就是那一只蟋蟀

Meaning

A long lyric built on one repeated line. A single cricket, described as having beaten its steel wings against the autumn wind and leapt the strait from Taiwan to the mainland, sings in the same voice in every place a Chinese person has been: in the ancient odes, on the Great Wall, in a battlefield, in a childhood courtyard. The poem's argument is that this insect carries a shared memory — of lanterns and mooncakes and a mother calling children in to add clothes — and that because both sides of the strait hear the same sound, the bond between them is as natural as their shared language.

就是那一只蟋蟀钢翅响拍着金风一跳跳过了海峡从台北上空悄悄降落落在你的院子里夜夜唱歌就是那一只蟋蟀在《豳风·七月》里唱过在《唐风·蟋蟀》里唱过在《古诗十九首》里唱过在花木兰的织机旁唱过在姜夔的词里唱过劳人听过思妇听过就是那一只蟋蟀在深山的驿道边唱过在长城的烽台上唱过在旅馆的天井中唱过在战场的野草间唱过孤客听过伤兵听过就是那一只蟋蟀在你的记忆里唱歌在我的记忆里唱歌唱童年的惊喜唱中年的寂寞想起雕竹做笼想起呼灯篱落想起月饼想起桂花想起满腹珍珠的石榴果想起故园飞黄叶想起野塘剩残荷想起雁南飞想起田间一堆堆的草垛想起妈妈唤我们回去加衣裳想起岁月偷偷流去许多许多就是那一只蟋蟀在海峡那边唱歌在海峡这边唱歌在台北的一条巷子里唱歌在四川的一个乡村里唱歌在每个中国人脚迹所到之处处处唱歌比最单调的乐曲更单调比最谐和的音响更谐和凝成水是露珠燃成光是萤火变成鸟是鹧鸪啼叫在乡愁者的心窝就是那一只蟋蟀在你的窗外唱歌在我的窗外唱歌你在倾听你在想念我在倾听我在吟哦你该猜到我在吟些什么我会猜到你在想些什么中国人有中国人的心态中国人有中国人的耳朵

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] One cricket, its steel wings beating the autumn wind, leaps the strait and comes down over Taipei to sing in a courtyard night after night; the poem then runs through the places it has always sung — the 'Bin Feng' and 'Tang Feng' odes, the Nineteen Old Poems, Hua Mulan's loom, Jiang Kui's ci, the post roads, the beacon towers, battlefields — and finally lists what it makes anyone remember. [Structure] The refrain 'It is that very cricket' returns five times, dividing the poem into movements, and each return adds a place or a memory rather than repeating the same statement. [Imagery] The cricket is at once physical and purely a voice; the poem's most effective image is the transformation sequence near the end — congealed into water a dewdrop, burned into light a firefly, become a bird a partridge — which turns a small sound into the four elements of Chinese experience. [Rhetoric] The accumulation of 'I think of...' clauses is the poem's engine, and they are deliberately ordinary: mooncakes, pomegranates, straw stacks, mother's call. [Effect] The poem's rhetorical target is the hardness of the political division, and its argument is that a shared folk memory of childhood makes that division an accident. Whether or not the reader accepts the argument, the craft is beyond dispute: the restraint of the last stanza, in which each side guesses what the other is thinking, is the most tender passage in modern Chinese poetry of the period.

【白话串讲】 流沙河写《就是那一只蟋蟀》：“就是那一只蟋蟀，钢翅响拍着金风，一跳跳过了海峡”——“在《豳风·七月》里唱过，在《唐风·蟋蟀》里唱过”——他写蟋蟀——从古诗唱到海峡两岸。 【意象与手法】 以“就是那一只蟋蟀”的复沓起笔；“钢翅响拍着金风，一跳跳过了海峡”以蟋蟀写两岸相连；“在《豳风·七月》里唱过，在《唐风·蟋蟀》里唱过”以典籍串联历史；结以“啼叫在乡愁者的心窝”。咏物而寄乡愁，古今勾连。 【情感与主旨】 借蟋蟀这一贯穿中华诗歌的意象，写两岸同胞共同的乡愁与文化认同，将古典意象与现代乡愁结合，是流沙河乡愁诗代表作。 【名句点睛】 常考“就是那一只蟋蟀，钢翅响拍着金风，一跳跳过了海峡”以蟋蟀写两岸相连；“在《豳风·七月》里唱过，在《唐风·蟋蟀》里唱过”以典籍写文化认同。

