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愚公移山·版本

The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains (Opening Section)

列御寇

Lie Yukou

名篇Masterpiece 寓言Fable / allegory 励志Inspirational 文言文Classical Chinese (wenyan)

太行、王屋二山，方七百里，高万仞，本在冀州之南，河阳之北。
北山愚公者，年且九十，面山而居。

The Taihang and Wangwu mountains, seven hundred li square and ten thousand fathoms high, lay south of Ji Province and north of Heyang.
In the north mountain there was an old man called the Foolish Old Man, not quite ninety years old, living with his face turned toward the mountain.

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Meaning

A short opening to a famous fable. Two enormous mountains stand in the way of a household, and the old man who has always lived facing them is ninety years of age. The passage fixes the scale of the obstacle and the age of the man who proposes to remove it, setting up the argument that follows in the full text.

太行、王屋两座大山，方圆七百里，高达数万仞，本来在冀州的南面、河阳的北面。北山有个名叫愚公的人，年纪将近九十岁，面对着这两座山居住。

Appreciation

[Structure] Thirty-odd characters of setting and seven of character. The mountains are named and measured, the region is pinned down, and only then, at the very end, does the old man appear — and when he does, his name is already a joke. [Scale] ‘Seven hundred li square’ gives horizontal extent, ‘ten thousand fathoms high’ vertical; the two together make the mountains unremovable in principle. ‘South of Ji Province, north of Heyang’ then makes them concrete: this is not a mythic range but a surveyed one, and the reader feels the solidity of a legal deed. [Character] ‘Not quite ninety years old’ is the deliberate counterweight to ten thousand fathoms; the disproportion is the whole point. [Plain Paraphrase] Everything that follows in the full text — the family's consultation, the old man's answer to the sceptic, the god who is moved, the two giant sons who carry the mountains off — grows out of these two sentences, and the passage needs nothing added to it.

【白话串讲】列子写《愚公移山》：愚公年九十，“面山而居”——山挡住出路。他召集家人：“吾与汝毕力平险，指通豫南，达于汉阴，可乎？”智叟笑他：“以残年余力，曾不能毁山之一毛。”愚公说：“汝心之固，固不可彻”——“子子孙孙无穷匮也，而山不加增”。天帝“命夸娥氏二子负二山，一厝朔东，一厝雍南”——“自此，冀之南，汉之阴，无垄断焉”——愚公感动了上天。【意象与手法】本文是《列子·汤问》的著名寓言。艺术上最突出的是「以大衬小、以难衬志」的反衬手法：先用「方七百里，高万仞」把山写到极致之大，再用「年且九十」把愚公写到极致之老，大山之巨与人力之微形成悬殊对比，而愚公竟欲移山，其「愚」与「勇」便在这对比中凸现；叙述从容平实，如话家常，却在平淡中蕴藏惊天动地的意志力量。【情感与主旨】主旨是颂扬「人定胜天」的坚毅精神——只要意志坚定、代代相传，再大的困难也能克服。愚公之「愚」实为大智，其「移山」看似不可能，却昭示了人类征服自然、改造世界的伟大信念，也寄寓了道家「锲而不舍」之外的另一种刚健品格。【名句点睛】「年且九十，面山而居」八字写尽愚公的老迈与困厄，为全篇立下「以老弱之身抗巨山之险」的张力；后世「愚公移山」成为成语，喻意志坚定、不畏艰难，其精神更成为中华民族奋斗不息的象征。

Background

The fable comes from the ‘Asking About the North’ chapter of the Liezi, a text traditionally ascribed to Lie Yukou of Zheng (c. 450–375 BCE), a Daoist writer, though the surviving book was compiled and annotated around the third or fourth century CE, probably by Zhang Zhan. The work preserves a body of pre-Qin anecdotes; this one takes the shape of a debate between an aged man and a sceptic about whether human effort can move a mountain, set inside a discussion of the relativity of great and small. The ordinariness of the hero is the argument: the sage does not explain himself. The section chosen here is the opening, which establishes the magnitude of the obstacle before any of it is contested.

