮之久、散席之迟,繁华的顶点即是离散的开端。第三句堂上旧欢何处觅,忽由叙事转入问寻,旧欢无处觅五字直击核心,点破盛衰之变。末句春风无计问桃花,以景作结,桃花岁岁春风中自开自落,诗人欲问桃红何以不识旧日欢乐,而春风亦无可如何,一问之中,物我俱寂,把古今兴亡、人事代谢的怅惘尽收其中。通篇以淡笔写浓情,词浅意深,得唐人怀古七绝之神髓,而议论含而不露,正是宋诗思理与唐诗兴象融合的产物。细味其转合之妙,第三句旧欢何处觅,已是全篇之眼,而作者偏不就此直发议论,却于末句借春风桃花一问,轻轻宕开,使满腹感慨尽化于一片空濛景色之中。较之直说盛衰无常,此等笔法更见含蓄,也更耐寻味。四句之中,忆昔两句,寻欢一句,问花一句,前实后虚,前密后疏,节奏由紧入松,恰如歌筵散后,余音袅袅,将尽未尽的况味。宋人绝句最重三四句的转合,此诗三四句一问一叹,正是得此中三昧者。
Allusions
The poem's allusions are few but exactly chosen. The ancestral source is Wang Bo's "Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng": "where now is the prince who dwelt in this pavilion? Beyond the railing the Long River flows on in vain"—the same sentiment of vanished greatness, running from early Tang into this Northern Song echo. "Silver candles" borrows the Tang palace vocabulary of aristocratic night feasting (as in Bai Juyi's "silver candles to court at dawn, the purple road long") to color the all-night splendor of former banquets; "burned low" silently borrows the candle-dying-for-love imagery of late Tang poetry so that the candle's end shadows the feast's end. The peach blossom of the close reworks Cui Hu's famous "the face is gone, no one knows where; the peach blossoms smile in the spring wind as before": Cui's blossom smiles over a lost love, but Huang Shang reverses the figure—even the spring wind cannot manage to ask the blossom—so that the sorrow of a love poem and the sorrow of history interweave into something new. "No means" (wuji) likewise distills the Tang poets' language of helplessness before spring, ordinary words bearing inexhaustible meaning. All the allusions dissolve like salt in water, leaving no mark of carving.
此诗虽短而用事精当。滕王园池之咏,渊源可溯至王勃《滕王阁序》,序中阁中帝子今何在,槛外长江空自流之句,正是此诗堂上旧欢何处觅的远祖,一脉相承的盛衰之感,自初唐绵延至北宋。银烛一词,多见于唐人宫词,如白居易《长恨歌》银烛朝天紫陌长,以银烛写贵游夜宴之奢,此诗借以渲染昔日歌舞通宵之盛。烧残二字,暗用杜牧《夜泊秦淮》烟笼寒水月笼沙之末句商女不知亡国恨的曲笔意味,以烛残寓欢尽。末句桃花,则兼用崔护《题都城南庄》人面不知何处去,桃花依旧笑春风之典,崔诗以桃花笑春风写情缘之怅,此诗翻用为问桃花而无计,怀古之思与情诗之恨交织,别见新意。至于春风无计四字,亦自唐贤咏春送春诗中化出,以无计二字写人力之无奈,语出寻常而意含不尽。全诗用典如盐著水,融化入浑,不见斧凿之痕。又王勃滕王阁序中物换星移几度秋一句,亦为此诗盛衰主题之远源,黄裳虽未明用其语,而其立意则与之一脉。银烛之外,歌舞一词亦自有典据,汉魏以来,殿庭歌舞之盛,见诸史记乐书及两都赋、西京赋诸篇,竞字正承此而来。至于烧残二字,唐诗中春蚕到死丝方尽、蜡炬成灰泪始干一类的意象尤多,皆以烛之将尽写情之将尽,黄裳拈此入诗,与旧欢无处觅相绾,遂使物象与情思打成一片,了无隔阂。
Commentary
Though Huang Shang's poetic fame is modest, this quatrain has been cited by anthologists and critics across the centuries. The late-Song anthologist Cai Zhengsun recorded contemporary praise of the Yanshan garden poems as "plain yet not without grace," with the Prince Teng piece noted for its lingering feeling. Ming critic Yang Shen, discussing Song quatrains, cited this poem as proof that Huang Shang could match Tang manner—"the closing question of the peach blossom has a tone very like the Tang masters." Qing scholars from Lu Xiong's Song Shi Jishi to Wu Zhizhen's Song Shi Chao noted that the poet of "profound learning" could also write "with tender feeling and hidden purpose." What all these readings converge on is the poem's gift for packing limitless feeling into ordinary words. A mere twenty-eight characters that yet hold the grief shared by every visitor to a historic site, it proves that a great poem depends not on length but on truth of feeling and inexhaustible implication.
