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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

玉阶怨

Lament on the Jade Stairs

李白

Li Bai

闺怨boudoir lament 愁思melancholy 爱情love

玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜。
却下水精帘，玲珑望秋月。

White dew gathers on the jade stairs; deep in the night its chill seeps through her silken hose.
She lets down the crystal blind at last, yet still, limpid-eyed, she gazes at the autumn moon.

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Meaning

This palace-lament in twenty characters traces one sleepless night of a lonely palace lady. Dew gathers on the jade steps and, as the night deepens, soaks through her silken stockings, yet still she stands there; at last she lowers the crystal blind — and then, sleepless still, gazes at the autumn moon. Not one word of resentment appears, yet the resentment is everywhere in the imagery: grief without anger, sorrow without bitterness. Later readers have also heard in it the poet's own sense of genius unrecognized, palace grief doubling as a scholar's non-recognition.

玉石砌成的台阶上，一夜之间凝起一层白露；夜已经深了，寒气渐渐浸透了我单薄的罗袜。我满心无奈地放下水晶珠帘，却依旧不肯睡去，只是痴痴地、久久地凝望着天边那一轮澄澈的秋月。

Appreciation

The poem is a five-character yuefu in the old quatrain manner, supreme for what it leaves unsaid: five images only — jade stairs, white dew, silken hose, crystal blind, autumn moon — and not one word of complaint. The gradual gathering of dew writes the deepening night; the soaked stockings write her long standing; the word 'at last' in lowering the blind writes reluctant hesitation; 'limpid' writes the cold clarity of the solitary watcher. Emotion lies entirely beyond the words, exemplifying the ideal of 'not writing a single character yet capturing all the spirit.' The final gaze at the moon, held like the freeze-frame of a film, condenses all the unspoken grief into one silent action.

【白话串讲】李白写《玉阶怨》：“玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜”——她在玉阶上站了太久，露水打湿罗袜。“却下水精帘，玲珑望秋月”——她放下水晶帘，还在望月。二十个字，写尽宫女的等待。【意象与手法】全诗二十字，只撷取玉阶、白露、罗袜、水精帘、秋月五个意象，无一字写怨，而宫怨之情自见。妙在「以景写情、以无言写深怨」：露之渐生写夜之渐深，袜之被侵写人之久立，下帘之「却」写无奈踟蹰，望月之「玲珑」写清冷孤寂，一层一层，全是动作与景物，情则尽藏于言外，是乐府诗「不著一字，尽得风流」的极致。【情感与主旨】此诗写宫女长夜难眠、幽怨难遣之情。怨而不怒、哀而不伤，不是呼天抢地的悲号，而是深宫之中一声无声的叹息——华贵的玉阶、清冷的白露、澄澈的秋月，处处衬出独守空闺之人的孤寂；后人或谓其中寄寓了诗人怀才不遇、知音难觅的身世之感，宫怨而兼士不遇，含蓄隽永。【名句点睛】结句「玲珑望秋月」五字是千古名句：「玲珑」兼写月色之晶莹与望月人之清丽，一「望」字把全部幽怨凝于无声的动作之中，不言怨而怨满纸，与王昌龄「玉颜不及寒鸦色」同为宫怨诗中以含蓄取胜的典范。

Background

'Lament on the Jade Stairs' is an old yuefu title created by Xie Tiao of Southern Qi, whose original ('At dusk the palace lowers its pearl blind; fireflies flicker and rest; all night she sews her silken robe — for longing of her lord, what end?') made the title a classic of the palace-lament genre. Li Bai's version, found in the yuefu chapters of his complete works, dates from around his service at the Hanlin Academy in the early Tianbao years. Though a proud spirit who scorned the powerful, Li Bai often gave voice to the sorrows of palace women, and the genre also carried the tradition of 'writing a scholar's non-recognition through palace grief': watching factional strife at court and feeling his own ambitions blocked, the poet could invest the lady's resentment with his own. Shen Deqian's Tangshi biecai praised it: 'Its wonder is that it never states the grief, and the grief deepens of itself.' Later poets such as Wang Changling in his Changxin autumn poems and Du Mu on a palace lady's autumn night may be traced to this piece — its pivotal place in the lineage of palace laments.