《愚公移山》出自《列子·汤问》。《列子》旧题战国时郑人列御寇（约前450—约前375）撰，列御寇亦作列圄寇、列圉寇，道家学者，其学说以清虚无为为宗，与老庄相通而更近黄老之学；今本《列子》八篇一般认为经后人整理增补，魏晋间人张湛为之作注，然其书保存了大量先秦寓言，为研究战国思想提供了宝贵材料。《汤问》篇以殷汤与夏革（棘）问答的形式讨论宇宙时空、山川自然等问题，其中杂糅了大量寓言，《愚公移山》即其一。此则寓言以两座大山与一位老者的对照，展开「人力能否胜天」的讨论：在《列子》的哲学语境中，它首先是对「大小」「远近」相对性的思辨——山虽大而人欲移之，愚公之「愚」与智叟之「智」，恰是《列子》「齐物」「贵虚」思想下对世俗价值判断的反拨；同时，它也张扬了一种刚健的进取精神。此节选为寓言开篇，交代山之大与愚公之老，是全篇矛盾冲突的起点。在先秦百家争鸣的背景下，《列子》与《庄子》同为道家寓言的大宗，其文风奇幻谲怪、汪洋恣肆，而尤善以极度的夸张（如二山之大、年九十之老）营造思辨的张力，此篇即是代表。

Art

The paragraph earns its place by economy. Two numerical phrases run head to head — seven hundred li against ten thousand fathoms — and the builder of the sentence is at pains to make the second measure what the first cannot: squareness for area, height for altitude. A pair of directional phrases then fixes the mountains in a grid of south and north as though on a map, and the flatness of ‘lay’ is what makes the magnitude seem ordinary. Only after a full sentence and a half of geography does the man come, and he comes as a definition rather than a portrait: in the north mountain there was. He is counted before he is seen — not quite ninety years old — and then placed, without any action, against the mountain he faces. The verb note of dwelling is doing the enormous work of the whole fable: the family has never got past these mountains, and therefore removing them is the only thing left to talk about.

此段虽仅三句，却是寓言开篇的典范，其艺术特色可从三端析之。其一，以「大」写「难」的铺垫艺术：开篇「太行、王屋二山」先点名两座名山，继而以「方七百里，高万仞」两个数量短语极言其方圆之广、高度之峻——七百里方圆是空间的浩瀚，万仞之高是垂直的阻绝，两个维度合起来，把山的「不可移」写到了极致；「本在冀州之南，河阳之北」再以地理方位坐实，仿佛在给读者画一张精确的地图，越写山的具体，越显移山的不可能。其二，以「老」衬「志」的反衬手法：「北山愚公者，年且九十」点出主人公已是九旬老者，与前面的巨山形成悬殊对比——山是亿万年的巨物，人是九十岁的衰翁，而移山之志恰从这极不对等的较量中迸发；「面山而居」四字更以极简的笔法写其生存处境——山就横在门前，出行受阻、田地受碍，移山的动机由此自然引出，无需多言。其三，叙述视角的从容：全段以全知视角客观铺陈，山多大、人多老、居何处，一一写来，不渲染、不煽情，如史官记事；而越是这样平实的叙述，越使后文愚公「叩石垦壤」的壮举显得朴素而伟大。这种「先极力铺垫、再从容点人」的开篇法，为下文「且焉置土石」「汝心之固」的辩论与「帝感其诚」的神异结局预留了充分的空间。

Allusions

The names themselves carry the argument. ‘Foolish’ and ‘wise’ are the two nicknames of the aged hero and the sceptic who mocks him, and the inversion of the names — the fool acts, the wise man refuses — belongs to the family of Daoist paradox that runs from Zhuangzi’s ‘the greatest wisdom looks like stupidity’ through the pre-Qin fable tradition. The mountains themselves belong to the older mythology of impossible labours: the bird-man Jingwei filling the sea with stones, the giant Kua Fu chasing the sun. What makes this one different is that the hero is not a god but a ninety-year-old labourer, and the mountain, though it moves not at all, is moved by the insistence of his household across generations. The closing promise of the full text that the heaven above is moved by sincerity reaches back to the ritual notion that sincerity is the way of heaven itself.