黄裳诗名虽不甚显,然此诗却为后世选家与诗话所称引。宋末蔡正孙《诗林广记》引时人评演山游园诸作,谓其平易而不失风致,滕王阁一首尤觉情韵绵长。明人杨慎《升庵诗话》论宋人七绝,举此诗为例,评曰:当时歌舞、旧欢何处,意绪苍茫,末以问桃花收束,风调绝似唐人,盖深得少伯、牧之之遗。清人厉鹗《宋诗纪事》录此诗,笺注谓黄裳以状元之才为理窟之文,然此作婉转多情,知诗人正不必皆作道学语也。吴之振《宋诗钞》评演山诗:清深婉丽,时有兴寄。合观诸家之论,皆着眼于其以寻常语写无尽感慨的蕴藉笔致。此诗在黄裳集中本属小品,却因寥寥数语写尽千古登临者共有之悲,遂成怀古小诗中的佳作,足证好诗不在篇长,而在情真意远、含蕴无尽。细考诸家评语,其推重此诗,皆非泛论,而各有所见:杨慎赏其风调之似唐,盖就其言情之蕴藉立论;厉鹗取其纪事之详,则就其本事之确切着眼;吴之振所谓兴寄,尤能道出此诗借游园写兴亡的言外之意。一首二十八字的小诗,而能兼得风调、本事、兴寄三长,实为难得。南宋以降,此类以古阁旧池写盛衰之感的七绝渐多,然措语之精、结想之妙,鲜有能过此篇者,是以论宋人小诗者,每于此不得不置喙。
Prosody
Line by line
当时歌舞竞韶华，银烛烧残始上车。
Back then, songs and dances vied with the radiant season, and only when the silver candles had burned low did the guests climb into their carriages.
当年这里歌舞争胜,竞逐着美好时光;直到银烛快要燃尽,宾客们才登车离去。
In those days, song and dance vied with the blooming hour; only when the silver candles burned low did they mount the car.
起联以当时二字领起回忆,竞韶华三字写尽昔日歌舞喧阗、人争欢娱之盛,一个竞字,满堂热闹如在目前。银烛烧残始上车紧承其下,以烛残写宴久,以始上车写散迟,极写繁华之极致,却也暗伏曲终人散之机,盛极转衰,不动声色。两句一气贯注,铺足昔日之盛,为下文的寻觅与怅惘蓄势。妙在两句全写昔日之盛而不著一赞语,盛况自见;而银烛二字已露曲终人散之兆,盛中伏衰,读至第三句方觉前文处处皆是埋伏,此正是善用逆笔处,看似顺写,实则倒挽,步步引入寻欢之恨。
The opening couplet leads the memory with the words in those days; the three words vied with the blooming hour write to the full the splendor of the former song and dance and men's contending joy, and the single word vied makes the hall's bustle as if before the eyes. The second, only when the silver candles burned low did they mount the car, follows below, writing the long feast with the candle's burning low, and the late dispersal with only then mounting the car, to the utmost writing the peak of splendor, yet secretly laying the germ of the music's end and the men's dispersal, the height turning to decline, without a sound. The two lines flow as one, fully spreading the former splendor, gathering force for the later seeking and wistfulness. The beauty lies in that the two lines all write the former splendor without a word of praise, and the splendor appears of itself; yet the two words silver candles already reveal the sign of the music's end and the men's dispersal, decline hidden within the height. Only when reading the third line does one feel that the earlier lines are everywhere an ambush; this is exactly the skilled use of the reversed brush, seemingly writing forward but really pulling backward, step by step leading into the grief of seeking joy.
