明 Ming · 诗 Poem
梁甫吟
Liangfu Chant
谁谓秋月明？
蔽之不必一尺翳。
谁谓江水清？
淆之不必一斗泥。
人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪。
君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；
秦穆信逢孙，遂违百里奚。
赤符天子明见万里外，乃以薏苡为文犀。
停婚仆碑何震怒，青天白日生虹蜺。
明良际会有如此，而况童角不辨粟与稊。
外间皇父中艳妻，马角突兀连牝鸡。
以聪为聋狂作圣，颠倒衣裳行蒺藜。
屈原怀沙子胥弃，魑魅叫啸风凄凄。
梁甫吟，悲以凄。
岐山竹实日稀少，凤凰憔悴将安栖！
Who says the river water is clear? To muddy it needs not a peck of mud.
Human feeling overturns between morning and evening; level ground in an instant becomes hill and gully.
Do you not see: Duke Huan made Zhongfu his minister, yet Shu Diao in the end threw Qi into chaos; Duke Mu of Qin trusted Feng Sun, and so went against Baili Xi.
The Son of Heaven of the Red Charter saw clearly ten thousand li away, and yet took plain Job's-tears for patterned rhinoceros horn.
The betrothal broken, the stele pushed over—what a thunder of wrath, till under blue sky and white sun a rainbow was born.
Even the meeting of enlightened lord and worthy man comes to this—how much more with a child-ruler who cannot tell grain from weed.
Outside the palace a Huangfu, within it a painted wife; a horn juts from a horse, and a hen crows along with it.
They take the keen of hearing for deaf and the madman for a sage, put their robes on upside down and walk among the thorns.
Qu Yuan embraced the sand, Zixu was cast away; goblins howl in a wind that whistles cold.
The Liangfu chant—grieving and forlorn.
On Mount Qi the bamboo fruit grows scarcer by the day; the phoenix, worn thin, where shall it roost!
Meaning
Who says the autumn moon is bright? It takes no more than a foot of cloud to cover it. Who says the river is clear? It takes no more than a peck of mud to muddy it. Human feeling can turn over between morning and evening, and level ground can become hill and gully in a moment. Do you not see how Duke Huan of Qi honoured Guan Zhong as his second father and won the hegemony, yet in the end favoured Shu Diao and threw Qi into disorder; and how Duke Mu of Qin listened to Feng Sun and went against the loyal counsel of Baili Xi. Emperor Guangwu of Han could see ten thousand li away, and yet mistook a load of Job's-tears for patterned rhinoceros horn and rare pearls. When the betrothal was cancelled and Wei Zheng's stele pushed over, how terrible the wrath, till a rainbow sprang up under a clear blue sky. If even enlightened lords and worthy servants meet so badly, what of the child-rulers who cannot tell beans from wheat? A Huangfu holds power at court and a painted favourite rules the palace; horns grow on horses and hens crow, all in confusion. They take the keen of hearing for the deaf and madmen for sages, put their clothes on upside down and walk through brambles. Qu Yuan embraced the sand and drowned himself, Wu Zixu was cast aside, and goblins howl long and shrill in the mountain wind. The Liangfu chant is sorrowful and forlorn. On Mount Qi the bamboo fruit grows scarcer by the day; where shall the worn and haggard phoenix find a perch?
谁说秋月皎洁？遮住它的不须一尺云雾。谁说江水清澈？搅浑它的不须一斗污泥。人情朝夕间便有翻覆，平地转瞬可成山溪。君不见齐桓公尊管仲为仲父成就霸业，终因宠信竖刁乱了齐国；秦穆公听信逢孙，违背了百里奚的忠言。汉光武明见万里之外，却把薏苡草当成文犀明珠。魏征停婚推碑何等震怒，青天白日竟生虹蜺。明君良臣的遇合尚且如此，何况那些童昏不辨菽麦的君主。朝中有皇父、宫里有艳妻，马生角、母鸡啼乱纷纷。把聪明当作聋子、把狂徒当作圣人，颠倒衣裳行走在蒺藜之中。屈原怀沙自沉、伍子胥见弃，魑魅在山风中凄厉长啸。梁甫吟，悲凉而凄怆。岐山上的竹实一天天稀少，凤凰憔悴又将栖身何处！
Appreciation
Liu Ji (1311-1375), courtesy name Bowen, lived through the collapse of the Yuan and helped found the Ming, and this poem belongs to those late Yuan years when schemers held power and honest men were driven out. It is mixed-metre ancient verse, its lines of three, four, five and seven characters breaking against one another so that the rhythm halts and tears like silk. Two rhetorical questions open it—the moon needs only a foot of haze to hide it, the river only a peck of mud to muddy—and then 'do you not see' launches a chain of histories, told over like beads and yet heard like an indictment. Dense as the allusions are, the three plain words grieving and forlorn gather them up, and the close, the bamboo fruit of Mount Qi growing scarce and the worn phoenix with nowhere to roost, makes worthy men without a place its final desolate image, deep in the inheritance of the Chu songs.
