唐 Tang · 诗 Poem
竹枝词·山桃红花满上头
Bamboo Branch Song: Red Mountain Peach Blossoms Fill the Hilltop
山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流。
花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁。
The spring river of Shu beats against the rocks as it flows.
Red flowers fade easily, like my lover's heart;
The water flows on without end, like the sorrow in me.
Meaning
A woman by the river looks at blossoms on the hillside and at the water beating past below. She reads the two sights as a pair of comparisons: her lover's affection fades as quickly as the flowers, while her own sorrow runs on as endlessly as the river.
山桃的红花开满了山头，蜀地的江水拍着山石奔流。 红花容易凋衰，就像郎君的心意；江水悠悠无尽，就像我的愁绪。
Appreciation
Everything in this quatrain is taken from what is in front of the speaker, and that is the source of its freshness. The first two lines seem to be pure spring scenery, bright and unremarkable, until the second half turns each of them into a figure. The asymmetry is the point: his feeling is short and hers has no end, and the two images make the imbalance impossible to argue with. Liu Yuxi keeps the language as plain as a folk song while the structure is as tight as any regulated verse. The result reads as if it were overheard rather than composed.
【白话串讲】 “山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流”——刘禹锡写竹枝词：山桃红花开满，蜀江春水拍山。“花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁”——花易谢像情郎的心意，水流不尽像她的愁。一首巴蜀民歌风味的情歌。 【意象与手法】 全用民歌比兴，以山桃红花对蜀江春水，以花衰对水流，自然成对。语言浅白如谣，却含思深远，是刘禹锡《竹枝词》代言情之佳作。 【情感与主旨】 借江边女子的口吻，抒郎心易变、侬愁无尽的相思之怨，亦见巴蜀民歌的清新活泼。 【名句点睛】 花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁——以两组明喻写情之不对等，浅语深情，最得竹枝风味。
Background
While serving as prefect of Kuizhou, Liu Yuxi took the local folk songs of the Ba and Yu region as a model and wrote new words in their manner, keeping the seven-character quatrain form. The Bamboo Branch songs were originally sung in that area, and he adapted their tunes and their tone of voice. This piece speaks in the voice of a woman by the river whose lover has proved changeable.
《竹枝词·山桃红花满上头》为唐代刘禹锡所作，是写女子情思、以花水比兴的民歌体诗。刘禹锡（772—842），字梦得，洛阳人，唐代诗人。此诗：山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流。花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁。全诗写女子情思、以花水比兴，是刘禹锡诗的名篇。
Art
The poem uses the folk technique of beginning with a natural image and drawing the comparison out of it, taking both figures from the immediate surroundings. Red flowers are matched against spring water and quick fading against endlessness, so the parallelism arrives without any appearance of effort. The diction is deliberately plain, close to spoken song, yet the implication runs well past what is said. This is Liu Yuxi at his most successful in the borrowed folk voice.
《竹枝词·山桃红花满上头》艺术上以花水比兴的描摹与女子情思的深婉见长。全诗四句：首写山桃蜀江——“山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流”写山桃红花满山头、蜀江春水拍山流；末写花水比兴——“花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁”写花红易衰似郎意、水流无限似侬愁。全诗以花水比兴写女子情思，正是刘禹锡诗深婉的笔法。
Allusions
The Bamboo Branch song was originally a ritual song of the Ba and Yu region before it became a love song and then a literary form. Mountain peach means the wild peach that grows untended on the hillsides. The word the speaker uses for herself is a regional first-person pronoun, which marks her as a local woman rather than a literary persona. The river of Shu is the stretch of the Yangtze that runs through that country.
《竹枝词·山桃红花满上头》用典在“竹枝词”“蜀江”“侬”。“竹枝词”写巴渝民歌（刘禹锡仿作）；“蜀江”写蜀地江水；“侬”写我（吴语）。全词以这些意象写女子情思、以花水比兴，用典自然而深婉自见，正是刘禹锡诗的笔法。
Commentary
Liu Yuxi wrote folk song with a poet's hand, and in doing so opened the way for the later Bamboo Branch and Willow Branch forms. This piece is usually paired with his song beginning with green willows above level river water, the two standing as his finest work in the mode. Together they show how much refinement a borrowed folk form could take without losing its freshness.