《愚公移山》虽为寓言，其文化内涵却极为丰厚。其一，「愚公」与「智叟」的名号本身就是一种反讽式的命名：以「愚」为名者实有大智，以「智」为名者实为短视，这种「名实相乖」的手法可溯至《庄子》「大智若愚」「名者实之宾」的思辨，也开了后世「郑人买履」「刻舟求剑」一类寓言以名号寓褒贬的先例。其二，移山的母题在中国文化中源远流长：与「精卫填海」的衔石填海、「夸父逐日」的逐日奔行同属「以有限抗无限」的神话寓言传统，愚公移山与它们一样，张扬的是人类面对自然时不肯屈服的意志；而与神话主角的神异身份不同，愚公只是一个平凡的九旬老翁，其「平凡人的不凡志」更贴近普通人的精神世界。其三，「帝感其诚」的结局（本节选之外）暗含「精诚所至，金石为开」的信念，可上溯至《礼记》「诚者，天之道也」的重诚传统，把人的诚意与天地的感应相连，是「天人感应」观念在寓言中的表现。其四，就思想史言，此篇又融入了战国时代对「人力」的重新估价——在生产技术有限的年代，人们借寓言表达改造自然的渴望，与《荀子》「制天命而用之」的人定胜天思想声气相通。二十世纪以来，「愚公移山」更被赋予新的内涵，毛泽东在中共七大闭幕词中引用此典，喻指推翻三座大山的革命意志，使其成为中华民族奋斗精神的经典象征。

Commentary

The passage has been read as the opening of a high point in the Chinese fable tradition, and its reception runs through two thousand years of quotation rather than of close reading. Song and Ming writers cited it whenever they wanted to praise patient endurance; the annotators Zhang Zhan and Lu Chongxuan, and in modern times Yang Bojun’s critical edition of the Liezi, are the main commentaries. The story entered school readers in the twentieth century, and after 1949 its moral was rewritten as a parable of collective labour against nature, so that the old man became an icon of willpower rather than ofDaoist relativity. Whatever reading is applied, the opening lines have proved unusually durable, because the disproportion they set up is so simply stated that any age can feel it.

《愚公移山》在中国文化史上有独特的地位。就文学言，它是《列子》寓言艺术的高峰，以极短的篇幅、极简的笔法，塑造了愚公这一不朽形象；其「以大衬小、以老显志」的反衬手法与「名实相乖」的命名艺术，为后世寓言与讽刺文学提供了范本，宋代以后多被文人援引，苏轼即有「愚公移山志，终古无遗恨」之咏，明清小说戏曲中亦常以此典喻坚韧不拔。就思想言，此篇凝聚了「人定胜天」「锲而不舍」的刚健精神，与道家「无为」的常调相反而相成，展示出《列子》思想中积极进取的一面，其「子子孙孙无穷匮也」的世代接力观念，更包含了对人类绵延不绝的集体力量的深刻信念。就传播言，「愚公移山」已成为家喻户晓的成语和寓言，二十世纪三十年代起被引入中小学教材，1938年毛泽东在延安作《愚公移山》讲话，1945年又在中共七大闭幕词中详引此典，将其精神与革命事业结合，遂使这一古老寓言获得全新的时代意义，成为中华民族不畏艰难、奋斗自强的精神符号。历代注家张湛、卢重玄及近人杨伯峻《列子集释》皆有精审疏解，其阐释史横贯两千年，由哲学寓言而文学典范而民族精神象征，正可见一篇寓言之生命力，亦可见中国文化「常读常新」的特质。

Prosody

Form Pre-Qin philosophical narrative in the manner of the Liezi; unrhymed prose of short, clipped sentences先秦寓言散文（《列子·汤问》）

Rhyme There is no rhyme, but the cadence is built from counting rather than from sound: the opening pairs a phrase of extent with a phrase of height, both closing on a numeral. The effect is the rhythm of a register being read aloud — the list of a surveyor.此文为散文，不押韵，而以句式的整齐与数量的铺排形成节奏。开篇「太行、王屋二山，方七百里，高万仞」以两个数量短语连用，音节齐整，如报家珍；「本在冀州之南，河阳之北」以两个方位短语对举，一南一北，声调平缓；「北山愚公者，年且九十，面山而居」以判断句与短句相间，节奏由缓转紧，收束有力。

Tone pattern Sentences are short and declarative, and the only tonal variety comes from function words such as ‘zhe’ and ‘er’ that close phrases softly. The voice is that of a chronicler reporting something unlikely in a tone of perfect calm, and the flatness is deliberate: the astonishment belongs to the reader, not to the sentence.句式以短句为主，问以判断句（「北山愚公者」），行文平实如话，不事雕琢；「之南」「之北」「而居」等虚字轻收，音节舒缓；叙述语调从容客观，如老史官讲古，而愈平实则愈显后文移山壮举的惊心动魄，正是「平中见奇」的笔法。