【白话串讲】 “谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳”——刘基写《梁甫吟》：谁说秋月明？一尺云就能遮住。“人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪”——人情早晚就翻覆。“君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐”——他写尽历史的教训。 【意象与手法】 此诗为杂言古诗，句式长短错落，三、四、五、七言间出，节奏顿挫如裂帛 【情感与主旨】 刘基（1311—1375）字伯温，元末明初开国功臣。此诗作于元末，时世道陵夷、权奸用事、忠良见弃 【名句点睛】 此诗常考用典意图与情感主旨。多命分析谁谓秋月明？
Background
Liu Ji (1311-1375), courtesy name Bowen, was a founding statesman of the Ming who had lived through the end of the Yuan. This poem belongs to the late Yuan years, when the order of the age was in decay, powerful schemers held office and loyal, worthy men were cast aside. Borrowing the old Han yuefu title Liangfu Chant, the poet strings allusions together like beads to reprove his own day: Duke Huan of Qi rose to hegemony through Guan Zhong yet ruined his state by favouring Shu Diao; Duke Mu of Qin went against Baili Xi and was defeated; Emperor Guangwu of Han took a load of Job's-tears for patterned rhinoceros horn; Emperor Taizong of Tang cancelled a betrothal and had Wei Zheng's stele toppled—all proofs that enlightened ruler and worthy servant rarely meet while slanderers prosper. Shen Deqian, in his Selected Ming Poems, called it jumbled together into a text, carried to the utmost of vexation, grievance and confusion, and said that this is the intent of the Li Sao, which precisely names its use of the past to reprove the present and the breadth of its hidden indignation.
《梁甫吟》为明代刘基所作，是写世路翻覆、君门九重之慨的乐府诗。刘基（1311—1375），字伯温，青田人，明初诗人、政治家。此诗：谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥。人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪。君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬。君不见广武战场上，楚汉临危相决堤。君王且勿猜，愿言献此辞。全诗写世路翻覆、君门九重之慨，是刘基诗的名篇。
Art
This is mixed-metre ancient verse, its lines long and short by turns, three, four, five and seven characters breaking out against one another so that the rhythm halts and tears like silk. Structurally, two rhetorical questions rouse the piece, and then 'do you not see' leads in a string of historical allusions, told over like a family's treasures and yet sounding like an indictment, so that the spreading catalogue keeps its order. The allusions are packed, but the three plain words grieving and forlorn gather and point them, and the movement circles from the present to history and back to the present in one unbroken breath. The ending, the bamboo fruit on Mount Qi growing scarcer by the day and the worn phoenix with nowhere to roost, uses the homeless phoenix for worthy men who have lost their place; the image is bleak and the pain outlasts the poem, deep in the inheritance of the fragrant plants and fair ones of the Chu songs.
《梁甫吟》艺术上以世路翻覆的铺陈与君门之慨的深婉见长。全诗层层写来：首写秋月江水之蔽——“谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥”写秋月易蔽、江水易淆；中写人情翻覆——“人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪”写人情翻覆、平地成溪；后写史事之证——“君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬”用竖刁乱齐、李斯黄犬之典，“君不见广武战场上，楚汉临危相决堤”用楚汉广武之典；末写君王且勿猜——“君王且勿猜，愿言献此辞”写君王勿猜、献此辞。全诗以世路翻覆写君门之慨，正是刘基诗深婉的笔法。
Allusions
The allusions throughout are dense and exact. Duke Huan making Zhongfu his minister while Shu Diao threw Qi into chaos comes from the Biographies of Guan Zhong and Yan Ying in the Records of the Grand Historian; Duke Mu trusting Feng Sun and so going against Baili Xi comes from the Zuo Tradition under the thirty-third year of Duke Xi and from the Basic Annals of Qin, which record how Duke Mu refused the remonstrance of Baili Xi and Jian Shu, attacked Zheng and met defeat at Yao. The Son of Heaven of the Red Charter is Emperor Guangwu of Han, and taking Job's-tears for patterned rhinoceros horn refers to the slander against Ma Yuan, who brought back a cartload of Job's-tears from Jiaozhi (Book of the Later Han, Biography of Ma Yuan). The broken betrothal and toppled stele refer to Emperor Taizong, who after Wei Zheng's death cancelled the marriage and had his stele pushed over. The child-ruler comes from the Airs of Qi in the Book of Songs, robes put on upside down from the poem Before Dawn in the East, the crowing hen from the Harangue at Mu, and embracing the sand is Qu Yuan's last poem. All are fused together to prove how hard it is for ruler and worthy man to meet.