《玉阶怨》是乐府旧题，首创于南朝齐诗人谢朓，其原作「夕殿下珠帘，流萤飞复息。长夜缝罗衣，思君此何极」写宫中女子长夜思君之怨，自此此题成为宫怨诗的经典题目。李白此作收入《李太白全集》乐府卷，当为天宝初年供奉翰林前后所作。李白一生任侠使气、藐视权贵，却屡屡为深宫女子的悲欢传神写照，足见其「哀妇人而为之代言」的深切同情；而宫怨诗自来有「以宫怨写士不遇」的传统，诗人于长安朝堂上目睹权贵倾轧、自感抱负难施，故借宫女之怨寄托一身块垒，亦属自然。全诗仅二十字，写深宫女子一夜之态：玉阶生露，夜久侵袜，下帘而不寐，望月而伤怀，无一字言怨而怨情自深。沈德潜《唐诗别裁》评曰「妙在不明言怨而怨自深」，正揭出此诗含蓄为宗的旨趣。从创作年代看，此诗当与《静夜思》《秋浦歌》等同为李白短章妙品，二十字之制正是其「以少总多」的拿手好戏；后代诗人如王昌龄《长信秋词》、杜牧《秋夕》写宫女秋夜，皆可于此寻其先声，可见此诗在宫怨谱系中的枢纽地位。

Art

In twenty characters, with time as its thread and imagery as its sinew, the poem advances layer by layer without the single character for grief ever appearing. The first line, 'White dew gathers on the jade stairs,' begins as the night dew first condenses: 'gathers' writes the dew coming from nothing into being, covertly writing time's passing and the deepening night. The second, 'deep in the night its chill seeps through her silken hose,' continues: as night deepens and dew grows heavy, the cold soaks step by step into her stockings while the person still stands, not withdrawing — her state of mind may be imagined. The third, 'She lets down the crystal blind at last,' is the turn of action: the word rendered 'at last' writes the hesitation and reluctance of letting the blind fall — the blind comes down, but the heart does not. The close, 'yet still, limpid-eyed, she gazes at the autumn moon,' ends in the posture of gazing, like the freeze-frame of film, condensing a whole breast of unspoken grief into one soundless gaze. Structurally the lines open with dew, continue with cold, turn with action, and close with expression — four lines causally linked, scene and feeling mutually engendering. Compared with Xie Tiao's same title, whose 'for longing of my lord, what end?' states the longing directly, Li Bai wholly buries feeling in scene, turning the straight into the curved, raising Six Dynasties prettiness to High Tang reserved fullness; later readers held that this title reached its utmost in Li Bai. Rhetorically, 'gathers' writes the dew gradually congealing, 'seeps' writes the cold penetrating the body, and 'limpid' (a double-initial word) writes the moon's clarity: every word is wrought, yet all seamless. Nowhere an argument, nowhere resentment stated, yet the depth, hiddenness, and unspeakability of the grief lie wholly in what is not said — the utmost of reserve, in perfect accord with the poetics of 'gentle and sincere.'

全诗二十字，以时间为主线、以景物为筋脉，层层推进，不见一「怨」字而怨情毕现。首句「玉阶生白露」从夜露初凝写起，一「生」字写露之由无到有，暗写夜色渐深、时间流逝；次句「夜久侵罗袜」接写夜深露重，寒露一步步沁入罗袜，人却久久伫立不归，其心事可知；第三句「却下水精帘」是动作转折，「却」字写放下珠帘时的迟疑无奈——帘子放下了，心却放不下；结句「玲珑望秋月」以望月之态收束，如电影之定格，把一腔幽怨凝于无声的凝望之中。章法上，起句写露，承句写寒，转句写动作，合句写神情，四句之间因果相衔、情景相生。与谢朓同题相较，谢诗「思君此何极」直言其思，李白则完全藏情于景，化直为曲，把六朝乐府的婉丽提升为盛唐的含蓄浑成，故后人以为此题至李白而极。再就修辞而言，「玉阶生白露」以「生」字写露之渐凝，「夜久侵罗袜」以「侵」字写寒之透体，「玲珑」以双声写月之澄澈，字字皆经锤炼而浑然天成；全诗无一处议论，无一字直陈怨情，而怨之深、之隐、之无可言说，尽在不言之表，正合「温柔敦厚」的诗教，是含蓄为宗的极致。

