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近现代近现代 · 诗 Poem

老马

The Old Horse

臧克家

Zang Kejia

现实主义realism 象征symbolism 底层书写literature of the underclass

总得叫大车装个够，它横竖不说一句话，背上的压力往肉里扣，它把头沉重地垂下！

The great cart must be loaded to the full; it says not one word either way; the weight on its back bites into its flesh, and it lets its head hang heavy down!

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Meaning

In four spare lines the poem depicts an old horse forced to bear an overloaded cart in silence, the pressure cutting into its flesh as it lets its heavy head droop. The horse is a symbol of the peasants of old China—enduring, exploited, unable to resist. Without a single word of commentary, the poem becomes both a lament for their suffering and an indictment of the society that produced it.

总得让大车装得满满的，它横竖不说一句话；背上的压力直往肉里扣，它把头沉重地垂了下去！

Appreciation

The poem works by plain description (baimiao) and symbol: four advancing images—the loading, the silence, the pain, the numbness—build layer by layer until the critique emerges of itself, with 'not one word of argument, yet the feeling appears'. The single verb 'kou' (to bite in) makes abstract pressure physical, like a hook driven into flesh, one of the most celebrated instances of diction in modern vernacular poetry. Every word is about a horse and every word is about a person; the fusion of object and meaning is achieved without a seam, a model of saying much with little.

【白话串讲】臧克家写《老马》：“总得叫大车装个够，它横竖不说一句话，背上的压力往肉里扣，它把头沉重地垂下”——“它抬起头望望前面”——他写老马，更写负重沉默的农民。【意象与手法】全诗运用白描与象征：「总得叫大车装个够」写压迫之重，「它横竖不说一句话」写忍受之深，「背上的压力往肉里扣」以「扣」字写痛之切，「它把头沉重地垂下」以动作写麻木之态。四句层层递进，无一字议论而批判自见。【情感与主旨】臧克家此诗写于1930年代初，老马是旧中国农民的象征——他们像老马一样任劳任怨、忍辱负重，却得不到解放。诗人以深沉的同情，写出「沉默的大地之子」的苦难，寄寓了对农民的悲悯与对旧社会的控诉。【名句点睛】「背上的压力往肉里扣」以「扣」字写尽负重之痛，是白话新诗炼字的经典。

Background

Zang Kejia (1905–2004), a native of Zhucheng, Shandong, was a major modern poet who studied under Wen Yiduo at Shandong University and published his first collection Branding Marks in 1933, which includes this poem. The Old Horse was written around 1932, when China's countryside lay prostrate under warlord wars, crushing taxes and natural disasters, and the peasants, like beasts of burden, toiled without hope of redress. Born to a landlord family but raised among farmers and familiar with rural misery, Zang made the old horse the emblem of the peasant's lot. Wen Yiduo praised his poems as possessing 'an utterly earnest significance of life', and this four-line piece is the model of his painstaking realist manner and of 'writing reality through symbol' in the history of new poetry.

臧克家（1905—2004），山东诸城人，现代著名诗人。他出身于地主家庭，但自幼与农民接触，熟悉农村的苦难，1923年入山东省立第一师范，1927年考入武汉中央军事政治学校，大革命失败后流亡东北。1930年入山东大学，师从闻一多学习诗歌，1932年开始发表诗作，1933年出版第一部诗集《烙印》，其中即收有《老马》。《老马》写于1932年前后，当时中国农村在军阀混战、苛捐杂税与天灾人祸的多重压迫下凋敝不堪，农民如同负重跋涉的老马，任劳任怨而无力反抗。臧克家出身农村、熟悉农事，亲眼目睹农民的苦难，遂以「老马」为题，写出一匹「总得叫大车装个够」的负重之马，实则是旧中国农民的象征。闻一多曾评臧克家的诗「没有一首不具有一种极顶真的生活的意义」，此诗正是其「苦吟」风格与现实主义精神的代表。全诗仅四句，却以白描的笔触写尽农民的隐忍与苦难，是新诗史上「以象征写现实」的经典。

Art

A free-verse poem built on plain description, symbol and startling diction, its four lines one whole with clearly marked layers. First, the baimiao method: the poem argues nothing and sighs over nothing, only advancing four frames—the cart loaded to the full (the imposition of burden), 'it says not one word either way' (silent endurance), 'the weight bites into its flesh' (pain made concrete), 'it lets its head hang heavy down' (numbness frozen)—so that criticism and pity arise from the images themselves. Second, the symbolic structure: the old horse is the peasant in disguise, the great cart the symbol of life's crushing weight, 'loaded to the full' the greed of exploitation, 'bites into the flesh' its depth—every word about the horse is every word about man, thing and meaning fused without a trace. Third, the power of the tempered word: 'kou' writes the pressure sinking like a hook into flesh; 'heavy' weights both the head and the heart; 'either way', a colloquialism, paints the resignation of 'whatever happens' in three characters. Load—endure—bite—droop: the four lines move from outside to inside, from body to mind, pushing the horse's suffering to the limit.

