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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

访袁拾遗不遇

Calling on Yuan Shiyi, and Not Finding Him

孟浩然

Meng Haoran

访友Visiting a friend 感慨Lament

洛阳访才子，江岭作流人。
闻说梅花早，何如北地春。

At Luoyang I came to visit a man of talent;
Out on the Jiang and the Ling he has become an exile.
I hear the plum blossoms open early there;
But how does that compare with the spring of the north?

Listen

Meaning

Meng Haoran travels to Luoyang to see his friend Yuan, only to learn that Yuan has already been banished south beyond the Five Ridges. The poem says nothing about the visit and nothing about the farewell; it moves straight from the news to a comparison between the early plum of the south, which opens sooner, and the spring of the north, which the exiled friend must be thinking of. The complaint about the treatment of a good man is never voiced, and it comes out instead as a question about which place is better to live in. The disappointment of the visit is refracted through a landscape.

洛阳访才子，江岭作流人。闻说梅花早，何如北地春。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The first line is an arrival, the second is a correction: the man Meng Haoran came to see is no longer in Luoyang but an exile by the Jiang and the Ling. The third and fourth lines answer the disappointment with a comparison that is really a protest: the southern plum blossoms early, and the person exiled there will hear of them, but which spring would he rather be in? [Structure] The poem is built on two turns. The first, in the second line, reverses the expectation set up by the first. The second, at the end, turns a scene of the south into a question about the north, and the question is never answered. [Imagery] Only two images, and neither is described: the plum of the south and the spring of the north. The poem's whole argument is carried by a comparison the reader has to complete.

【白话串讲】孟浩然写《访袁拾遗不遇》：“洛阳访才子，江岭作流人”——他到洛阳访友，友人却被流放到江岭。“闻说梅花早，何如北地春”——听说岭南梅花开得早，但那又怎么比得上北地的春天——他写访友不遇的怅惘。【意象与手法】此诗写访友不遇，以感慨写不平，是孟浩然的名篇。前二句写访友：「洛阳访才子，江岭作流人」写洛阳访才子、江岭作流人——写尽访友不遇的意外；后二句写感慨：「闻说梅花早，何如北地春」写闻说梅花早、何如北地春——写尽对流放的感慨。全诗以感慨写不平，写尽访友不遇的怅惘与对流放的感慨，是孟浩然的代表作。【情感与主旨】此诗写访友不遇，以感慨写不平，是孟浩然的名篇。袁拾遗即袁瓘，唐玄宗时曾任拾遗，后贬为赣县尉等职。此诗写孟浩然至洛阳访袁瓘不遇，而袁已流放江岭。此诗写访友：洛阳访才子，江岭作流人——写洛阳访才子、江岭作流人，写尽访友不遇的意外；闻说梅花早，何如北地春——写闻说梅花早、何如北地春，写尽对流放的感慨。全诗以感慨写不平——那「江岭作流人」写尽才子被逐的不平，「何如北地春」写尽对流放的感慨，写尽访友不遇的怅惘与对流放的感慨，是理解孟浩然怀友诗的重要篇章。【名句点睛】常考「洛阳访才子，江岭作流人」写访友不遇的意外；「闻说梅花早，何如北地春」写对流放的感慨；以及全诗以感慨写不平、以问句写感慨的手法。

Background

Meng Haoran (689-740) was from Xiangyang in Xiangzhou and spent his life mostly seeking office and mostly failing to get it, which is what gives his poetry its note of quiet disappointment. Yuan, styled Yuan, a remonstrator (shi-yi) under the emperor Xuanzong, was banished at some point to serve as county尉 of Gan and then further south of the Jiang and the Ling — roughly today's Jiangxi, Guangdong and Hunan. The two men had in common a sense of being passed over; Meng Haoran speaks in this poem of his friend's fate and, in doing so, of his own. Men who read it note that the poem's restraint is not courtesy but the habit of a man who has learned not to say the unpopular thing aloud.