Reading note The music of the passage lies in its repeated numbers. Two counts in a row, then two directions in a row, then a date of age: each pair returns to the same shape, short and unhurried, like a hammer struck twice in the same place. The slowness of the delivery is part of the meaning, since the old man proceeds in exactly such small, unhurried steps. It should be read slowly, one clause to a breath, and the weight will fall where the writer intends it.此段的声律以「数量的铺排」为骨干：开篇「方七百里，高万仞」两个数量短语以「方」「高」领起、以数量收束，音节短促而齐整，如锤锤定音，把山的巨大钉在读者心中；「本在冀州之南，河阳之北」以「之南」「之北」两个方位短语对举，声调平缓舒展，如地图展开；转至「北山愚公者」用判断句式，音节顿挫，郑重引出人物；「年且九十」四字一顿，如特写镜头；「面山而居」四字收束，平平道来而余味无穷。全文四句，句句短促，节奏如敲木鱼，一成不变中自有沉着的力度，与愚公日复一日叩石垦壤的固执气质相合；这种「以句式的重复暗示行动的执着」的声律设计，是《列子》寓言的高妙处，诵读此段宜一字一顿、不急不缓，方能在平实的音节中听出那撼动山岳的意志。

Line by line

太行、王屋二山，方七百里，高万仞，本在冀州之南，河阳之北。

The Taihang and Wangwu mountains, seven hundred li square and ten thousand fathoms high, lay south of Ji Province and north of Heyang.

太行、王屋两座大山，方圆七百里，高达数万仞，本来在冀州的南面、河阳的北面。

The two great mountains Taihang and Wangwu were seven hundred li around and ten thousand ren high; they lay south of Jizhou and north of Heyang.

开篇一句写山，是全篇矛盾冲突的起点，笔法极讲究。「太行、王屋二山」先以两个专名点名，太行山在今山西、河北之间，王屋山在今河南济源，皆实有其山，以实名入寓言，使虚幻的故事获得真实的质感；「方七百里，高万仞」以数量短语极言其巨——「方七百里」写横向的方圆之广，「高万仞」写纵向的耸峙之峻（仞为古代长度单位，一仞约合七尺或八尺），一横一纵，把山的体积推至人力无法想象的极限；「本在冀州之南，河阳之北」再以方位坐实，冀州为古九州之一，河阳指黄河北岸，交代得越具体，移山的难度越显真切。值得注意的是「本」字——「本在」暗示后来山已不在原地，暗暗预告了「帝感其诚，命夸娥氏二子负二山」的神异结局，是叙事者埋下的伏笔。全句以陈述的平静语气写最骇人的事实，山愈大则下文愚公之志愈奇，开篇的每一笔铺陈，都在为后文积蓄势能。

The opening line writes the mountains, the starting point of the whole's conflict, the brush most crafted. 'The two mountains, Taihang and Wangwu' first naming the two proper names, Mount Taihang between modern Shanxi and Hebei, Mount Wangwu near modern Jiyuan in Henan, both real mountains, real names in the fable giving the unreal story a real texture; 'seven hundred li around and ten thousand ren high' using number phrases for their vastness - 'seven hundred li around' the horizontal breadth, 'ten thousand ren high' the vertical steepness (the ren an ancient measure, about seven or eight Chinese feet), one horizontal one vertical, pushing the mountains' bulk to the limit human power cannot imagine; 'they lay to the south of Jizhou and the north of Heyang' again fixing the position, Jizhou one of the nine ancient provinces, Heyang the north bank of the Yellow River, the more concrete the harder the moving. Note the word 'originally': 'originally lay' hinting the mountains are no longer there, darkly foretelling the marvelous end of 'the Lord, moved by his sincerity, bade the two sons of Kua'e carry the two mountains,' the narrator's planted foreshadow. The whole line, in the calm tone of statement, writes the most astounding fact; the greater the mountains, the stranger the Foolish Old Man's will below, every stroke of the opening charging the force for what is to come.

北山愚公者，年且九十，面山而居。

In the north mountain there was an old man called the Foolish Old Man, not quite ninety years old, living with his face turned toward the mountain.

北山有个名叫愚公的人，年纪将近九十岁，面对着这两座山居住。

In the North Mountain lived a man named the Foolish Old Man, nearly ninety, who dwelt facing the mountains.

