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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

列女操

Song of the Exemplary Woman

孟郊

Meng Jiao

梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此波澜誓不起妾心井中水

The wutong trees wait to grow old together, the mandarin ducks will die as a pair;
a chaste maiden prizes following her husband in death, and giving up her life is only this;
no wave shall ever rise, she vows — my heart is the water in the well.
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Meaning

This is a variant text of Meng Jiao's Song of the Staunch Woman, differing in a few characters and in lacking punctuation, but identical in content: an ideal of absolute marital fidelity sealed by the image of well water that never ripples. Paired wutong trees and mandarin ducks set the standard, the chaste maiden prizes following her husband in death, and her heart is vowed as still as deep water. Read beside the punctuated version, it shows how the same poem circulated in slightly different forms.

梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此波澜誓不起妾心井中水

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The wutong trees grow old together, the mandarin ducks die in pairs; the chaste maiden prizes following her husband in death, and giving up her life is nothing more; no wave shall ever rise again — her heart is the water in the well. [Structure] In a single unbroken line the poem moves through three stages: the paired images of wutong and ducks, the declaration of the maiden's vow, and the closing well-water metaphor. The absence of punctuation gives the poem the flowing, uninterrupted quality of a recitation. [Imagery] As in the punctuated version, wutong, mandarin ducks, and still well water form a chain of fidelity symbols; the plain diction and abrupt rhymes give it Meng Jiao's characteristic austere force.

【白话串讲】 孟郊写《列女操》：“梧桐相待老，鸳鸯会双死”——“贞女贵徇夫，舍生亦如此”——“波澜誓不起，妾心井中水”——他写贞女——梧桐相待老。 【意象与手法】 “梧桐相待老，鸳鸯会双死”写梧桐鸳鸯相守；“贞女贵徇夫，舍生亦如此”写贞女殉夫；“波澜誓不起，妾心井中水”以井水写坚贞。质朴贞烈。 【情感与主旨】 孟郊写列女操之作，以梧桐鸳鸯、井水为喻写贞女殉夫之志，与《烈女操》同题，是孟郊写贞烈题材的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“梧桐相待老，鸳鸯会双死”写相守；“波澜誓不起，妾心井中水”以井水写坚贞。

Background

This text is a variant of Meng Jiao's Song of the Staunch Woman, preserved without punctuation and with the words chaste maiden and follow in death in place of faithful wife and die with. Such textual variants are common in the transmission of Tang poetry, where poems copied by hand could drift in wording and punctuation. Meng Jiao (751–814), the cold poet of the Mid-Tang, wrote several poems on yuefu titles concerning women, and the existence of two versions of this poem suggests it was widely copied and recited in the Tang and later. Comparing the two texts is a good exercise in how small changes of wording shift the shading of a poem's ethics.

《列女操》为唐代诗人孟郊所作诗。孟郊（751—814），字东野，湖州武康人，唐代诗人。此诗写咏人贞烈，为咏列女之作。诗中「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死；「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」写贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此；「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」写波澜誓不起妾心井中水。孟郊此诗以咏人贞烈、妾心井中水写其贞烈之情，质朴贞烈，是孟郊诗中的名篇。此篇《列女操》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《列女操》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《列女操》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 poem's art is identical in kind to its punctuated twin: a six-line yuefu built from paired images and a final metaphor. What distinguishes this text is its format, a single unbroken string of thirty characters. Without punctuation the poem reads like one continuous recitation, its three images arriving in unbroken succession, which gives the vow a breathless, absolute quality. The variant wording about the chaste maiden prizing following in death stresses active choice rather than passive dying, a small but real shift in nuance.

此诗艺术上以「质朴贞烈、以井写情」见长。全诗共六句，由梧桐相待老而贞女贵徇夫而波澜誓不起。起「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」写梧桐相待老：梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死；「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」写贞女贵徇夫：贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此；结「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」写波澜誓不起：波澜誓不起妾心井中水。全诗以井写情，由梧桐相待老而妾心井中水，质朴贞烈，是孟郊诗中的名篇。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。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 allusions are those of the chastity-poem tradition: the wutong as the tree of paired devotion, the mandarin duck as the bird that never remates, and the custom of a wife following her husband in death, honored in Tang ethics. The image of well water that raises no waves adapts the old Buddhist and Daoist simile of the still, unmoved mind to a vow of conjugal constancy. As a variant text, the poem also illustrates the fluidity of textual transmission before printing stabilized the classics.

