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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

除夜宿石头驿

Spending New Year's Eve at Stone Post Station

戴叔伦

Dai Shulun

旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲。
一年将尽夜，万里未归人。
寥落悲前事，支离笑此身。
愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。

At the inn, who is there to ask after me?
Only the cold lamp is fit to be called close.
The night on which the year will end,
A man a thousand miles from home.
Forsaken, I grieve for what is past,
Broken in pieces, I laugh at this body of mine.
A sorrowing face and thinning temples -
And tomorrow I shall meet the spring again.
Listen

Meaning

Alone in a riverside post station on the last night of the year, Dai Shulun finds that the only thing in the room capable of kindness is the lamp. He is a thousand miles from home at the very moment when the year closes, and he measures himself against what has gone: a scattered past, a body breaking apart, a face grown careworn and hair grown thin. The poem's last move is the cruellest, for spring - the season everyone else greets as a beginning - will arrive and find him exactly as he is.

旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲。一年将尽夜，万里未归人。寥落悲前事，支离笑此身。愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] No one at the inn asks how he is; the cold lamp is the only thing that seems companionable. It is the night the year ends, and he is still a thousand miles from home. He grieves over a scattered, unsuccessful past and laughs bitterly at his own dilapidated body; his face is lined, his temples are grey, and tomorrow spring comes round again. [Structure] The poem is a four-couplet descent: the room, then the date, then the life, then the body, and finally the season. [Imagery] Everything is reduced to a minimum - one lamp, one face, one pair of temples - and the reduction is the technique, since a traveller stripped of company is also stripped of everything decorative. [Feeling] The middle couplet holds the poem's centre: grieving at the past and laughing at himself are not contradictory but the same gesture seen from two sides, the laugh being simply grief with nowhere else to go. The closing line refuses consolation; the return of spring, which ought to promise renewal, is presented as another year laid on top of an unchanging man.

【白话串讲】 戴叔伦写《除夜宿石头驿》：“旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲”——“一年将尽夜，万里未归人”——“寥落悲前事，支离笑此身”——“愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春”——他除夕宿石头驿——一年将尽夜，万里未归人。 【意象与手法】 “旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲”写寒灯独亲；“一年将尽夜，万里未归人”写岁尽未归；“寥落悲前事，支离笑此身”写悲前事笑此身；结以“愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春”写明日逢春。苍凉羁旅。 【情感与主旨】 戴叔伦写除夕羁旅之作，写除夕旅馆独处、一年将尽而万里未归的孤苦，以“愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春”写羁旅之悲，是除夕诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“一年将尽夜，万里未归人”写岁尽未归；“愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春”写羁旅之悲。

Background

Dai Shulun (c. 732-c. 789), courtesy name Yougong, was a native of Jintan in Runzhou, in present-day Jiangsu, and one of the more substantial poets of the mid-Tang generations between the great names. He held a range of posts, served in the salt and iron administration, and ended his career as prefect of Rongzhou, far in the south; much of his poetry was written on the roads between such appointments. The post station named in the title lay on the Gan river route in Jiangxi, in the region of Nanchang, and was one of the regular overnight stops of officials travelling between the Yangtze and the far south. New Year's Eve was the high point of the domestic year, when households kept watch together through the night; to pass it in a public inn was to be outside the festival altogether. Dai Shulun's generation also lived with the continuing dislocation of the post-rebellion decades, when educated men routinely spent years moving between provincial staffs and had no settled home to return to - the condition that gives this poem its flat, uncomplaining despair.

《除夜宿石头驿》为唐代诗人戴叔伦所作诗。戴叔伦（约732—约789），字幼公，润州金坛人，唐代诗人。此诗写羁旅除夕，为除夕宿驿之作。诗中「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」写旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲；「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」写一年将尽夜，万里未归人；「寥落悲前事，支离笑此身」写寥落悲前事，支离笑此身；「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」写愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。戴叔伦此诗以羁旅除夕、明日又逢春写其除夕之情，苍凉羁旅，是戴叔伦诗中的名篇。此篇《除夜宿石头驿》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《除夜宿石头驿》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The craft begins with the opening question, which is not really a question: who would ask after me has the answer nobody, and the next line supplies the replacement - a cold lamp, which is the only thing available to be called intimate. That substitution of an object for a person sets the poem's method. From there Dai Shulun works by stripping: the year is at its last night, the man is at his furthest distance, the past is scattered, the body is in pieces, the face is worn, the hair is going. Each couplet removes another layer, and the parallel structure of the middle couplet - grieving against laughing, past against body - gives the stripping an appearance of order, as if loss were being itemised by an accountant. The final couplet is the quietest stroke: instead of ending on an exclamation or a resolution, it ends on a calendar fact. Tomorrow spring returns. The poem thereby hands its emotion to a natural process that is wholly indifferent to it, and that indifference is the real subject.

