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元 Yuan · 曲 Qu song

清江引·秋怀

Qing Jiang Yin (Tune: 'Clear River Song'): Autumn Reflections

张可久

Zhang Kejiu

西风信来家万里，问我归期未？
雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地，芭蕉雨声秋梦里。

A letter comes on the west wind from ten thousand li away, asking me when I will come home.
The wild geese cry at the reddened sky; a man gets drunk on the yellow-flowered ground;
The rain on the banana leaves, and the autumn within a dream.
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Meaning

Five short lines in the Yuan song style. A letter arrives from ten thousand li away asking when the writer will return; outside, autumn is everywhere — geese crying over red leaves, a man drunk among yellow chrysanthemums, rain falling on banana leaves. The last line puts all of it inside a dream, so the dream is both the comfort and the cage: the home that asks is in the letter, the autumn is outside, and the two cannot meet.

西风信来家万里，问我归期未？雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地，芭蕉雨声秋梦里。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] In one small song he reports a letter from ten thousand miles away asking when he will return, and then describes the autumn he is living in — geese crying under red leaves, a drunk man among yellow flowers, and rain on banana leaves inside a dream. [Structure] Three lines of increasing length, from seven characters to twelve, so the poem grows toward its close and then stops without any summary. [Imagery] Four objects carry the whole lyric: the letter, the red leaves, the yellow flowers, the banana rain — plus the geese, and each is an autumn standard of Chinese poetry, so the poem's originality lies in their combination rather than in any single image. [Language] The lines are unusually plain, and the syntax of the middle line is deliberately compressed until it seems almost telegraphic: 'The wild geese cry at the reddened sky, a man gets drunk on the yellow-flowered ground.' [Effect] The final line is the poem's turn: 'autumn inside a dream' converts an agreed set of autumn signs into something subjective, and because the poem has already made the letter and the drinking concrete, the dream reads as evidence of a life that is asleep rather than lived. The restraint of the close is what keeps this from being merely pretty.

【白话串讲】 张可久写《清江引·秋怀》：“西风信来家万里，问我归期未”——“雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地”——“芭蕉雨声秋梦里”——他写秋怀——问我归期未。 【意象与手法】 “西风信来家万里、问我归期未”写西风信来；“雁啼红叶天、人醉黄花地”写雁啼红叶天；结以“芭蕉雨声秋梦里”写芭蕉雨声秋梦里。清丽思乡。 【情感与主旨】 张可久写秋怀之作，写西风信来家万里、问我归期未与芭蕉雨声秋梦里的思乡，是张可久曲中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“西风信来家万里，问我归期未”写家书问归期；“芭蕉雨声秋梦里”写秋梦思乡。

Background

Zhang Kejiu (c. 1270–c. 1348), courtesy name Zhiyuan, was a Hangzhou bookseller's son who became one of the greatest of the Yuan lyric poets of the southern school, writing some eight hundred songs. He never held office and spent his life among the writers and entertainers of Hangzhou and the southern cities, which is reflected in the elegant but unpretentious character of his verse. 'Autumn Reflections' is among the most frequently printed lines of the whole repertoire and is usually dated to his middle years.

《清江引·秋怀》为元代散曲家张可久所作曲。张可久（约1270—约1348），字小山，庆元（今浙江宁波）人，元代散曲家，以清丽见长。此曲写景思乡，为秋日思乡之作。曲中「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」写西风信来家万里，问我归期未；「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」写雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地；「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里。张可久此曲以写景思乡、芭蕉雨声秋梦里写其思乡之情，清丽思乡，是张可久曲中的名篇。此篇《清江引·秋怀》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《清江引·秋怀》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 main device is compression by juxtaposition: no connective joins the geese to the drunk man, and no connective joins either to the letter of the first line. The reader is left to supply the link, which is why the poem can hold four conventional autumn images in five lines without ever becoming a catalogue. The second device is the growing line: seven, seven, twelve characters — so the last line is more than half the poem and, being the only one to contain a preposition ('in'), it is also the only line that states a relationship between things. That single preposition carries the poem: once autumn is placed inside a dream, everything before it is retroactively qualified. Yuan songs also favor this kind of noun-on-noun compression, and here the poet pushes it further than the Song lyricists of the same images generally did.