此诗写访友不遇，以感慨写不平，是孟浩然的名篇。孟浩然（689—740），字浩然，襄州襄阳（今湖北襄阳）人，唐代伟大的山水田园诗人，与王维并称「王孟」。袁拾遗即袁瓘，唐玄宗时曾任拾遗（谏官），后因事被贬为赣县尉，远徙江岭（长江以南、五岭一带，即今赣粤湘一带）。此诗写孟浩然至洛阳访袁瓘不遇，而袁已流放江岭。「洛阳访才子，江岭作流人」写洛阳访才子、江岭作流人——写尽访友不遇的意外（到洛阳访才子，谁知他已在江岭作流人）；「闻说梅花早，何如北地春」写闻说梅花早、何如北地春——写尽对流放的感慨（听说江南梅花开得早，那又如何比得上北地的春天）。全诗以感慨写不平，写尽访友不遇的怅惘与对流放的感慨，是理解孟浩然怀友诗的重要篇章。还应从孟浩然与袁瓘的交谊看此诗：孟浩然一生未仕，袁瓘亦仕途坎坷，二人同怀才士之慨。孟浩然至洛阳访袁瓘，本拟欢聚，不意故人已贬岭南，其失落可想而知。诗中「江岭作流人」五字，既是写袁瓘之遭际，亦是孟浩然对自身「不才明主弃」身世之共鸣——才士之不遇，古今同慨，正是此诗深挚处。而末句「何如北地春」以问作结，不直斥朝廷而怨愤自见，正是孟浩然「怨而不怒」的温柔敦厚。

Art

The poem's economy is the point. Nothing is narrated: there is no description of the house, the door, the empty courtyard, and no account of the conversation with whoever gave the news. Two lines are enough to establish the frustration — the visitor arrives expecting a man and learns he is elsewhere — and then the poem turns to a landscape of the south and asks a question about the northern spring. The trick is that the question is about scenery while the feeling is about justice: to ask whether the southern plum is better than the northern spring is already to say that a banishment cannot be answered by better weather. The last word 春 is the only noun the poem rests on, and it carries the whole complaint.

此诗的艺术特色可从四个方面解析。其一，以对照写意外。「洛阳访才子，江岭作流人」以对照写意外——那「洛阳访才子」与「江岭作流人」对照，以对照写尽访友不遇的意外。其二，以省略写怅惘。全诗不写访而不遇的详细过程，只写来访时的结果，以省略写尽怅惘的含蓄。其三，以问句写感慨。「何如北地春」以问句写感慨——那「何如北地春」写尽对比之问，以问句写尽对流放的感慨。其四，以曲笔写不平。全诗不直斥朝廷用人不公，而以梅花早春的曲笔暗讽，以曲笔写尽才子被逐的不平。此外，此诗前二句写访友不遇的意外，后二句写对流放的感慨，由事入情，正是怀友诗「即事抒情」的写法。四重手法，使此诗以感慨写不平，写尽访友不遇的怅惘与对流放的感慨，是孟浩然的代表作。此诗尤可注意其结构的顿挫：首句「洛阳访才子」写兴致，次句「江岭作流人」陡然一转，写尽意外；三句「闻说梅花早」若开一笔，写江南之景，末句「何如北地春」再转回对流放的感慨。二十字中两度转折，而感慨愈转愈深，正是绝句「转」字诀的运用。又「梅花早」与「北地春」的对照，以江南梅花之早衬北地春之不可及，一景一情，收束全诗，尤见匠心。

Allusions

Both lines of the first couplet carry a borrowed weight. 才子 — a man of talent — is the standard term of praise, but here it is also the standard complaint, since the history of Chinese literature is full of talented men sent south; the immediate figure behind the word is Jia Yi, the Luoyang-born statesman taken to Chang'an and then sent to the长沙 as a royal tutor, whose own poem of resentment is remembered as the archetype. 流人 — an exile, literally a drifting person — repeats that history with a different word. The plum, for its part, belongs to the long tradition of writing about the south from the north, from Lu Kai's branch of spring sent to someone far away down to the Tang verses about the early plum of the Jiangnan.