Allusions

Every image comes from the palace-lament tradition, using precedent without showing it. First, 'jade stairs' continues the Han story of Ban Jieyu: losing favor and withdrawing to Changxin Palace, she compared herself to the round fan in her 'Song of Resentment,' so that palace steps and round fans became marks of the discarded favorite — the preciousness of the jade stairs exactly sets off the desolation of the long night. Second, 'silken hose' borrows Cao Zhi's Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo ('treading the ripples with delicate steps, her silken feet raising a dust') for a beauty's graceful air; here the hose are soaked by cold dew — beauty and cold juxtaposed, the lonelier for the splendor. Third, the 'crystal blind' is the standard boudoir furnishing of Qi-Liang palace-style verse; Xie Tiao's same-title poem lowers a pearl blind, and Li Bai's change to crystal, the more translucent, fits the clear cold of the watcher's mind. Fourth, 'gazing at the moon' is the classic motif of longing across distance — Xie Zhuang's Rhapsody on the Moon ('a thousand li apart, sharing the bright moon') and Zhang Jiuling's 'the bright moon rises on the sea; at the sky's edge we share this hour' — the palace lady gazing at the moon is gazing at the one she longs for and the distance she dreams of. Four clusters of images from tradition, fused by Li Bai without trace, precedent melted into present scene — the High Tang art of 'allusion like salt in water.' Moreover, 'autumn' itself carries the bleak sense of the killing season — the Book of Rites makes autumn the officer of punishments and the omen of war; the lady watching the autumn moon has the grief of the season laid over the grief of her lot, so that twenty characters hold boundless implication; and what the gaze seeks — a distant person, a lost home, an unknowable fate — in its very ambiguity shows the depth and breadth of palace grief.

此诗意象皆自宫怨传统中来，用事而不见事。其一，「玉阶」承汉代班婕妤故事：班婕妤失宠退居长信宫，作《怨歌行》以团扇自比，宫阶、团扇自此成为失宠宫人的标志性意象，玉阶之华贵正与长夜之孤凄相映。其二，「罗袜」用曹植《洛神赋》「凌波微步，罗袜生尘」写美人绰约之态，此处却写罗袜被寒露所侵，华美与寒凉并置，愈见独守之冷。其三，「水精帘」即水晶帘，为齐梁宫体诗常见之闺阁陈设，谢朓同题「夕殿下珠帘」即用珠帘，李白易以水晶帘，愈见晶莹剔透，恰与思妇心境之澄澈清冷相应。其四，「望月」是中国文学中相思的经典母题：谢庄《月赋》「隔千里兮共明月」、张九龄「海上生明月，天涯共此时」皆以月为远思之媒，宫女望月，正是望其所思之人、所念之远方。四组意象皆自传统中来，而李白熔铸无痕，化典实为眼前景，正是盛唐诗人「用典如盐入水」的本领。此外，「秋月」之「秋」本身即含肃杀悲凉之意，《礼记》以秋为刑官、为兵象，宫女于秋夜望月，时序之悲与身世之悲叠合，遂使二十字的小诗含蕴无穷；而「望」字所望者，或为远人，或为故乡，或为不可知的命运，含混之中，更见宫怨之深广。

