Fu De · Since You Went Away (赋得自君之出矣) by Zhang Jiuling

Meaning

Since you left home, I no longer attend to the half-woven loom. My longing for you is like the full moon, losing a little of its clear radiance night after night (growing thinner day by day).

自从你离家出门之后，我便不再去理会那织到一半的织机。我对你的思念，就像那一轮满月，一夜一夜地，减去了清亮的光辉（日渐消瘦）。

Appreciation

The first two lines 'Since you went away, I no more tend the half-woven loom' open with plain narration, pointing to the husband's far journey and the wife's stopping the loom, showing devotion in the simple. The phrase 'half-woven loom' is especially fine: the work left unfinished just shows her troubled heart and no mind for woman's craft. The last two 'My thought of you is like the full moon—night after night it loses its clear light' take a fresh turn: not writing that the longing grows, but that the moon loses light—using the full moon's nightly waning to allegorize that longing makes her beauty fade and her radiance lessen, renewing the common 'thought like the full moon' and making a novel, deep, and gentle metaphor, implicit and endless.

【白话串讲】 “自君之出矣，不复理残机”——张九龄写思妇：你走了以后，我再也没碰织机。“思君如满月，夜夜减清辉”——想你像满月，夜夜都在减淡清辉。比喻妙到极致。【意象与手法】前两句“自君之出矣，不复理残机”以直叙起笔，点明丈夫远行、思妇停机，于平白中见痴情【情感与主旨】 “赋得”为科举试诗或文人拟题之作的惯用前缀【名句点睛】中高考常赏其“比喻翻新”与“以月写思”之法。常考

Background

'Fu De' is the usual prefix for examination or literati set-title poems; 'Since you went away' was an old yuefu topic (from Xu Gan's 'Room Thought', 'since you went away, the bright mirror dims untended'), with many imitations from the Southern Dynasties to the Tang. Zhang Jiuling's poem is a representative of his boudoir-lament / longing work. Though Zhang Jiuling, with a prime-minister's talent, was crowded out by Li Linfu, this poem purely writes the wife's longing for the far one; the language is extremely plain yet the feeling extremely deep, and was likely an archaizing lyric, not necessarily literal—showing the other face of his 'elegant, upright, calm' style.

《赋得自君之出矣》为盛唐诗人张九龄所作。张九龄（678—740），字子寿，韶州曲江人，盛唐名相，有“曲江风度”之称。此诗为“赋得体”（以古人成句为题作诗），题目取自汉末古诗“自君之出矣”：自君之出矣，不复理残机；思君如满月，夜夜减清辉。全诗以思妇口吻写怀人之情：君出之后，不复整理残机；思念如满月，夜夜减清辉。以满月渐缺写思念之深，比喻精妙，是“自君之出矣”体中的名篇。张九龄身为名相而此诗写闺情，可见其诗才之全面。

Art

The first two lines 'Since you went away, I no more tend the half-woven loom' open with plain narration, pointing to the husband's far journey and the wife's stopping the loom, showing devotion in the simple. The phrase 'half-woven loom' is especially fine: the work left unfinished just shows her troubled heart and no mind for woman's craft. The last two 'My thought of you is like the full moon—night after night it loses its clear light' take a fresh turn: not writing that the longing grows, but that the moon loses light—using the full moon's nightly waning to allegorize that longing makes her beauty fade and her radiance lessen, renewing the common 'thought like the full moon' and making a novel, deep, and gentle metaphor, implicit and endless.

《赋得自君之出矣》艺术上以比喻的贴切与语言的简洁见长。全诗四句，层层写来：“自君之出矣，不复理残机”写君出之后——不复整理残机，写其无心劳作；“思君如满月，夜夜减清辉”写思念之深——思君如满月，夜夜减清辉。全诗以“不复理残机”写思妇之无心，以“思君如满月，夜夜减清辉”写思念之深：满月初圆而渐缺，正如思妇之憔悴——初别之时如满月，夜夜思念而日渐清减。比喻贴切而语言简洁，正是张九龄“清淡”的风格。

Allusions

'Since you went away' directly follows the old yuefu topic, whose root is Xu Gan's 'Room Thought', 'since you went away, the bright mirror dims untended'; the Six Dynasties men Yan Yanzhi, Yu Xi and others all imitated it; Zhang Jiuling follows the topic to voice boudoir feeling—an inheritance of the yuefu topic, not a new tale. 'My thought of you is like the full moon' transforms the old poem 'my thought is like the full moon, bright as the white sun' and Bao Zhao's 'my thought of you is like the flowing stream', the tradition of using a thing to stand for longing. 'It loses its clear light' turns about the common use of the full moon for reunion, writing its gradual waning—ingenuous, the allusion natural.