此曲艺术上以「清丽思乡、以秋写情」见长。全曲由西风信来家万里而雁啼红叶天。起「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」写西风信来家万里：西风信来家万里，问我归期未；「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」写雁啼红叶天：雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地；结「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里：芭蕉雨声秋梦里。全曲以秋写情，由西风信来家万里而芭蕉雨声秋梦里，清丽思乡，是张可久曲中的名篇。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

Every image in the poem is a borrowed one. 'Red leaves' and 'yellow flowers' are the standard autumn colors of the Chinese lyric and appear together in Tang poems; the wild goose on red leaves is the emblem of departure and of letters (since geese carry messages in the imagination of Chinese poetry); the banana in the rain is the coolest, most室内 sound-image in the tradition, used by earlier poets to suggest a lonely place; and the drunk man among chrysanthemums echoes the famous line about eastward drinking beneath a chrysanthemum fence. What makes the poem more than an exercise is the compression of these into five lines and the reversal in the last line, which turns borrowed images back into an admission.

曲中「西风信来家万里问我归期未」「雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地」「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」等语，皆含典故故实。「西风信来家万里问我归期未」写西风信来家万里问我归期未；「雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地」用黄花之典（黄花写菊），写雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地；「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里。曲人用黄花之典入曲，不着痕迹，而把写景思乡之情写得真切可感，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

The poem is one of the most anthologized short songs of the Yuan dynasty and has been much reprinted in modern reading selections. Traditional notes concentrate on the elegance of the color words — red, yellow, white — and on the way the three colors are distributed between sky, ground and rain; modern readers have paid more attention to the dream, and have argued over whether the closing line is a complaint or a resignation. Very few readers object to the poem's prettiness, and it is generally used in Chinese teaching as an example of how much can be said in the shortest possible lyric.

这首《清江引·秋怀》，是张可久写写景思乡之作，写西风信来家万里、雁啼红叶天、芭蕉雨声秋梦里之情，清丽思乡。起「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」——西风信来家万里，问我归期未。写西风信来家万里：西风信来家万里、问我归期未——家万里、归期未；「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」——雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地。写雁啼红叶天：雁啼红叶天、人醉黄花地——红叶天、黄花地；结「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」——芭蕉雨声秋梦里。写芭蕉雨声秋梦里：芭蕉雨声秋梦里——秋梦里。这「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」，是全曲之结：以芭蕉雨声秋梦里写其思乡。全曲清丽思乡，以秋写情，正是张可久曲中的名篇。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 Sanqu (Yuan song), the 'Qing Jiang Yin' tune of the double调 mode曲（散曲·双调·清江引）
Rhyme A five-line song of the 'Qing Jiang Yin' tune rhymed on the level tone, with the rhymes falling on 'wei' (not yet), 'di' (the ground) and 'li' (within a dream) — all in the 'i' family. Two of the three rhyme words are therefore the poem's two ends, so the song is held between a question and a dream.此曲为散曲，属双调【清江引】曲牌。押韵：「未」「地」「里」押齐微部韵。句式长短错落，衬字自然，正与写写景思乡的清丽思乡相称，也见其以散曲写思乡的灵动。
Tone pattern The tune is made up of short lines of seven and five characters, with an accelerating pace toward the close, and the final line of twelve characters is the tune's most famous 'bago' (a fixed coda of the tune) that the poet must fill. Because there is no alternative pattern of tones, the rhythm here is largely produced by the syntax: the second line is more telegraphic than the first and the third runs its clauses together, so speed increases while the line lengths seem almost unchanged.句式上，「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」写西风信来家万里，音节清丽；「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」写雁啼红叶天，音节明快；结「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里，音节悠长。全曲音节随情起伏，由清丽而明快、由明快而悠长，正合散曲「灵动」之妙，读来如写景思乡、芭蕉雨声秋梦里之音，清丽而动人。
Reading note Of all the Yuan songs, this is the one most often quoted as a model of economy. The tune's short lines and the fixed coda give the poet a shape to fill, and the interest of the verse lies in filling that shape with images rather than with statements. Notice that in the Chinese original almost nothing is joined by function words; the reader supplies every connection, and the poem's music comes from the recurrence of the rhyme and from the rhythm of the unconnected phrases.此曲为散曲，是张可久写写景思乡之作，也是其曲中的名篇。全曲的艺术特色在于「清丽思乡、以秋写情」：「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」写西风信来家万里、「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」写雁啼红叶天、「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里。全曲清丽思乡，以秋写情。尤为精妙者，是「雁啼红叶天」写尽红叶天；而「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写尽秋梦里，正是张可久曲「清丽思乡」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《清江引·秋怀》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

西风信来家万里，问我归期未？

A letter comes on the west wind from ten thousand li away, asking me when I will come home.