此诗艺术上以「苍凉羁旅、以灯写情」见长。全诗共八句四联，由旅馆谁相问而一年将尽夜而寥落悲前事。起「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」写旅馆谁相问：旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲；「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」写一年将尽夜：一年将尽夜，万里未归人；「寥落悲前事，支离笑此身」写寥落悲前事：寥落悲前事，支离笑此身；结「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」写明日又逢春：愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。全诗以灯写情，由旅馆谁相问而明日又逢春，苍凉羁旅，是戴叔伦诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

The poem uses almost no bookish reference, and its power comes partly from that plainness, but several phrases carry inherited weight. The cold lamp belongs to a long line of poems in which a lamp is the companion of the sleepless; the adjective cold makes the friendship worthless, since the one thing that keeps him company cannot feel anything. The thousand-mile trope for distance is standard in the travel tradition, but its pairing here with the last night of the year turns a cliche into a measurement of waste. The word used for the speaker's condition in the fifth line, meaning scattered and few, is the vocabulary of desolation applied to a life; and the word for his broken state in the sixth is the same word used of territory fragmented by war, so that the poet quietly describes himself as a defeated country. Thinning temples are one of the oldest signs of wearing sorrow in Chinese verse, going back to the Chu ci and the Nineteen Old Poems. The closing spring is not an allusion but a convention inverted: where spring normally signals renewal, here its return is an accusation.

诗中「旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲」「一年将尽夜万里未归人」「寥落悲前事支离笑此身」「愁颜与衰鬓明日又逢春」等语，皆含典故故实。「旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲」写旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲；「一年将尽夜万里未归人」写一年将尽夜万里未归人；「寥落悲前事支离笑此身」写寥落悲前事支离笑此身；「愁颜与衰鬓明日又逢春」写愁颜与衰鬓明日又逢春。诗人以寒灯、衰鬓等语入诗，不着痕迹，而把羁旅除夕之情写得真切可感，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。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 is the best-known of Dai Shulun's poems and one of the most frequently quoted of all Chinese New Year's Eve poems. Later criticism has concentrated on the middle couplet, where grieving over the past and laughing at oneself are set against each other; readers have admired the economy with which a whole biography is compressed into two balanced clauses. The closing couplet has been praised just as often, usually in the language of the implied ending - nothing is concluded, and yet the poem feels finished, because the arrival of spring supplies a conclusion the speaker is incapable of making. Anthologists have tended to pair it with Cui Tu's New Year's Eve poem, and comparison is instructive: Cui Tu organises his grief as a narrowing sequence from province to candle, while Dai Shulun organises his as a stripping away of everything a man might rely on. Its continuing presence in school anthologies rests on the opening line especially, whose question - who at the inn asks after me - has become a standard way of naming urban and official loneliness in a crowd.

这首《除夜宿石头驿》，是戴叔伦写羁旅除夕之作，写旅馆谁相问、一年将尽夜、寥落悲前事、明日又逢春之情，苍凉羁旅。起「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」——旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲。写旅馆谁相问：旅馆谁相问、寒灯独可亲——谁相问、独可亲；「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」——一年将尽夜，万里未归人。写一年将尽夜：一年将尽夜、万里未归人——将尽夜、未归人；「寥落悲前事，支离笑此身」——寥落悲前事，支离笑此身。写寥落悲前事：寥落悲前事、支离笑此身——悲前事、笑此身；结「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」——愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。写明日又逢春：愁颜与衰鬓、明日又逢春——与衰鬓、又逢春。这「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」，是全诗之结：以明日又逢春写其除夕。全诗苍凉羁旅，以灯写情，正是戴叔伦诗中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form A five-character regulated poem (wu yan lü shi), eight lines in four couplets, with the middle couplets antithetical.诗（五言律诗）
Rhyme A single level-tone rhyme runs through the poem on the even lines. The rhyme class is one of the broad, resonant groups, and its sustained sound gives the piece the even, unhurried music proper to the form, which contrasts with the bitterness of what is being said.此诗为五言律诗，共八句四联。押韵：「亲」「人」「身」「春」押真部韵。平仄相间，对仗工整，正与写羁旅除夕的苍凉羁旅相称，也见其以律诗写除夕的凝练。
Tone pattern Level and oblique tones alternate according to the regulated pattern, and the two middle couplets are strictly parallel: forsaken against broken, grieving against laughing, the past against this body. The first couplet opens with a question and therefore with a rising, unresolved intonation; the middle couplets are level and deliberate, as though itemising; the last couplet closes on the level rhyme word for spring, letting the sound settle and open at once.句式上，「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」写旅馆谁相问，音节苍凉；「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」写一年将尽夜，音节低回；「寥落悲前事，支离笑此身」写寥落悲前事，音节沉郁；结「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」写明日又逢春，音节悠长。全诗音节随情起伏，由苍凉而低回、由沉郁而悠长，正合律诗「凝练」之妙，读来如羁旅除夕、明日又逢春之音，苍凉而动人。
Reading note The interest of the prosody here is its restraint. The poem observes every rule of the regulated form while describing a man whose life has fallen apart, and that discipline is what keeps the feeling from becoming rhetorical. The strict antithesis of the middle couplets makes grief look orderly; the closing level-tone rhyme, on the word for spring, leaves the sound hanging rather than resolving it, so the music enacts the same refusal of consolation that the sense does.此诗为五言律诗，是戴叔伦写羁旅除夕之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「苍凉羁旅、以灯写情」：「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」写旅馆谁相问、「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」写一年将尽夜、「寥落悲前事，支离笑此身」写寥落悲前事、「愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春」写明日又逢春。全诗苍凉羁旅，以灯写情。尤为精妙者，是「寒灯独可亲」写尽独可亲；而「明日又逢春」写尽又逢春，正是戴叔伦诗「苍凉羁旅」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《除夜宿石头驿》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲。