诗中「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」等语，皆含典故故实。「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」用鸳鸯之典（鸳鸯写雌雄鸟），写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死；「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」写贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此；「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」用井水之典（井水写水井），写波澜誓不起妾心井中水。诗人用鸳鸯、井水之典入诗，不着痕迹，而把咏人贞烈之情写得真切可感，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。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

Because this version differs so slightly from the punctuated Song of the Staunch Woman, anthologists have usually treated the two as one poem in variant transmission. The differences — chaste maiden for faithful wife, follow in death for die with — are minor but instructive: they show how Tang copyists adjusted wording, perhaps for rhythm or audience. Modern readers should approach the poem's content with the same historical caution as its twin: its chastity ideal belonged to a feudal system, while its plain, forceful imagery remains a fine example of Meng Jiao's yuefu style. For textual study, the two versions side by side are a small lesson in how classical poems reached us.

这首《列女操》，是孟郊写咏人贞烈之作，写梧桐相待老、贞女贵徇夫、波澜誓不起、妾心井中水之情，质朴贞烈。起「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」——梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死。写梧桐相待老：梧桐相待老、鸳鸯会双死——相待老、会双死；「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」——贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此。写贞女贵徇夫：贞女贵徇夫、舍生亦如此——贵徇夫、亦如此；结「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」——波澜誓不起妾心井中水。写波澜誓不起：波澜誓不起、妾心井中水——誓不起、井中水。这「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」，是全诗之结：以妾心井中水写其贞烈。全诗质朴贞烈，以井写情，正是孟郊诗中的名篇。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。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 poem in the ancient style (yuefu)诗（五言古体）
Rhyme The poem rhymes in the oblique tone on si (die), ci (this), and shui (water), one rhyme to the end; the clipped, forceful oblique rhymes suit the poem's stark, oath-like character.此诗为五言古体。押韵：「死」「此」「水」等部。句句自然流转，声情质朴，正与写咏人贞烈的质朴贞烈相称，也见其以古体写贞烈的流转。
Tone pattern In this unpunctuated text the thirty characters flow without pause, moving from the paired images of wutong and ducks, through the maiden's declaration, to the stillness of the well-water close. The reading is plain and unbroken, like a recitation of a vow.句式上，「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」写梧桐相待老，音节质朴；「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」写贞女贵徇夫，音节低回；结「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」写波澜誓不起，音节沉郁。全诗音节随情起伏，由质朴而低回、而沉郁，正合古体「流转」之妙，读来如咏人贞烈、妾心井中水之音，质朴而动人。
Reading note As a yuefu poem in the ancient style, it follows the plain, forceful manner of the music-bureau tradition rather than regulated-verse tonal rules. Its distinguishing feature in this version is the complete absence of punctuation: the three images arrive in one continuous stream, giving the poem the breathless absoluteness of a single spoken vow. Read against the punctuated Song of the Staunch Woman, this variant also shows how wording and layout could shift in the hand-copied transmission of Tang verse.此诗为五言古体，是孟郊写咏人贞烈之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「质朴贞烈、以井写情」：「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」写梧桐相待老、「贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此」写贞女贵徇夫、「波澜誓不起妾心井中水」写波澜誓不起。全诗质朴贞烈，以井写情。尤为精妙者，是「鸳鸯会双死」用鸳鸯之典；而「妾心井中水」用井水之典，正是孟郊诗「质朴贞烈」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《列女操》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

梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死

The wutong trees wait to grow old together; the mandarin ducks will die as a pair.

梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死

The wutong trees wait for old age together; the mandarin ducks die as a pair.

起句写梧桐相待老，起笔即见其梧桐。「梧桐相待老」写梧桐相待老，「梧桐」写梧桐、「相待老」写相待老；「鸳鸯会双死」用鸳鸯之典写鸳鸯会双死，「鸳鸯」写鸳鸯、「会双死」写会双死。一句写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死，以梧桐相待老写相待老、以鸳鸯会双死写会双死，写尽梧桐相待老、鸳鸯会双死之情。以桐起兴，质朴而贞烈，是「以桐起兴」的妙笔。

The opening line writes the wutong trees waiting for old age, the start. 'The wutong trees wait for old age together' — the wutong, 'wait for old age' their growing old together; 'the mandarin ducks die as a pair' uses the allusion to the faithful birds, 'die as a pair'. Rising through the tree, plain and stern, the start of the chaste woman's theme.

贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此

A chaste maiden prizes following her husband in death; giving up her life is only this.

贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此

A chaste woman holds it noble to follow her husband in death; to give her life is even so.

此句写贞女贵徇夫，是全诗写贞女之态的关键。「贞女贵徇夫」写贞女贵徇夫，「贞女」写贞女、「贵徇夫」写贵徇夫；「舍生亦如此」写舍生亦如此，「舍生」写舍生、「亦如此」写亦如此。一句写贞女贵徇夫舍生亦如此，以贞女贵徇夫写贵徇夫、以舍生亦如此写亦如此，写尽贞女贵徇夫、舍生亦如此之情。以贞写情，质朴而贞烈，是「以贞写情」的点睛之笔。

This line writes the chaste woman's honor in following her husband, the key image. 'A chaste woman holds it noble to follow her husband in death' — 'the chaste woman' the subject, 'holds it noble to follow him' her honor; 'to give her life is even so' — giving up her life, even so. Through chastity it writes the feeling, plain and stern, the resolve of the faithful wife.