《赋得自君之出矣》用典在“自君之出矣”。“自君之出矣”为汉末古诗的成句，后成一体（“自君之出矣”体），南朝及唐代多有拟作，如徐干《室思》、陈叔达、辛弘智等皆有此作；“残机”指织机，写思妇不复织作；“满月”写月之圆缺，喻人之聚散；“清辉”写月光。全诗承“自君之出矣”体的传统，以思妇口吻写怀人，而“思君如满月，夜夜减清辉”比喻精妙，超越前人。张九龄此诗为赋得体，正是对汉末古诗传统的继承与发展。

Commentary

Zhang Jiuling's poetry is known for the bone of his 'Gan Yu', yet this little poem shows another, deeply gentle side. The Ming Hu Yinglin, in his Poetry Critique, said of the Tang 'Since you went away' pieces 'Jiuling is the most plaint and gentle'. Moderns often set it beside Wang Wei's 'Longing' and Li Bai's 'Quiet Night Thought' as representative Tang five-character quatrain love-poems, holding that in twenty characters 'the thought layers deep, no less than the ancient poems'—enough to show the wonder of his little poems.

《赋得自君之出矣》是张九龄的名篇，也是“自君之出矣”体中的压卷之作。此诗以满月渐缺写思念之深，比喻精妙，向为论者称道。论者多赏其“思君如满月，夜夜减清辉”的比喻——以满月写初见之圆满，以减清辉写思念之消瘦，遂成千古名句；而“不复理残机”写思妇之无心，亦见深婉。张九龄身为盛唐名相，其《感遇》诗以兰桂写君子，此诗以满月写思妇，皆见其诗才。此诗与《望月怀远》同为张九龄写月之名篇，一写怀人之深，一写望月之远。

Prosody

Form Five-character quatrain (Fu De form / old yuefu topic)五言绝句

Rhyme Ping-shui rhyme, upper-level five wei group (loom, light), first line not entering rhyme《赋得自君之出矣》为五言绝句，押平声韵。此诗用韵：机、辉（微部），一韵到底，音节清淡。五绝句式短小，宜于写含蓄之情。

Tone pattern First line not entering rhyme, oblique-onset五言绝句以音节短促、含蓄隽永见长。此诗以“自君之出矣”起，音节从容；“不复理残机”写思妇之无心，声情低回；“思君如满月”写思念之深，音节圆转；“夜夜减清辉”以“减清辉”收，声情清减。全诗以平韵贯底，声调与怀人之情相合，是五绝中含蓄隽永的一路。

Reading note Five-character quatrain, oblique-onset first-line-not-entering-rhyme; loom, light rhyme in wei, strict rule yet language near old yuefu.《赋得自君之出矣》为五言绝句，是张九龄的名篇。此诗承“自君之出矣”体的传统，以思妇口吻写怀人之情：不复理残机，写其无心；思君如满月，夜夜减清辉，写其憔悴。以满月喻思念，以减清辉写消瘦，比喻精妙而含蓄深婉，是“自君之出矣”体中的压卷之作。张九龄身为盛唐名相，其诗清淡深婉，此诗正是其诗才的体现。

Line by line

自君之出矣，不复理残机。

Since you went away, I have not touched the half-woven loom.

自从你离开之后，我再也不整理那残旧的织机了。

Since you left, I have never again set the old loom in order.