《梁甫吟》用典在“梁甫吟”“桓公相仲父”“竖刁乱齐”“李斯黄犬”“广武战场”。“梁甫吟”为乐府古题；用管仲、竖刁之典写小人乱国；“李斯黄犬”用李斯临刑叹黄犬之典写信谗亡身；“广武战场”写楚汉相持广武之史。全诗以这些典故写世路翻覆，用典自然而深婉自见，正是刘基诗的笔法。
Commentary
Shen Deqian, in his Selected Ming Poems, wrote that the poem is jumbled together into a text, carried to the utmost of vexation, grievance and confusion, and that this is the intent of the Li Sao. The modern scholar Qian Jibo held that Liu Ji's poetry is deep and halting and has the bone of Du Fu. Writing the sense of rise and fall through allusions strung like beads, this piece has long been regarded as the representative political lyric of the early Ming, shining down the ages alongside Li Bai's Liangfu Chant. Its way of reproving the present through the past has served later ages as a model for poetry written in response to the times.
《梁甫吟》是刘基诗的名篇，也是明初乐府诗写世路之慨的代表作。此诗写世路翻覆、君门九重之慨，向为论者称道。论者多赏其世路翻覆的铺陈与君门之慨的深婉——“谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥”写秋月易蔽、江水易淆，深婉之极；“人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪”写人情翻覆，更见其慨；“君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬”用竖刁乱齐、李斯黄犬之典，尤见其警。刘基为明初文宗，其诗以深婉沉郁著称，此诗正是其代表——以世路翻覆写君门之慨，正是其诗风。
Prosody
Line by line
谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥。
Who says the autumn moon is bright? It is hidden by less than a foot of cloud. Who says the river is clear? It is muddied by less than a peck of mud.
谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳（遮蔽）。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥。
Who says the autumn moon is bright? Less than a foot of cloud can hide it. Who says the river water is clear? Less than a peck of mud can muddy it.
首写秋月易蔽、江水易淆，是全诗写世路翻覆的起点。“谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳”写秋月易蔽——“谁谓秋月明”写谁说秋月明？“蔽之不必一尺翳”写遮蔽它不必一尺的翳——秋月虽明，一尺可蔽；“谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥”写江水易淆——“谁谓江水清”写谁说江水清？“淆之不必一斗泥”写搅浑它不必一斗泥——江水虽清，一斗可淆。四句写秋月易蔽、江水易淆：谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳。谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥。以“谁谓秋月明？蔽之不必一尺翳”写秋月虽明而一尺可蔽，以“谁谓江水清？淆之不必一斗泥”写江水虽清而一斗可淆，正是刘基诗写世路翻覆、毁誉易至的起点——清明易蔽，清浊易淆。
The moon. Who says the autumn moon is bright? It is hidden by less than a foot of cloud. Who says the river is clear? It is muddied by less than a peck of mud. The moon hidden by a foot of cloud and the river muddied by a peck of mud are the opening analogies. To have used the moon and river analogies would be analogies; the who-says-the-autumn-moon-is-bright-it-is-hidden-by-less-than-a-foot-of-cloud against the who-says-the-river-is-clear-it-is-muddied-by-less-than-a-peck-of-mud is the analogies.
人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪。
Men's hearts overturn between dawn and dusk; level ground of a sudden becomes a mountain torrent.
人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪。
Human hearts overturn between morning and evening; level ground in an instant becomes a mountain gully.