西风信来家万里，问我归期未？

The west wind brings a letter, home ten thousand li away; it asks: have you set a date for return?

起句写西风信来家万里，起笔即见其西风。「西风信来家万里」写西风信来家万里，「西风信来」写西风信来、「家万里」写家万里；「问我归期未」写问我归期未，「问我」写问我、「归期未」写归期未。一句写西风信来家万里问我归期未，以西风信来家万里写家万里、以问我归期未写归期未，写尽西风信来家万里、问我归期未之情。以风起兴，清丽而思乡，是「以风起兴」的妙笔。

The opening begins: 'the west wind brings a letter, home ten thousand li away; it asks: have you set a date for return?' The wind as springboard, clear and homesick — a fine stroke.

雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地，

The wild geese cry at the reddened sky; a man gets drunk on the yellow-flowered ground;

雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地，

Geese cry in the sky of red leaves; the man is drunk on the ground of yellow flowers.

此句写雁啼红叶天，是全曲写雁啼之态的关键。「雁啼红叶天」写雁啼红叶天，「雁啼」写雁啼、「红叶天」写红叶天；「人醉黄花地」用黄花之典写人醉黄花地，「人醉」写人醉、「黄花地」写黄花地。一句写雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地，以雁啼红叶天写红叶天、以人醉黄花地写黄花地，写尽雁啼红叶天、人醉黄花地之情。以雁写景，清丽而思乡，是「以雁写景」的点睛之笔。

This line writes the geese's cry: 'geese cry in the sky of red leaves; the man is drunk on the ground of yellow flowers' — the latter uses the chrysanthemum allusion. The goose as scenery, clear and homesick — the telling stroke.

芭蕉雨声秋梦里。

the rain on the banana leaves, and the autumn within a dream.

芭蕉雨声秋梦里。

Rain on the banana leaves, within the autumn dream.

结句写芭蕉雨声秋梦里，是全曲立意的落点。「芭蕉雨声」写芭蕉雨声，「芭蕉」写芭蕉、「雨声」写雨声；「秋梦里」写秋梦里，「秋梦」写秋梦、「里」写里。一句写芭蕉雨声秋梦里，以芭蕉雨声写雨声、以秋梦里写秋梦里，写尽芭蕉雨声秋梦里之情。以梦写情，清丽而思乡，是全曲最动人处，也是「以梦写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

The closing lands the song's meaning: 'rain on the banana leaves, within the autumn dream.' Writing feeling through dreams, clear and homesick — the most moving point of the song, its finishing stroke. A few words hold deep meaning, feeling and cadence together; beneath the plainness lie undercurrents, and only slow, fond savoring brings out the inner meaning.