此句点出主人公，是人物登场的关键一笔。「北山愚公者」以判断句式引出人物，与开篇写山相映成趣——山在「冀州之南，河阳之北」，人住「北山」，人山相邻，命运相连；「愚公」之名已含深意，名为「愚」而实为大智，是《列子》「大智若愚」观念的人格化。「年且九十」以「且」（将近）字写其年事之高，九旬老者与七百里巨山形成悬殊对比，人的有限与困难的无边尽在其中，正因如此悬殊，下文「移山」的决定才显得惊世骇俗；「面山而居」四字以极简笔法写其生存处境——「面」字写山正对家门，出行、耕作的障碍日复一日摆在眼前，移山的动机无需任何解释，已在这四字中自然成立。此句与上句一写山一写人，一写巨一写老，两相对照，把「不可能」与「偏要去做」的张力拉满，愚公的形象虽只寥寥数笔，其刚毅果决的精神气象已经呼之欲出。

This line names the protagonist, the key stroke of his entrance. 'There was a man of the North Mountain called the Foolish Old Man' introducing the person in a judgment sentence, answering the mountain-writing above - the mountains 'south of Jizhou, north of Heyang,' the man in the 'North Mountain,' mountain and man neighborly, fates linked; the name 'Foolish Old Man' already holding depth - named 'foolish' yet in fact great wisdom, the Liezi's ideal of 'great wisdom seeming foolish' personified. 'Nearly ninety' using 'nearly' for his great age, a man of ninety against a mountain of seven hundred li, the finite of man and the boundless of the difficulty all in it; precisely because the contrast is so vast, the later decision to move the mountains startles the age. 'Living facing the mountains' four words in the barest brush writing his lot - the word 'facing' the mountain set against his door, the barrier to travel and toil day by day before his eyes, the motive to move the mountains needing no explanation, already natural in these four words. This line and the last, one the mountain one the man, one the vast one the aged, set against each other, pulling the tension of the 'impossible' and the 'yet resolved to do' to the full; the Foolish Old Man's image, in a few strokes, his resolute and dauntless spirit already at the lips.

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Word focus

方 ‘Fang’, measuring by squares: the character used for extent across the ground. In ‘seven hundred li square’ it is matched with ‘ten thousand fathoms high’, so one word gives the mountain its width and the next its height, and the pairing is what makes it feel massive rather than merely tall. 「方七百里」之「方」字，意为方圆、见方，是丈量面积的关键字眼。「方」字之妙在于以最简洁的方式写出山体的横向规模——「方七百里」即四面各七百里，总面积之巨不言而喻；与下句「高万仞」配合，一「方」一「高」，一横一纵，两维并立，山的体积感便立体地呈现出来。此字的选择体现了先秦叙事文「以数量写物」的特点：不事形容渲染，只以精确的数量交代，反而更显客观、更觉可信。在修辞上，「方七百里，高万仞」以两个数量短语对举，音节整齐，读来如数家珍，把山的「大」写得既骇人又具体；而与「年且九十」的老者对照，「方」「高」二字所写的山之大，恰成为凸显人力之微的参照系。此字后世沿用不辍，「方圆」「方里」皆由此义引申，可见先秦寓言炼字之精对汉语的深远影响。

面山而居 ‘Face the mountain and dwell’: the phrase for a household that keeps the mountain permanently in front of it. The verb ‘face’ converts scenery into an obstacle, and because the family cannot pass it, removing it becomes inevitable without a word of description. 「面山而居」四字，是揭示移山动机的点睛之笔，其中「面」字尤见功力。「面」意为面向、正对，写山的正脸就横在愚公家门口——不是远望得见山，而是日日与山相对，出门是山、耕作受山、往来受阻，山已成为生存的绝对障碍。这一个「面」字，把愚公一家与两座大山的敌对关系写得淋漓尽致，移山的决定因之成为必然，无需任何心理描写；「而居」的「而」字连接「面山」与「居」，写他就在这样的处境里居住，日复一日、年复一年，积压的困苦终将酿成移山的意志。在结构上，「面山而居」上承「年且九十」，下启「惩山北之塞，出入之迂也」（本节选之后），是人物动机与后文行动之间的枢纽；在笔法上，它以最少的文字写最深的苦处，正是先秦寓言「简而有力」的典型。后世「面山而居」成为描述闭塞困窘处境的经典表述，其简洁凝练，足称炼字典范。