堂上旧欢何处觅，春风无计问桃花。
Where in those halls can the old joys be found? The spring wind has no means to ask the peach blossoms.
昔日厅堂上的欢乐如今到哪里去寻觅呢?春风也无法替我问那依旧开放的桃花。
Where shall I seek the old joys of the hall? The spring wind has no way to ask the peach blossoms.
转合两句由实入虚,旧欢何处觅以问句直逼主题,点破盛衰之变,措辞极淡而痛感极深。末句翻用崔护人面桃花之典,更进一层:不仅人面已非,连想要问桃花的春风也无计可施,把古今同悲、无从追问的怅惘写到尽头。以桃花在春,反衬人事已非,景语收束,余韵无穷,正是七绝以景结情的上乘手法。且旧欢何处觅与春风无计问桃花,一问一叹,皆以无着落之语写无着落之情,人与花、今与昔、有知与无知,层层对照,读之但觉满纸怅惘,却不著一字悲痛,含蓄之力,正在于此,是唐人所谓不著一字尽得风流者。
The turning and closing two lines move from solid to void; where shall I seek the old joys of the hall? uses a question to press straight to the theme, pointing out the change of height and decline, the wording most plain yet the pain most deep. The closing line reverses the allusion to Cui Hu's face and peach blossom, stepping further: not only the face is no more, but even the spring wind that would ask the peach blossoms has no way, writing to the end the wistfulness that the grief common to ancient and modern cannot be inquired after. Setting the peach blossom in spring against the human affair's being no more, closing in scenery words, the aftertone unending, exactly the first-class way of the seven-character quatrain closing feeling in scenery. Moreover, where shall I seek the old joys and the spring wind has no way to ask the peach blossoms, one question one sigh, both writing the feeling of no grounding in words of no grounding; man and flower, now and then, the knowing and the unknowing, contrast layer by layer, and reading it one feels the paper full of wistfulness, yet not carrying a word of grief; the reserved force lies exactly here, what the Tang called not carrying a word and yet fully winning the charm.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Compare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
崔护诗人面不知何处去,桃花依旧笑春风,以人面桃花写相思情缘的失落,桃花笑春风是拟人化的怅惘,缠绵悱恻;黄裳此诗旧欢何处觅与春风无计问桃花,则翻用其境而注入怀古兴亡之思,把个人的情缘之叹扩大为古今同悲的沧桑之感。崔诗以桃花为主角,黄诗以春风为媒介,同一意象,两种用法。对读可见典故意象如何在后人笔下转生新义,亦可辨情诗与怀古诗在情感取向上的微妙差别。崔诗桃花依旧,笑的是春风中的今人,黄诗桃花无言,拒的是春风里的问讯,一主动一被动,意象虽同而笔意各异,正可作绝句翻案法的绝佳例证,亦见同一典故在不同体裁、不同心境下,自能生发出迥然相异的韵味。
滕王阁 滕王阁 王勃 · 同咏滕王阁盛衰,一为长篇大序,一为绝句小章 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
王勃《滕王阁诗》阁中帝子今何在,槛外长江空自流,以四句写尽滕阁盛衰,气象雄阔,感慨深沉,是怀古的鸿篇;黄裳此作以二十八言写歌舞散尽、旧欢难觅,从宴饮细节点染,含蓄蕴藉。王诗以长江永恒反衬人事无常,取境阔大;黄诗以桃花依旧反衬旧欢难觅,取景幽微。同一胜迹,一宏一约,一显一隐,正见初唐之雄浑与北宋之婉约在同一题材上的不同风调。王诗以水之不逝衬人之已亡,取象于长江;黄诗以桃之仍开衬欢之不再,取象于春花,一宏一约,各尽其妙,而皆能于咏物写景之中见兴亡之旨,是知写景不在大小,而在取舍之间见出真性情。