波澜誓不起妾心井中水

No wave shall ever rise, she vows; my heart is the water in the well.

波澜誓不起妾心井中水

Let no wave rise, I swear; my heart is the water in the well.

结句写妾心井中水，是全诗立意的落点。「波澜誓不起」写波澜誓不起，「波澜」写波澜、「誓不起」写誓不起；「妾心井中水」用井水之典写妾心井中水，「妾心」写妾心、「井中水」写井中水。一句写波澜誓不起妾心井中水，以波澜誓不起写誓不起、以妾心井中水写井中水，写尽波澜誓不起、妾心井中水之情。以水写情，质朴而贞烈，是全诗最动人处，也是「以水写情」的点睛之笔。

The closing line writes her heart as the water in the well, the poem's landing. 'Let no wave rise, I swear' — the wave of wavering, the oath that it shall not rise; 'my heart is the water in the well' uses the well-water allusion, the firm heart. Through water it writes the feeling, plain and stern, the poem's most moving point: the oath that no wave shall ever rise in the well-deep heart.

Study

Word focus

梧桐 The wutong tree — a tree that grows in pairs, a traditional symbol of conjugal devotion lasting to old age. 「梧桐」写梧桐相待老，是写梧桐之态的关键。「梧桐相待老」着一「梧桐」，写梧桐——着一「梧桐」，写梧桐相待老，见其桐之梧。两字写尽梧桐之态，是「以词写桐」的妙笔。「梧桐」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。
鸳鸯 Mandarin ducks — the classic emblem of the faithful couple, said never to remate; dying as a pair seals lifelong fidelity. 「鸳鸯」写鸳鸯会双死，是写鸳鸯之态的关键。「鸳鸯会双死」着一「鸳鸯」，写鸳鸯——着一「鸳鸯」，写鸳鸯会双死，见其鸯之鸳。两字写尽鸳鸯之态，是「以词写鸯」的点睛之词。「鸳鸯」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。
贞女 The chaste maiden — the poem's speaker, whose fidelity is absolute; the word declares the ethical ideal the poem celebrates. 「贞女」写贞女贵徇夫，是写贞女之态的关键。「贞女贵徇夫」着一「贞女」，写贞女——着一「贞女」，写贞女贵徇夫，见其女之贞。两字写尽贞女之态，是「以词写女」的点睛之词。「贞女」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。
波澜 Waves — used as a figure for the stirrings of the heart; no wave shall rise is a sworn pledge that her heart will never be moved. 「波澜」写波澜誓不起，是写波澜之态的关键。「波澜誓不起」着一「波澜」，写波澜——着一「波澜」，写波澜誓不起，见其澜之波。两字写尽波澜之态，是「以词写澜」的点睛之词。「波澜」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 Shuidiao Getou: When Will the Moon Be Clear and Bright? 苏轼 · 同写贞烈感怀、质朴旷达，一写人有悲欢离合、一写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死，皆于贞烈之中见质朴 Both face parting and constancy with plain strength; one finds consolation in the moon's eternal rounds, the other in the stillness of well water.

Su Shi's song accepts that men have sorrow and joy, parting and reunion, as the moon has its dark and bright, meeting loss with philosophical breadth. Meng Jiao's little yuefu instead vows absolute fidelity in the image of well water that never ripples. One is open and consoling, the other closed and absolute — two answers, ancient and modern, to the same human problem.

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」，写贞烈感怀、质朴旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；孟郊《列女操》则以「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」「妾心井中水」写会双死、井中水。两诗同写贞烈感怀、质朴旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死、以鸳鸯写贞烈；一为苏轼之旷达、一为孟郊之质朴，并读正可见诗写「贞烈感怀」的两种笔法，皆于贞烈之中见质朴。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Basheng Ganzhou: Facing the Dusk Rain That Spatters the River Sky 柳永 · 同写井水凝望、质朴清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死，皆于井水之中见凝望 Both gaze longingly across water; one is a wanderer's melancholy over the autumn river, the other a maiden's vow of constancy.

Liu Yong's lyric opens with the dusk rain spattering the river sky, one washing clearing the autumn, the endless melancholy of the wandering poet. Meng Jiao's poem turns the same watery gaze inward: no wave shall rise, her heart is well water. Both use water as the medium of feeling, but Liu Yong's river is restless with travel-weariness while Meng Jiao's well is still with vow.

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」，写井水凝望、质朴清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；孟郊《列女操》则以「梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死」「波澜誓不起」写会双死、誓不起。两诗同写井水凝望、质朴清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写梧桐相待老鸳鸯会双死、以鸳鸯写贞烈；一为柳永之清丽、一为孟郊之质朴，并读正可见诗写「井水凝望」的两种笔法，皆于井水之中见凝望。