At the inn, who is there to ask after me? Only the cold lamp is fit to be called close.

旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲。

In the inn, who asks after me? The cold lamp alone is my companion.

起句写旅馆谁相问，起笔即见其旅馆。「旅馆谁相问」写旅馆谁相问，「旅馆」写旅馆、「谁相问」写谁相问；「寒灯独可亲」写寒灯独可亲，「寒灯」写寒灯、「独可亲」写独可亲。一句写旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲，以旅馆谁相问写谁相问、以寒灯独可亲写独可亲，写尽旅馆谁相问、寒灯独可亲之情。以馆起兴，苍凉而羁旅，是「以馆起兴」的妙笔。

The opening line writes in the inn, who asks after me?, the inn at once. The words the inn write the lodging; who asks after me? the neglect. The cold lamp alone is my companion writes the lone light. The line writes to the full the feeling of the inn's neglect and the cold lamp's companionship. Rising through the inn, desolate and wandering, the fine brush of rising through the inn.

一年将尽夜，万里未归人。

The night on which the year will end, and a man a thousand miles from home.

一年将尽夜，万里未归人。

The night when the year is ending; a man ten thousand li from home, not returned.

此句写一年将尽夜，是全诗写尽夜之态的关键。「一年将尽夜」写一年将尽夜，「一年」写一年、「将尽夜」写将尽夜；「万里未归人」写万里未归人，「万里」写万里、「未归人」写未归人。一句写一年将尽夜万里未归人，以一年将尽夜写将尽夜、以万里未归人写未归人，写尽一年将尽夜、万里未归人之情。以夜写情，苍凉而羁旅，是「以夜写情」的点睛之笔。

This line writes the night when the year is ending, the key of the whole's writing the year-end. The words the year write the cycle; the night when ending the Eve. A man ten thousand li from home, not returned writes the wanderer. The line writes to the full the feeling of the year-ending night and the man not returned. Writing feeling through the night, desolate and wandering, the eye-dotting brush.

寥落悲前事，支离笑此身。

Forsaken, I grieve for what is past; broken in pieces, I laugh at this body of mine.

寥落悲前事，支离笑此身。

Desolate, I grieve the past; broken and frail, I smile at this body.

此句写寥落悲前事，是全诗写寥落之态的关键。「寥落悲前事」写寥落悲前事，「寥落」写寥落、「悲前事」写悲前事；「支离笑此身」写支离笑此身，「支离」写支离、「笑此身」写笑此身。一句写寥落悲前事支离笑此身，以寥落悲前事写悲前事、以支离笑此身写笑此身，写尽寥落悲前事、支离笑此身之情。以悲写情，苍凉而羁旅，是「以悲写情」的点睛之笔。

This line writes desolate, I grieve the past, the key of the whole's writing the desolation. The words desolate write the loneliness; grieve the past the memory. Broken and frail, I smile at this body writes the frail self. The line writes to the full the feeling of grieving the past and smiling at the frail body. Writing feeling through the grief, desolate and wandering, the eye-dotting brush.

愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。

A sorrowing face and thinning temples - and tomorrow I shall meet the spring again.

愁颜与衰鬓，明日又逢春。

This sorrowful face and these fading temples - tomorrow they meet spring again.

