初起

Meaning

Li Shangyin describes a dawn in Ba Shu that never arrives. He imagines the sun rising at Xianchi, the mythical pool where the sun bathes, and hears the fifth-watch bell, which only deepens his anguish. Then he gives the reason for the pain: three years of bitter fog over the Ba river have kept the sun away from the beam over his bed, and the sun, unlike the poet, seems indifferent to the fact that a man is waiting for home.

想象咸池日欲光，五更钟后更回肠。三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] Four short lines describing an intended sunrise that never comes. [Structure] Two lines of expectation, two lines of frustration, and the frustration is stated as a complaint against the sun itself. [Imagery] The poem's power is in the pairing of a glamorous mythological sunrise with a squalid, natural obstruction: the sun of Xianchi against fog over the river. [Turn] The last line inverts what has gone before: instead of the sun alleviating the darkness, the poet blames the sun for not dispelling it, and in doing so gives away that the darkness is not in the weather. The compressed 'it will not, for the one who has left' is the whole poem's ache in four characters.

【白话串讲】 李商隐写《初起》：“想象咸池日欲光，五更钟后更回肠”——“三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁”——他写巴江三年苦雾——不为离人照屋梁。 【意象与手法】 此诗写羁旅，以乡思写羁旅，是李商隐的名篇。前二句写日出：「想象咸池日欲光，五更钟后更回肠」写想象咸池日欲光、五更钟后更回肠——写尽日出的想象；后二句写苦雾：「三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁」写三年苦雾巴江水、不为离人照屋梁——写尽苦雾的乡思。全诗以乡思写羁旅，写尽日出的想象与苦雾的乡思，是李商隐的代表作。 【情感与主旨】 此诗写羁旅，以乡思写羁旅，是李商隐的名篇。此诗写李商隐羁旅巴蜀、苦雾三年不见日光的乡思。李商隐曾入东川节度使柳仲郢幕，客居巴蜀多年，此地多雾，三年难得见日，遂生「不为离人照屋梁」的怨日之叹，实为久客思乡之情的写照。此诗写日出：想象咸池日欲光，五更钟后更回肠——写想象咸池日欲光、五更钟后更回肠，写尽日出的想象；三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁——写三年苦雾巴江水、不为离人照屋梁，写尽苦雾的乡思。全诗以乡思写羁旅——那「想象咸池日欲光」写尽日出的想象，「不为离人照屋梁」写尽苦雾的乡思，写尽日出的想象与苦雾的乡思，是理解李商隐羁旅诗的重要篇章。 【名句点睛】 常考「想象咸池日欲光，五更钟后更回肠」写日出的想象；「三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁」写苦雾的乡思；以及全诗以乡思写羁旅、以用典写日出的手法。

Allusions

Xianchi is the pool in the Huainanzi where the sun is said to bathe before mounting the sky, so 'the sun at Xianchi about to shine' is an image of the first light made entirely out of myth. 'Fifth-watch bell' belongs to the monastic and city schedule of the Tang night and is the standard marker of the deepest hour before dawn. 'Ba river' is the river of the region where Li Shangyin was staying, and the fog on it is that region's weather rather than a symbol. 'The beam' is the beam of the bed or the room, and in the poem the line's complaint is that the light reaches nothing in particular, which is the way a traveller actually experiences an unhelpful sunrise.

此诗的用语深植于羁旅与乡思传统。「咸池」令人想到「咸池」用日浴之地的典——《淮南子》载日出于旸谷、浴于咸池，也令人想到「咸池」的意象；「五更钟」令人想到「五更钟」写五更钟声的意象——也令人想到「五更鼓角声悲壮」（杜甫）的意象；「回肠」令人想到「回肠」写愁肠百结的意象——也令人想到「九曲回肠」的意象；「苦雾」令人想到「苦雾」写浓雾的意象——巴蜀多雾，也令人想到「雾失楼台」（秦观）的意象；「巴江水」令人想到「巴江水」写巴江的意象——也令人想到「巴山夜雨涨秋池」（李商隐）的意象。全诗化用咸池、五更钟、回肠、苦雾、巴江水的意象，以乡思写羁旅，正是李商隐「深婉」而善用典、承羁旅传统写乡思之本领。「咸池」典出《淮南子·天文训》——「日出于旸谷，浴于咸池」，咸池为日浴之处，故以「想象咸池」写盼望日出；又《楚辞·离骚》「饮余马于咸池兮」，咸池亦为神话中日月出没之地。李商隐以「想象咸池日欲光」写盼日，正用此神话典故。

Commentary

Long ranked among Li Shangyin's best poems of travel, and often quoted as the finest of the verse written in Ba Shu. Qing readers praised the poem's 'deep and sustained' melancholy, and modern readers single out the last line, in which the sun is accused. The poem's peculiar quality is how little it says: no place of origin, no reason for leaving, no date, and the fog is never explained. Read with 'Written to the North in the Rainy Season', the two poems show that Li Shangyin's homesickness was never a subject he could write directly; he had to write the weather that prevented him.

此诗历来被推为李商隐羁旅诗的名篇，也是唐人写巴蜀苦雾的代表。历代论者对此诗评价极高：清人评此诗「以乡思写羁旅，深婉沉郁」；近人更指出「三年苦雾巴江水，不为离人照屋梁」写苦雾的乡思，是此诗的名句。在诗歌史上，此诗的特殊价值在于：它以四句的绝句写尽日出的想象与苦雾的乡思——那想象，那咸池，那日欲光，那五更钟，那更回肠，那三年，那苦雾，那巴江水，那不为，那离人，那照屋梁，都写尽了李商隐笔下的初起；那「不为离人照屋梁」更以拟人写尽乡思的深挚。此诗与李商隐《夜雨寄北》（「君问归期未有期」）同为羁旅名篇，一写「巴山夜雨涨秋池」的夜雨（夜雨寄北），一写「三年苦雾巴江水」的苦雾（初起）；又与李白《静夜思》「举头望明月」的乡思传统一脉相承，可见中国诗写羁旅乡思的传统。对于今日读者，此诗是理解李商隐羁旅诗的窗口，也是中国诗写巴蜀的经典——那不为离人照屋梁的日，穿越千年，仍在诉说着苦雾的乡思。

Prosody

Line by line

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