Commentary

This poem has always been ranked among Li Bai's finest short pieces, paired with 'Quiet Night Thoughts' as the twin gems of his five-character quatrains. The Tang-Song shichun says 'not one word speaks of grief, yet the feeling of hidden grief appears beyond the words'; Shen Deqian says 'its wonder is that it never states the grief, and the grief deepens of itself' — both naming its supremacy of reserve. Compared with Wang Changling's 'Autumn Words of Changxin' — 'her jade face cannot match the cold crow's color, which still bears the sun's shadow from Zhaoyang' — Wang writes grief by ironic contrast, Li by silent gazing, one pointed, one whole; both are the summit of the genre. The poem also proves that Li Bai could write not only the boldness of the great river flowing east but the reticent delicacy of a palace lady's unsayable sorrow — no form he touched but he mastered; and his method of 'ending with scene, never writing the word grief' became the ancestral law of the later palace-lament lyrics, such as Wen Tingyun's 'Pusaman.' Twenty characters with inexhaustible savor is the model of 'summing the many in the few, feeling and visage without loss,' the utmost of High Tang reserve. Set beside 'Quiet Night Thoughts' — one palace grief, one traveler's homesickness — each perfect in twenty characters, it shows Li Bai in this form 'arriving at mastery without intending it'; a thousand years on, the ancestor of the palace-lament genre must be this piece, its influence running down through Wen Tingyun's lyrics and Wang Jian's palace ballads without end.

此诗历被推为李白短章中的精品，与《静夜思》并称李白五言绝句双璧。《唐宋诗醇》评「无一字言怨，而幽怨之意见于言外」，沈德潜《唐诗别裁》谓「妙在不明言怨而怨自深」，皆揭出其以含蓄胜人的艺术品格。与王昌龄《长信秋词》相比，王诗「玉颜不及寒鸦色，犹带昭阳日影来」以反衬写怨，李诗「玲珑望秋月」以凝望写怨，一尖新一浑成，同为宫怨诗的最高境界。此诗的价值还在于：它证明李白不仅能写「大江东去」式的豪放，亦能写深宫女子「欲说还休」的婉约，笔力所至，无体不工；而其「以景结情、不著怨字」的手法，更成为后世宫怨词（如温庭筠《菩萨蛮》）一脉相承的祖法。二十字而情味无穷，正是「以少总多、情貌无遗」的典范，亦见盛唐诗歌含蓄美的极致。此诗与《静夜思》一写宫怨、一写客愁，二十字各尽其妙，可见李白于五言绝句一体，实已臻「无意于工而无不工」之境；千载之下，宫怨一体之祖，当推此篇，其影响远及温庭筠词、王建宫词，绵延不绝。

Prosody

Form Five-character yuefu (old-style quatrain on an old yuefu title)五言乐府（古绝体，乐府旧题）

Rhyme Oblique, entering-tone rhymes: wa (entering 'he') and yue (entering 'yue') — short, clipped, like sobbing cut short, fitting the suppressed, unsayable grief; the old quatrain allows oblique rhymes and does not bind the tones, sound driven by breath.押仄声韵：袜（入声七曷）、月（入声六月），入声短促急收、如泣如咽，正合幽怨低回、欲说还休之情；古绝不避仄韵，亦不拘平仄，声情以气驭之。

Tone pattern All five-character lines close on oblique tones, the beat short and constricted, matching the repression of palace grief; 'limpid' (linglong), a double-initial, brightens the close from dullness to translucence, writing the passage from the night's oppression to the abstraction of moon-gazing.通首五言，句句以仄声收束，音节短促而凝滞，与宫怨的压抑相应；「却下」「玲珑」音节清亮（「玲珑」为双声），由沉闷转空灵，恰写出由长夜的压抑到望月的出神。

Reading note This is a five-character old-style quatrain on a yuefu title, formally near the five-character jueju but free of regulated-tone rules, rhyming on oblique entering tones — unlike the usual level rhymes of the form. Entering tones are short, low, abruptly closed, exactly conveying the repression of palace grief, the feeling that starts to speak and stops. All four lines close oblique: wa and yue are entering tones, each line stopping short, no ringing syllable anywhere — sound-feeling wholly one with sense. The first two lines are narration, slow as a wordless night; the last two, one turn and one gaze, close on the clear ring of 'limpid' (a double-initial, like the sound of pendant jade), the passage from oppression to the self-forgetting of moon-gazing. Twenty characters, brief of sound, far of feeling, carrying the deepest emotion in the most archaic music — a model of conveying feeling by sound in the old quatrain; compared with the level plainness of 'Quiet Night Thoughts' this poem shows the more labor of the file, yet chimes on the tongue just as well, recited through a thousand years.此诗为五言古绝，属乐府旧题，体制上近于五绝而不拘近体平仄，押仄声韵（入声），与一般五绝押平声韵者异趣——仄声入声短促、低沉、急收，恰好传出宫怨的压抑与欲说还休。四句皆以仄声收束：袜、月为入声，句句顿挫，无一字悠扬，声情与辞情高度统一。前二句全为陈述，语速舒缓，如长夜无声；后二句一转一望，结于「玲珑望秋月」的清音（玲珑双声，如环佩之声），由沉闷转空灵，恰写出由夜的压抑到望月的出神忘我。全诗二十字，声短韵促，情深意远，以最古拙的音节承载最深沉的情感，是古绝中以声传情的典范；与《静夜思》的平白如话相比，此诗更见锤炼之功，而同样琅琅上口，千古传诵。