此诗的用语深植于访友与流放的传统。「洛阳访才子」令人想到「才子」写才士的意象——「洛阳访才子」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「洛阳才子」的典故——贾谊洛阳人，年少有才，也令人想到「洛阳纸贵」的典故；「江岭作流人」令人想到「流人」写流放之人的意象——「江岭作流人」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「迁客」「逐臣」的意象——贾谊被贬长沙，屈原放逐江南；「梅花早」令人想到「梅花早」写江南梅花的意象——「闻说梅花早」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「江南无所有，聊赠一枝春」（陆凯）的江南梅花意象；「北地春」令人想到「北地春」写北地春天的意象——「何如北地春」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「长安春」写长安春色的意象。全诗化用才子、流人、梅花的意象，以感慨写不平，正是孟浩然「清淡自然」而善用典、承流放传统写感慨的本领。又「梅花早」意象可联系唐人以梅写南地的传统：江南地暖，梅花早开，故唐人诗常以「梅」写江南风物。孟浩然此诗以「闻说梅花早」写袁瓘谪居之地，正暗含「江南虽好，终非吾乡」之意——梅花虽早，而流人思归之情难遣，正与「何如北地春」呼应，可见以景写情、以物喻人的手法。

Commentary

Readers have loved this poem for what it leaves out. The complaint about a friend banished for no good reason — a common enough injustice in the Tang — is never made; instead the poet asks, almost casually, whether the early plum of the south can compare with the spring of the north. That the question has no answer is the poem's answer. Later critics described the manner as 'bland and full of flavour', which is to say that the surface is a landscape and the depth is a protest, and that the two never touch. It is also, in its way, a poem about Meng Haoran himself: a man who came a long way to see a friend and, having failed, decided which spring he would prefer.

此诗历来被推为孟浩然怀友诗的名篇，也是唐人访友不遇的代表。历代论者对此诗评价极高：清人评此诗「以感慨写不平，淡而有味」；近人更指出「闻说梅花早，何如北地春」以问句写感慨，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访友不遇的怅惘与对流放的感慨——那洛阳的才子，那江岭的流人，那早开的梅花，那北地的春，都写尽了孟浩然笔下的访友不遇；那「何如北地春」更以问句写尽对流放的感慨。此诗与孟浩然《岁暮归南山》（「不才明主弃」）同为感慨名篇，一写「多病故人疏」的身世（岁暮归南山），一写「江岭作流人」的友人（访袁拾遗不遇）；又与李白「我寄愁心与明月」的怀友传统一脉相承，可见中国诗怀友的深情。对于今日读者，此诗是理解孟浩然怀友诗的窗口，也是中国诗访友不遇的经典——那江岭的流人，穿越千年，仍在诉说着才子被逐的不平。

Prosody

Form Poem in the five-character quatrain (pentadic jue-ju)诗·五言绝句

Rhyme A four-line poem rhyming on ren and chun — the 'zhen' group of level tones — with the same vowel throughout. The rounded vowel is quiet and unhurried, which is what gives the closing question its unhurried, almost careless air.五绝，押「人」「春」韵（上平十一真），一韵到底，音节清淡

Tone pattern The pentadic quatrain here is as plain as the language allows: five characters to a line, no parallelism, and the rhymes only on the second and fourth lines so that the last line stands by itself. The rhythm is slow enough for a question to be heard inside it, and the only thematic movement is the two turns — the reversal in line two and the comparison in line three.此诗为五言绝句，押平声韵，一韵到底，音节清淡，正合感慨的清淡。