此二句写人情翻覆、平地成溪，是全诗写世路之险的深化。“人情旦暮有翻覆”写人情翻覆——“人情旦暮有翻覆”写人情在旦暮之间就有翻覆——人情旦暮有翻覆；“平地倏忽成山溪”写平地成溪——“平地倏忽成山溪”写平地倏忽之间变成山溪——平地倏忽成山溪。二句写人情翻覆、平地成溪：人情旦暮有翻覆，平地倏忽成山溪。以“人情旦暮有翻覆”写人情旦暮翻覆、反复无常，以“平地倏忽成山溪”写平地倏忽变山溪之险，正是刘基诗写世路之险的深化——人情翻覆，平地生波。
The heart. Men's hearts overturn between dawn and dusk; level ground of a sudden becomes a mountain torrent. The day-to-night overturning and the level-ground-to-torrent are the Lu Ji's warning. To have said men's hearts overturn would be a warning; the men's-hearts-overturn-between-dawn-and-dusk against the level-ground-of-a-sudden-becomes-a-mountain-torrent is the warning.
君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬。
Do you not see? Duke Huan made Zhongfu his prime minister, yet Shu Diao in the end ruined Qi; Qin trusted Li Si and perished, cut to pieces while he wept for the yellow dog.
君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬。
Do you not see? Duke Huan made Guan Zhong his fatherly minister, yet Shu Diao at last threw Qi into chaos; Qin trusted Li Si and fell, and he was cut in pieces, weeping for his yellow dog.
此四句用竖刁乱齐、李斯黄犬之典，是全诗写小人误国的深化。“君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐”写竖刁乱齐——“君不见桓公相仲父”用齐桓公任管仲之典写桓公相管仲，“竖刁终乱齐”用竖刁之典写竖刁终乱齐国——桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；“秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬”写李斯黄犬——“秦信李斯亡”写秦信李斯而亡，“裂斩于黄犬”用李斯临刑叹黄犬之典写裂斩时叹黄犬——秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬。四句用竖刁乱齐、李斯黄犬之典：君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐；秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬。以“君不见桓公相仲父，竖刁终乱齐”用竖刁之典写小人乱国，以“秦信李斯亡，裂斩于黄犬”用李斯黄犬之典写信谗亡身，正是刘基诗写小人误国、以史为鉴的深化——竖刁乱齐，李斯亡身。
The dogs. Do you not see? Duke Huan made Zhongfu his prime minister, yet Shu Diao in the end ruined Qi; Qin trusted Li Si and perished, cut to pieces while he wept for the yellow dog. The Shu Diao ruining Qi and the Li Si weeping for the yellow dog are the historical warnings. To have cited the two traitors would be allusions; the duke-huan-made-zhongfu-his-prime-minister-yet-shu-diao-in-the-end-ruined-Qi against the qin-trusted-li-si-and-perished-cut-to-pieces-while-he-wept-for-the-yellow-dog is the allusions.
君王且勿猜，愿言献此辞。
My lord, do not be suspicious; I wish to offer this poem.
君王且勿猜，愿言献此辞。
My prince, do not be distrustful; I would offer this verse.
末写君王勿猜、献此辞，是全诗写君门之慨的归结。“君王且勿猜”写君王勿猜——“君王且勿猜”写君王且勿猜疑——君王且勿猜；“愿言献此辞”写愿献此辞——“愿言献此辞”写愿献上此辞——愿言献此辞。二句写君王勿猜、献此辞：君王且勿猜，愿言献此辞。以“君王且勿猜”写劝君王勿猜（恐谗言惑君），以“愿言献此辞”写愿献此辞以进谏，正是刘基诗写君门之慨的归结——忠言相献，冀君勿猜。
The plea. My lord, do not be suspicious; I wish to offer this poem. The do-not-be-suspicious and the offer-this-poem are the close. To have pleaded for trust would be a plea; the my-lord-do-not-be-suspicious-I-wish-to-offer-this-poem is the plea.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Both come from Liu Ji's hand and write the darkness of the late Yuan and ambition thwarted; read them together for his indignation.
刘基《感怀》写身世之感、世路之慨，与本首同为刘基诗。差异在手法：梁甫吟用史典铺陈；感怀直抒感怀。一写“史”之证，一写“怀”之情。两者并读，可见刘基诗写世路之慨的两种手法。
北风行 Song of the North Wind 刘基 · 同为刘基乐府诗，一写世路翻覆一写边塞之苦，皆沉郁 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
刘基《北风行》写边塞之苦，与本首同为刘基乐府诗。差异在主题：梁甫吟写世路翻覆；北风行写边塞之苦。一写“世”之险，一写“边”之苦。两者并读，可见刘基乐府诗的两种主题。
买臣妻 The Wife of Zhu Maichen 刘基 · 与本首相关联的同类或同作者作品，供对比阅读 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
此处关联刘基《买臣妻》，与本首在主题、体裁或作者上相关联，可对比阅读以见其同异。