Line by line

玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜。

White dew gathers on the jade stairs, and as the night deepens its chill seeps into her silken stockings.

玉石砌成的台阶上凝起了一层白露，夜已经很深了，寒气渐渐浸透了我单薄的罗袜。

On the jade steps white dew forms; the night wears on, and it soaks into my silk stockings.

起笔即以「玉阶」「白露」造境：玉阶是华贵的宫阶，白露是寒夜的霜露，华贵与清冷相映，暗示女主人公身份高贵而境遇孤凄，玉阶越是晶莹，露水越是冰凉。「生」字炼得极妙——露是渐渐凝结的，以「生」写露之由无到有，恰暗写时光之流逝、长夜之难捱；「夜久」点明时间已深，「侵」字由外而内、由衣及体，写寒气一步一步沁入罗袜，而人竟不避不眠，其心事可想而知。二十字中未着一「怨」字，而夜之深、露之冷、袜之薄、人之独，层层逼出幽怨，正是「不言怨而怨自深」的典范笔法；「玉阶」之华与「罗袜」之单，物物对照，愈见深宫女子被冷落的处境。

The opening at once builds the world with jade steps and white dew: jade steps are the noble palace stairs; white dew is the cold night's frost; nobility and cold mirror each other, hinting the heroine's high rank and lonely lot; the more glittering the jade steps, the colder the dew. Forms is refined most subtly - the dew gradually condensing; using forms to write the dew's from-nothing-to-something, secretly writing time's flow and the long night's endurance. The night wears on fixes the late hour; soaks moves from without to within, from garment to body, writing the cold step by step infiltrating the silk stockings, while the woman neither shuns nor sleeps - her heart is imaginable. Within twenty characters not one word of grievance, yet the night's depth, the dew's cold, the stockings' thinness, the woman's solitude layer by layer force out the hidden grief - precisely the model brush of not speaking grievance yet grievance self-deepens. Jade steps' nobility against silk stockings' thinness, object against object, all the more showing the deep palace woman's neglected lot.

却下水精帘，玲珑望秋月。

Reluctantly she lets down the crystal blind, yet remains limpid and sleepless, gazing at the clear autumn moon.

我放下水晶珠帘，却依旧不肯安睡，只是痴痴地、久久地凝望着天边那轮澄澈的秋月。

Then I lower the crystal curtain; through its lattice I gaze at the autumn moon.

第三句以「却下」写动作，「却」字最见情味——不是爽快地放下帘子，而是迟疑、无奈、百无聊赖地放下，仿佛放下帘子便彻底隔断了什么，一「却」字写尽进退失据的心绪；「水精帘」晶莹剔透，帘内帘外，明月如旧，愈发显出独处之清冷。结句「玲珑望秋月」是全诗之眼：「玲珑」本形容玉声或物之空明，此处兼写月色之晶莹与望月人姿态之清丽，亦暗喻心事之剔透澄澈；「望」字定格，以景结情，一腔幽怨尽在不言中。宫女不望人而望月，因月可照远方、可寄相思，正如前人「愿逐月华流照君」之痴愿；秋月圆满而人独单，望月愈久，孤寂愈深。全诗于最平淡处见最深沉，结句一「望」含千古之怨，令人低回不尽。