《竹枝词·山桃红花满上头》是刘禹锡诗的名篇，也是其竹枝词中写女子情思的代表作。此诗写女子情思、以花水比兴，向为论者称道。论者多赏其花水比兴的描摹与女子情思的深婉——“山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流”写山桃红花、蜀江春水，深婉之极；“花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁”写花红易衰似郎意、水流无限似侬愁，更见其怨。刘禹锡仿巴渝民歌作竹枝词，此诗正是其代表——以花水比兴写女子情思，正是其诗风。
Prosody
Line by line
山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流。
Red mountain peach fills the hilltop and the spring river of Shu beats past the rocks; the opening is bright local scenery, painted before it is used.
山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流。
Mountain peaches, red flowers, cover the peaks; the Shu River's spring waters dash the hills and flow.
首写山桃红花、蜀江春水，是全诗写花水之景的起点。“山桃红花满上头”写山桃红花满山头——“山桃红花满上头”写山桃花红、开满山头——山桃红花满上头；“蜀江春水拍山流”写蜀江春水拍山流——“蜀江春水拍山流”用蜀江之称写蜀江春水拍着山石奔流——蜀江春水拍山流。二句写山桃红花、蜀江春水：山桃红花满上头，蜀江春水拍山流。以“山桃红花满上头”写山桃花红、开满山头，以“蜀江春水拍山流”写蜀江春水、拍山奔流，正是刘禹锡诗写花水之景的起点——山花满目，江水东流。
The opening writes mountain peaches, red flowers, cover the peaks; the Shu River's spring waters dash the hills and flow, the starting point for the flower-and-water scenery. Mountain peaches, red flowers, cover the peaks: the wild peach blossoms red, covering the hilltops. The Shu River's spring waters dash the hills and flow uses the Shu River name: the spring current dashing the rocks. One couplet writes the red mountain flowers and the spring river dashing - Liu Yuxi's starting point for the flower-water scenery: flowers filling the hills, the river flowing east. The line opens with flower and water as bi-xing, bright and spring-themed: the vivid scene at once.
花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁。
The red flowers fade easily like her lover's heart, and the water runs endlessly like her sorrow; two comparisons drawn from the two things already in view.
花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁。
Red flowers fade easily, like my love's heart; the flowing water is endless, like my sorrow.
末写花红易衰似郎意、水流无限似侬愁，是全诗写女子情思的归结。“花红易衰似郎意”写花红易衰似郎意——“花红易衰似郎意”写红花易谢如郎君之意——花红易衰似郎意；“水流无限似侬愁”写水流无限似侬愁——“水流无限似侬愁”用侬之称写江水无限如我的愁——水流无限似侬愁。二句写花红易衰似郎意、水流无限似侬愁：花红易衰似郎意，水流无限似侬愁。以“花红易衰似郎意”写花红易谢、正似郎意无常，以“水流无限似侬愁”写江水无限、正似侬愁不尽，正是刘禹锡诗写女子情思的归结——郎意易衰，侬愁无限。
The closing writes red flowers fade easily, like my love's heart; the flowing water is endless, like my sorrow, the resolution of the woman's longing. Red flowers fade easily, like my love's heart: the red bloom's quick fall, like the lover's fickle will. The flowing water is endless, like my sorrow uses the I-colloquial name: the river's endless flow, like my unending grief. One couplet writes the flowers' easy fade and the water's endless flow - Liu Yuxi's resolution: the lover's heart fades like the flowers, her sorrow flows like the river. The line uses flower and water for feeling, reserved and deep: the two metaphors fuse into one grief.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Compare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
刘禹锡《竹枝词·其一》“杨柳青青江水平，闻郎江上唱歌声”写郎情侬意，与本首同为刘禹锡竹枝词。差异在情境：山桃红花写花水比兴；竹枝词其一写闻歌定情。一写“花”之喻，一写“歌”之情。两者并读，可见刘禹锡竹枝词写女子情思的两种情境。
竹枝词·其二 Bamboo Branch Song II 刘禹锡 · 同为刘禹锡竹枝词写情，一写花水比兴一写江边怀人，皆深婉 Both are love songs in Liu Yuxi's Bamboo Branch manner.The willow song catches the uncertainty of new love; this one carries a deeper complaint. The two are usually named together as his best in the form.
刘禹锡《竹枝词·其二》“山桃红花满上头”同调之作（瞿塘嘈嘈十二滩），写江边之情，与本首同为刘禹锡竹枝词。差异在情境：山桃红花写女子比兴；竹枝词其二写江滩行路。一写“花”之愁，一写“滩”之险。两者并读，可见刘禹锡竹枝词的两种情境。
杨柳枝词 Willow Branch Song 刘禹锡 · 与本首相关联的同类或同作者作品，供对比阅读 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
此处关联刘禹锡《杨柳枝词》，与本首在主题、体裁或作者上相关联，可对比阅读以见其同异。