Allusions

The cricket is not an invented image. It appears in the 'Bin Feng: Seventh Month' of the 'Book of Songs' — where the insect is one of eight month-markers of the farming calendar — and again in the 'Tang Feng: Cricket', the rustic song of a woman reminding her husband of the season. It is one of the 'Nineteen Old Poems', where it is a symbol of domestic time, and it recurs in Jiang Kui's songs. Hua Mulan, who drops her loom to enlist, supplies a female voice from the ballads, and the 'partridge' at the close is the bird of the 'Bin Feng'. By touching all of these at once, the poem claims that its cricket is not a modern figure of speech but the same creature that has been sung for three thousand years.

诗中「就是那一只蟋蟀钢翅响拍着金风」「一跳跳过了海峡从台北上空悄悄降落」「在豳风七月里唱过在花木兰的织机旁唱过」「啼叫在乡愁者的心窝」等语，皆含典故故实。「就是那一只蟋蟀钢翅响拍着金风」写就是那一只蟋蟀钢翅响拍着金风；「一跳跳过了海峡从台北上空悄悄降落」写一跳跳过了海峡从台北上空悄悄降落；「在豳风七月里唱过在花木兰的织机旁唱过」用豳风、花木兰之典（豳风写诗经豳风七月，花木兰写木兰从军），写在豳风七月里唱过在花木兰的织机旁唱过；「啼叫在乡愁者的心窝」写啼叫在乡愁者的心窝。诗人用豳风、花木兰之典入诗，不着痕迹，而把乡愁咏物之情写得真切可感，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。

Commentary

The poem's reception has been as political as its literary quality. In mainland China it was read as a work of national reunification sympathetic to Taiwan, and in Taiwan some readers found the final stanzas too overtly directed; both readings have kept it in circulation. Critics have also noted its debt to the Mao-era rhetorical poem — the lists, the parallelism, the closing definition — and have argued whether the hard work of the 'I think of' accumulations is lyrical or merely propagandistic. The near-universal praise in anthologies suggests that the poem succeeds in part because its emotion is carried by details that no argument could make moving.

这首《就是那一只蟋蟀》，是流沙河写乡愁咏物之作，写就是那一只蟋蟀、一跳跳过了海峡、在豳风七月里唱过、啼叫在乡愁者的心窝之情，深情咏物。起「就是那一只蟋蟀，钢翅响拍着金风」——就是那一只蟋蟀，钢翅响拍着金风。写就是那一只蟋蟀：就是那一只蟋蟀、钢翅响拍着金风——那一只蟋蟀、响拍着金风；「一跳跳过了海峡，从台北上空悄悄降落」——一跳跳过了海峡，从台北上空悄悄降落。写一跳跳过了海峡：一跳跳过了海峡、从台北上空悄悄降落——跳过了海峡、悄悄降落；「在《豳风·七月》里唱过，在花木兰的织机旁唱过」——在《豳风·七月》里唱过，在花木兰的织机旁唱过。写在《豳风·七月》里唱过：在《豳风·七月》里唱过、在花木兰的织机旁唱过——七月里唱过、织机旁唱过；结「啼叫在乡愁者的心窝」——啼叫在乡愁者的心窝。写啼叫在乡愁者的心窝：啼叫在、乡愁者的心窝——啼叫在、心窝。这「啼叫在乡愁者的心窝」，是全诗之结：以啼叫在乡愁者的心窝写其咏物。全诗深情咏物，以声写情，正是流沙河诗中的名篇。

Prosody

Line by line

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