The third line uses then lowers for the action; then most shows feeling - not briskly letting the curtain fall, but hesitantly, helplessly, listlessly lowering it, as if lowering the curtain would cut off something entirely; one then exhausts the进退失据 state of mind. The crystal curtain is translucent; within and without, the bright moon unchanged, all the more showing the solitude of being alone. The closing limpid, gazing at the autumn moon is the whole poem's eye: limpid originally describes jade sound or an object's clarity; here it writes at once the moonlight's glitter and the gazer's graceful posture, also secretly the heart's translucent clarity. Gaze freezes the frame, resolving feeling in scenery; a whole breast of hidden grief is all in the unspoken. The palace woman does not gaze at a person but at the moon, because the moon can light the distance, can carry longing, like the old wish of I would follow the moonlight and shine on you. The autumn moon is round, the woman alone; the longer the moon-gaze, the deeper the solitude. The poem sees the deepest in the plainest; the closing one gaze holds a millennium of grievance, making one linger endlessly.

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Word focus

侵 The verb 'seep' or 'invade' (qin) gives the soundless dew an advancing force, soaking through stocking, skin, and heart by degrees — outer cold and inner cold in one word, the hinge from scene to feeling. 「夜久侵罗袜」之「侵」字，是全诗由景入情的关键字。露本无声无息，「侵」字却赋其以主动逼近之态，如寒气一点一点沁入罗袜、沁入肌体、沁入心脾，由外及内，层层递进。此字妙在三层：一是时间之深，夜久则露重，露重则寒深，「侵」字暗写时间之流逝，长夜之难捱；二是感觉之切，不是「沾」「湿」等静止之字，而是渐进式的「侵」，如敌人之入侵，写出寒意与人的亲近无间、不可抗拒；三是心境之冷，宫女独守空闺，心冷与身冷相应，寒露侵袜亦即孤寂侵心、愁思侵骨。一个「侵」字，身寒心寒并写，遂使二十字的小诗有了透骨的凉意，比明说「寒」「冷」等字含蓄深永得多，正是炼字不炼句、以一字传全神的本领。

玲珑 'Limpid' (linglong), originally the ring of jade or the translucence of things, here describes at once the moon's crystalline light, the watcher's graceful clarity, and the sheer translucence of her solitary heart; being a double-initial word, its sound is clear as pearls dropping on jade. 「玲珑望秋月」之「玲珑」，是全诗最见神采的字眼。本义状玉声或物之空明透亮，此处有四重意趣：一写月色，秋月澄澈，光华玲珑，是月光之美；二写人态，望月之人身形清丽、仪态从容，是人物之美；三写心境，心事剔透、清冷寂寞，如月之玲珑，是情思之美；四写声韵，「玲珑」为双声叠韵字，音节清亮，如珠落玉盘，与望月的澄明之境相配。此字兼写人与月，物我交融——人望月，月照人，人与月俱玲珑，而越是玲珑澄澈，越见其孤单清冷。若易为「痴痴」「脉脉」等字，则失其清雅；唯「玲珑」既见月色之美，又见宫怨之清，含蓄而不失风华，正是李白「清水出芙蓉，天然去雕饰」的本色。

却下 'Yet lowering' (que xia) is the poem's one described action: 'yet' carries the hesitation and reluctance of letting the blind fall, and the contradiction between lowering the blind to sleep and staying to gaze exactly mirrors a mind that cannot settle. 「却下水精帘」之「却下」，是诗中唯一的动作描写，「却」字尤见功力。「却」有退、还、再之意，此处写放下珠帘时的迟疑与无奈——不是决然一放，而是且放且留、欲睡还望；帘子放下了，心却放不下，「却」字恰写出这一进退失据、欲罢不能的情态。同时「却下」与下句「望」相连：下帘本为就寝，却反去望月，行为之矛盾正是心绪之矛盾，长夜无眠、百无聊赖的情态呼之欲出；且「却下」又似「却道天凉好个秋」之「却」，带一点自嘲与无奈，愈见其怨之深、之隐。以一字写尽踌躇，以小动作见大心事，正是乐府诗「以少总多」的本领；若易为「垂下」「放下」等字，则情味全失。

玉阶怨