Study

Word focus

西风 'Xifeng,' the west wind: the autumn wind of the Chinese calendar and, by extension, the wind that brings both weather and letters west to east. Because it arrives 'from ten thousand li', the wind is what carries the news home, and the poet's homesickness is therefore placed in the air rather than in the letter. 「西风」写西风信来家万里，是写西风之态的关键。「西风信来家万里」着一「西风」，写西风——着一「西风」，写西风信来家万里，见其风之西。两字写尽西风之态，是「以词写风」的妙笔。「西风」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。
红叶天 'Hongye tian,' the red-leaf sky — a compressed epithet that puts a season's color into the sky itself, so that the birds are crying in red light. The contraction of 'hong' and 'ye' into an adjective of 'tian' is characteristic of the Yuan song's compressed syntax and is what lets the poem carry so many images in so few words. 「红叶天」写雁啼红叶天，是写红叶天之态的关键。「雁啼红叶天」着一「红叶天」，写红叶天——着一「红叶天」，写雁啼红叶天，见其天之红叶。三字写尽红叶天之态，是「以词写天」的点睛之词。「红叶天」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。
黄花 'Huanghua,' yellow flowers — the chrysanthemum, the flower of autumn in Chinese poetry and of the drinker among them. Because the man is drunk 'on the yellow-flowered ground' while the geese cry 'at the reddened sky', the two halves of the middle line place him exactly between the sky and the earth, which is where the poem's whole inaction takes place. 「黄花」写人醉黄花地，是写黄花之态的关键。「人醉黄花地」着一「黄花」，写黄花——着一「黄花」，写人醉黄花地，见其花之黄。两字写尽黄花之态，是「以词写花」的点睛之词。「黄花」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。
芭蕉 'Bajiao,' the banana plant: its leaves are too large and too soft to hold rain, so the sound of rain on them is the sound of water that cannot be gathered, which is why the image is a standard one for loneliness. Placed at the close inside the dream, the sound becomes the only thing in the poem that is heard rather than seen. 「芭蕉」写芭蕉雨声秋梦里，是写芭蕉之态的关键。「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」着一「芭蕉」，写芭蕉——着一「芭蕉」，写芭蕉雨声秋梦里，见其蕉之芭。两字写尽芭蕉之态，是「以词写蕉」的点睛之词。「芭蕉」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 Diao Toupai: 'When Will There Be a Full Moon?' 苏轼 · 同写思乡感怀、清丽旷达，一写但愿人长久、一写西风信来家万里问我归期未，皆于思乡之中见清丽 Both lyrics are built on a question addressed from a distance and answered by a turn of thought; Su Shi answers about the seasons and about human parting, Zhang Kejiu leaves his question unanswered inside a dream.

Su Shi's tune asks 'When will there be a full moon?' and answers 'When will there be a full moon?... I only wish that we may long live, / And share, though a thousand miles apart, this same brightness.' The poem's motion is from lack to consolation, and its consolation is the sharing of one light. Zhang Kejiu's 'Autumn Reflections' has the same opening move — a message arriving from a thousand li — but refuses to console: the letter's question is not answered, only re-presented as something the dream has already absorbed. Both end on a single word of resolution — 'chang jiu' (long life) and 'qiu meng' (autumn dream) — and the contrast between an active blessing and a passive admission is the shortest way to state the difference between Song ci and Yuan song.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「但愿人长久，千里共婵娟」，写思乡感怀、清丽旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；张可久《清江引·秋怀》则以「西风信来家万里，问我归期未」「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写家万里、秋梦里。两曲同写思乡感怀、清丽旷达：一写但愿人长久、以千里共婵娟写思亲，一写西风信来家万里问我归期未、以西风写思乡；一为苏轼之旷达、一为张可久之清丽，并读正可见诗曲写「思乡感怀」的两种笔法，皆于思乡之中见清丽。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Ba Sheng Gan Zhou: 'In the Autumn Rain That Streaming Down the Sky' 柳永 · 同写秋夜凝望、清丽清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地，皆于秋夜之中见凝望 The two poems share the whole vocabulary of autumn — rain, hills, towers, a distance that cannot be crossed — but Liu Yong's speaker looks outward for a figure who will never appear, while Zhang Kejiu's looks at nothing and reports what his senses receive.

Liu Yong's long tune is built around an absence: the boats returning at the horizon are not his, and the woman he thinks of is on a painted tower far away. His autumn is a scene of other people's arrivals. Zhang Kejiu's five lines contain no other person at all except the writer of the letter; the drunk is himself. In scale the two are opposite — one hundred lines against five — and the difference is the difference between the Song lyric's appetite for narrative and the Yuan song's preference for the single compressed image. Read together they show how much a poet can do with the same rain and the same hills.

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」，写秋夜凝望、清丽清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；张可久《清江引·秋怀》则以「雁啼红叶天，人醉黄花地」「芭蕉雨声秋梦里」写红叶天、秋梦里。两曲同写秋夜凝望、清丽清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写雁啼红叶天人醉黄花地、以芭蕉写思乡；一为柳永之清丽、一为张可久之清丽，并读正可见诗曲写「秋夜凝望」的两种笔法，皆于秋夜之中见凝望。