结句写明日又逢春，是全诗立意的落点。「愁颜与衰鬓」写愁颜与衰鬓，「愁颜」写愁颜、「与衰鬓」写与衰鬓；「明日又逢春」写明日又逢春，「明日」写明日、「又逢春」写又逢春。一句写愁颜与衰鬓明日又逢春，以愁颜与衰鬓写与衰鬓、以明日又逢春写又逢春，写尽愁颜与衰鬓、明日又逢春之情。以春写情，苍凉而羁旅，是全诗最动人处，也是「以春写情」的点睛之笔。

The closing line writes this sorrowful face and these fading temples - tomorrow they meet spring again, the landing of the whole's bent. The words sorrowful face write the haggard look; fading temples the graying. Tomorrow they meet spring again writes the renewal. The line writes to the full the feeling of the haggard face and the returning spring. Writing feeling through the face, desolate and wandering, the most moving place of the whole and the eye-dotting brush.

Study

Word focus

旅馆 The inn or official lodging house where an official on the road spent the night. It is by definition a public, impersonal place, which is why the poem's opening question - who here asks after me - has its answer already built into the setting. 「旅馆」写旅馆谁相问，是写旅馆之态的关键。「旅馆谁相问」着一「旅馆」，写旅馆——着一「旅馆」，写旅馆谁相问，见其馆之旅。两字写尽旅馆之态，是「以词写馆」的妙笔。「旅馆」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
寒灯 The cold lamp. A lamp is the conventional companion of the sleepless; qualifying it as cold strips even that meagre friendship of warmth and makes the object as indifferent as the strangers outside. 「寒灯」写寒灯独可亲，是写寒灯之态的关键。「寒灯独可亲」着一「寒灯」，写寒灯——着一「寒灯」，写寒灯独可亲，见其灯之寒。两字写尽寒灯之态，是「以词写灯」的点睛之词。「寒灯」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
寥落 Scattered, sparse, forsaken. Used of a life, it says that what should have been a coherent career has been reduced to a few disconnected remains, and it prepares the bitter balance with the word for broken in the next line. 「寥落」写寥落悲前事，是写寥落之态的关键。「寥落悲前事」着一「寥落」，写寥落——着一「寥落」，写寥落悲前事，见其落之寥。两字写尽寥落之态，是「以词写落」的点睛之词。「寥落」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
衰鬓 Thinning, greying temples - the standard physical register of wasted years in Chinese poetry. Placed next to the word for a sorrowing face, it turns the whole closing couplet into a portrait of a body that time has used up. 「衰鬓」写愁颜与衰鬓，是写衰鬓之态的关键。「愁颜与衰鬓」着一「衰鬓」，写衰鬓——着一「衰鬓」，写愁颜与衰鬓，见其鬓之衰。两字写尽衰鬓之态，是「以词写鬓」的点睛之词。「衰鬓」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

水调歌头·明月几时有 Song of the Water Melody: When Did the Bright Moon First Appear 苏轼 · 同写羁旅感怀、苍凉旷达，一写人有悲欢离合、一写一年将尽夜万里未归人，皆于羁旅之中见苍凉 Both treat separation and the passer of the years from the position of a man who cannot be where he wishes to be.

Su Shi answers the problem of separation with a general law - partings and reunions, the waxing and waning of the moon, nothing has ever been complete - and so consoles himself by enlarging the question. Dai Shulun refuses enlargement entirely: he stays in one room with one lamp and lets the return of spring stand as an unanswered fact. The contrast is between a poetry that reasons its way out of grief and one that simply records where grief has left a man.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全」，写羁旅感怀、苍凉旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；戴叔伦《除夜宿石头驿》则以「一年将尽夜，万里未归人」「明日又逢春」写未归人、又逢春。两诗同写羁旅感怀、苍凉旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写一年将尽夜万里未归人、以除夕写羁旅；一为苏轼之旷达、一为戴叔伦之苍凉，并读正可见诗写「羁旅感怀」的两种笔法，皆于羁旅之中见苍凉。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Eight Beats of Ganzhou: Facing the Evening Rain That Sweeps the River Sky 柳永 · 同写驿馆凝望、苍凉清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲，皆于驿馆之中见凝望 Both use a lodging and a stretch of water to frame the condition of a traveller who is far from what he cares about.

Liu Yong stands outdoors in the rain and lets a vast, washing landscape carry his regret, his speaker's eyes always turning toward home. Dai Shulun stays indoors, in lamplight, and his landscape is reduced to a face and a pair of temples. Reading them together shows the difference between a Song lyric that projects feeling onto scenery and a Tang regulated poem that compresses feeling into a single room.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写驿馆凝望、苍凉清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；戴叔伦《除夜宿石头驿》则以「旅馆谁相问，寒灯独可亲」「寥落悲前事」写独可亲、悲前事。两诗同写驿馆凝望、苍凉清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写旅馆谁相问寒灯独可亲、以寒灯写羁旅；一为柳永之清丽、一为戴叔伦之苍凉，并读正可见诗写「驿馆凝望」的两种笔法，皆于驿馆之中见凝望。