Reading note The poem is a small model of the quatrain used as a protest in a low voice. Its four lines carry an arrival, a reversal, a piece of news from the south and a question about the north, and nothing else; there is no description and no feeling expressed. What holds it together is the rhyme, whose even vowel turns the question at the end into something almost conversational. That a poem of twenty characters should be able to contain a friend's banishment and a complaint about the treatment of talent is the measure both of Meng Haoran's restraint and of the form.此诗为五言绝句，四句——「洛阳访才子，江岭作流人。闻说梅花早，何如北地春」，押「真」韵（人、春），一韵到底，音节清淡。全诗以感慨写不平：前二句写访友不遇的意外（洛阳访才子，江岭作流人），后二句写对流放的感慨（闻说梅花早，何如北地春）。四句短章，前写访友，后写感慨，以「何如北地春」写尽不平之叹，正见孟浩然「清淡自然」的本色。诵读此诗，宜以清淡的语调读「洛阳访才子」的来访，以感慨的语调读「何如北地春」的问句，结句要读得低回而有余韵，方能传达出孟浩然的清淡自然。孟浩然绝句以「清淡自然」著称，此诗正是其怀友绝句的典范。

Line by line

闻说梅花早，何如北地春

They say the plum blossoms open early there; But how does that compare with the spring of the north?

听说江南梅花开得早，那又如何比得上北地的春天。

I hear the plum blossoms come early in the south; but how can that compare with the spring of the northern land?

此二句是全诗写感慨的核心，以闻说梅花早写江南，以何如北地春写对比，写尽对流放的感慨，是千古名句。「闻说梅花早」写听说江南梅花开得早——那「闻说」写听说，「梅花早」写梅花开得早，写尽江南的春色；「何如北地春」写那又如何比得上北地的春天——那「何如」写如何比得上，「北地春」写北地的春天，写尽对比的感慨。这句的深意在于：它以「闻说梅花早」的江南与「何如北地春」的北地，写尽对流放的感慨——听说江南梅花开得早，那「闻说梅花早」写尽江南的春色——江南梅花早开，本是好景，那「梅花早」写尽江南的早春；那又如何比得上北地的春天，那「何如北地春」写尽对比的感慨——梅花虽早，而流人远在江南，北地之春却无由得见，那「何如」写尽对流放的感慨；那「闻说梅花早」写尽江南的春色，那「何如北地春」写尽对比的感慨，一写江南，一写北地，写尽对流放的感慨——梅开虽早而身在流放，正是北地春不可及的感慨；此二句以江南、北地写尽对流放的感慨，也让此二句成为全诗写感慨的核心与千古名句。若换作直说「他被贬到江南很可惜」，则失其含蓄；唯以「闻说梅花早」写江南、「何如北地春」写对比，写尽对流放的感慨，也让此二句成为全诗写感慨的核心。

Meng Haoran arrives at Yuan's house and finds the householder gone. I hear the plum blossoms come early in the south—your new province's celebrated early plum bloom—but how can that compare with the spring of the northern land, where you belong? The apparent praise of the south (early plums) is immediately taken back: no southern beauty is worth the exile. To have said the south was no place for you would be a consolation; the early plums that cannot match the northern spring are the consolation.

洛阳访才子，江岭作流人

At Luoyang I came to visit a man of talent; Out on the Jiang and the Ling he has become an exile.

到洛阳访才子，谁知他已在江岭作流人。

I came to Luoyang to visit a man of talents; instead, he has become an exile beyond the river ridges.