首二句写君出之后思妇之无心。“自君之出矣”写离别之时——“自君之出矣”为汉末古诗成句，点出君已远去；“不复理残机”写思妇之无心——“不复理”写不再整理，“残机”写残旧的织机——君出之后，思妇无心织作，连残机也不再整理。二句以“不复理残机”写思妇之态：不是不会织，而是无心织；不是机残，而是心残。以“不复理残机”写怀人，含蓄而传神：思妇的无心劳作，正是思念之深的体现。这一起笔，承“自君之出矣”体的传统，写思妇的慵懒与无心，为后文的比喻张本。

The first two lines show the wife's listlessness after her husband's departure. 'Since you went away' is a stock opening of late-Han folk verse, marking his absence; 'I have not touched the half-woven loom' shows her heart gone from work — 'have not touched' is no longer working, 'half-woven loom' the idle frame. It is not that she cannot weave, but that she has no heart for it; not that the loom is broken, but that the heart is. To write the longing through an idle loom is subtle and telling: her refusal to work is itself the measure of her longing. This opening carries the tradition of the 'since you went away' poem, her languor and absent mind preparing the metaphors to come.

思君如满月，夜夜减清辉。

I miss you like the full moon, whose clear glow wanes night after night.

思念你如那满月，夜夜都在消减清辉。

Longing for you is like the full moon, whose bright radiance dwindles night by night.

后二句以满月喻思念，是全诗的点睛之笔。“思君如满月”写思念之始——“思君”点出主题，“如满月”写思念如满月之圆；但“夜夜减清辉”一转——“夜夜”写日复一日，“减清辉”写清辉渐减。二句以满月写思念：思君之初，如满月之圆满；而夜夜思念，日渐消瘦，如满月之清辉渐减。这一比喻妙在以月写人：月有圆缺，正如人有聚散；满月渐缺，正如思妇渐瘦。以“满月”写初别之圆满，以“减清辉”写思念之消瘦，比喻贴切而含蓄深婉。这一收束，正是“自君之出矣”体中最精妙的比喻，遂成千古名句。

The last two lines compare longing to the full moon, the poem's crowning stroke. 'I miss you like the full moon' opens with longing as round as the moon; but 'whose clear glow wanes night after night' turns — 'night after night' is the passing of days, 'wanes the clear glow' its slow fading. The two lines use the moon for the person: at first, longing is as complete as the full moon; but night after night she pines, thinning away, as the full moon's light declines. The metaphor's beauty is writing the person through the moon: the moon has fullness and waning, as people have meeting and parting; the full moon shrinking is the wife growing thin. 'Full moon' for the roundness of fresh parting, 'waning glow' for the wasting of longing — apt, restrained, deep. This ending is the finest image in the 'since you went away' genre, and became a line for the ages.

Study

Word focus

残机 'half-woven loom' writes the wife's state: the husband gone, she leaves the loom half done, her heart troubled and with no mind for woman's craft—a detail showing devotion. “不复理残机”之“残机”，写残旧的织机，是全诗写思妇无心劳作的关键词。“残”写其残旧，“机”写织机——君出之后，思妇连残旧的织机也不再整理。这一词以“残机”写织机之旧，更以“不复理”写思妇之无心：不是机不能织，而是人无心织；不是机残，而是心残。以“残机”写思妇之态，含蓄而传神，正是“自君之出矣”体写思妇的笔法。

满月 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “思君如满月”之“满月”，以满月喻思念之初，是全诗比喻的起点。“满”写其圆满——思君如满月，写思念如满月之圆满。这一词写思念之深之满：不是残缺之思，而是圆满之思；不是淡薄之情，而是饱满之情。以“满月”喻思，正是以月之圆满写情之深挚，为下句“减清辉”作对照——满月已满，而清辉渐减。

减清辉 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “夜夜减清辉”之“减清辉”，写清辉渐减，是全诗比喻的转折与点睛。“减”写消减，“清辉”写月光——夜夜思念，清辉渐减。这一词以月之减辉写人之消瘦：满月虽圆，而夜夜减辉；思妇虽念，而日渐憔悴。以“减清辉”写思念之深，正是以月喻人的绝妙一笔——月减其辉，人减其容，思念之苦尽在其中。这一词与“满月”相承，满而渐减，正是“自君之出矣”体中最精妙的比喻。

不复理 A key expression in the poem. Read it as an image, mood, or grammar point in context. “不复理残机”之“不复理”，写不再整理残机，是全诗写思妇无心的关键词。“不复”写不再，“理”写整理——君出之后，连残旧的织机也不再整理。这一词写思妇之无心劳作：不是不能织，而是无心织；不是机残，而是心残。以“不复理”写思妇之态，含蓄而传神，正是“自君之出矣”体写思妇的笔法——以不织写思念之深。

赋得自君之出矣