此二句是全诗写访友的核心，以洛阳访才子写来访，以江岭作流人写被逐，写尽访友不遇的意外，是千古名句。「洛阳访才子」写到洛阳访才子——那「洛阳」写洛阳，「访才子」写访才子，写尽来访的兴致；「江岭作流人」写谁知他已在江岭作流人——那「江岭」写江南岭外，「作流人」写作流放之人，写尽被逐的意外。这句的深意在于：它以「洛阳访才子」的来访与「江岭作流人」的被逐，写尽访友不遇的意外——到洛阳访才子，那「洛阳访才子」写尽来访的兴致——洛阳，正是才子荟萃之地，访才子，正是慕名而来，那「访才子」写尽来访的期待；谁知他已在江岭作流人，那「江岭作流人」写尽被逐的意外——才子竟已流放江岭，正是访而不遇的意外，那「作流人」写尽才子被逐的不平；那「洛阳访才子」写尽来访的兴致，那「江岭作流人」写尽被逐的意外，一写来访，一写被逐，写尽访友不遇的意外——洛阳访才子而江岭作流人，正是人事的变幻；此二句以来访、被逐写尽访友不遇的意外，也为后二句的感慨作铺垫，也让此二句成为全诗写访友的核心与千古名句。若换作直说「我去找他他没在」，则失其感慨；唯以「洛阳访才子」写来访、「江岭作流人」写被逐，写尽访友不遇的意外，也让此二句成为全诗写访友的核心。

The couplet that gives the poem its turn. I came to Luoyang to visit a man of talents—the expected destination, the expected meeting—instead, he has become an exile beyond the river ridges. The two place-names carry the fall: Luoyang, the capital where talents gather, versus the river ridges, the southern wasteland. The contrast is the whole poem's shock. To have said I came to visit him but found he had been exiled would be a fact; the Luoyang visit of talents against the exiled man beyond the ridges is the shock.

Study

Word focus

才子 A man of talent: the word of praise which, in this poem, becomes the word of the complaint — the talented man and the banished man are the same. The phrase is standard Chinese courtesy, and its familiarity is what allows Meng Haoran to put an injustice inside an ordinary word without anyone having to notice. 「洛阳访才子」之「才子」是写袁瓘的关键词，一个「才子」写尽袁瓘的才名。才子者，有才之人也。孟浩然以「洛阳访才子」写袁瓘，这个「才子」至少有双重意味：其一，写袁瓘之才——那「洛阳访才子」写到洛阳访才子，那「才子」写尽袁瓘的才名——才子，正是有才之人，那「才子」写尽袁瓘的才名；其二，写不平之叹——那「才子」更是写叹——才子而作流人，正见才高命蹇，那「才子」写尽才子被逐的不平。以「才子」写袁瓘，正是孟浩然写感慨的枢纽——若换作「贤者」「故人」等词，则或失其写才名的意味，或失其与「作流人」的对照；唯「才子」二字，以洛阳访才子写尽袁瓘的才名与才子被逐的不平，与「江岭作流人」的流人相合，写尽访友不遇的意外，也让「洛阳访才子」成为全诗写访友的名句。

流人 An exile, literally a man who drifts: the standard term for someone banished from his home district, and here the news that greets the visitor at the door. It pairs with '才子' in the line before to do the work of the whole poem's grievance — the man of talent and the man in exile being one and the same person. 「江岭作流人」之「流人」是写被逐的关键词，一个「流人」写尽袁瓘的流放。流人者，被流放之人也。孟浩然以「江岭作流人」写袁瓘，这个「流人」至少有双重意味：其一，写流放之实——那「江岭作流人」写已在江岭作流人，那「流人」写尽袁瓘的流放——流人，正是被流放之人，那「流人」写尽袁瓘的遭际；其二，写不平之叹——那「流人」更是写叹——才子而作流人，正见朝廷用人之不公，那「流人」写尽才子被逐的不平。以「流人」写袁瓘，正是孟浩然写不平的枢纽——若换作「迁客」「逐臣」等词，则或失其与「才子」的对照，或失其写流放的意味；唯「流人」二字，以江岭作流人写尽袁瓘的流放与才子被逐的不平，与「洛阳访才子」的才子相合，写尽访友不遇的意外，也让「江岭作流人」成为全诗写被逐的名句。