从文体看，本诗是自由诗，全诗以「白描」立骨、以「象征」传意、以「炼字」惊人，四句成一整体而层次分明。其一，白描的手法：全诗不写议论、不发感慨，只以四个画面推进——「总得叫大车装个够」（压迫的施加）、「它横竖不说一句话」（忍受的沉默）、「背上的压力往肉里扣」（痛苦的具体化）、「它把头沉重地垂下」（麻木的定格），纯以客观描写呈现，而批判与同情自在画面之中，深得「无一字议论而情自现」的白描三昧。其二，象征的结构：老马是农民的化身，「大车」是生活重压的象征，「装个够」写压迫之满，「往肉里扣」写剥削之深，字字写马，字字写人，物我合一而不着痕迹。其三，炼字的功力：「扣」字写压力如钩子般嵌入肉里，痛感扑面；「沉重」写头颅之重，亦写心情之重；「横竖」以口语写认命之态，三字见农民「怎么都行」的麻木。四句层层递进：装（压）—不说（忍）—扣（痛）—垂下（麻木），由外而内、由身而心，把老马的苦难写得触目惊心，是新诗「以少写多」的典范。

Allusions

Though free of overt allusion, the image of the old horse is planted deep in the Chinese literary tradition of writing about horses, which Zang Kejia overturns. Where Cao Cao's 'the old steed in the stable still dreams of a thousand li' and Han Yu's Discourse on Horses ('thousand-li horses are always there; Bo Le is not') write the horse as an unrecognized talent, Zang writes its burden, silence and drooping head—rewriting the horse from emblem of the gifted scholar into emblem of the peasant, a modern transformation of the traditional image. The endurance recalls the peasant's traditional ethic of patient suffering, while the word 'kou' exposes the cost of that silence, in both sympathy and reflection. The poem also belongs to the left-wing 'narrative of the lowly' of the 1930s, alongside Ai Qing's Dayanhe—My Wet-Nurse, as a representative of 'writing suffering through symbol'. And its theme of silence echoes Lu Xun's warning that one must 'erupt in silence or perish in it'—in the old horse's silence lies the heaviest grief of that age.

本诗虽无显性用典，其「老马」意象却深植于中国文学「马」的书写传统，并赋予其全新的时代内涵。其一，古典文学中的马多写其神骏或悲凉：曹操「老骥伏枥，志在千里」写老马之壮心，韩愈《马说》「千里马常有，而伯乐不常有」写骏马之不遇，皆以马喻才士；臧克家却反其道而行，写「老马」之负重、沉默、垂头，不写其志而写其苦，把「马」从「才士之喻」改写为「农民之喻」，是对传统马意象的现代改造。其二，「负重」的意象承中国农民「任劳任怨」的伦理传统——「横竖不说一句话」暗合农民「逆来顺受」的生存哲学，而诗人以「往肉里扣」的「扣」字戳破这种沉默的代价，既是同情，也是反思。其三，本诗亦受左翼文学「底层叙事」的影响——1930年代中国诗坛兴起「农民诗」「乡土诗」潮流（如艾青《大堰河——我的保姆》），臧克家以「老马」写农民，正是这一潮流中「以象征写苦难」的代表。其四，「沉默」的主题与鲁迅「不在沉默中爆发，就在沉默中灭亡」的警句相呼应——老马的沉默里，藏着那个时代最沉重的悲怆。

Commentary

The Old Horse is a classic of 'writing reality through symbol', a four-line poem of far-reaching influence. In the history of poetry it established Zang Kejia's 'painstaking school' style—strict diction, cold-line description, restrained emotion—standing beside the formal beauty of the Crescent Moon school and the misty beauty of the Symbolists as a benchmark of 1930s realist poetry; Wen Yiduo's praise of its 'utterly earnest significance of life' finds here its proof. In the history of thought, 'the old horse' became the classic emblem of the old-China peasant's suffering, its loading, silence and buried pain read by generations as an indictment of the old society, its spirit of sympathy for the lowly one with the humanist tradition of left-wing literature. In reception, the poem spread widely after its inclusion in Branding Marks, has long been anthologized in school textbooks, and has even made 'old horse' a byword for those who bear humiliation and burden. Its art proves that suffering need not be cried out—plain description is accusation; oppression need not be denounced—symbol is critique. Read today, the old horse's silence still moves us.

《老马》是新诗史上「以象征写现实」的经典，四句短章而影响深远。从诗歌史看，本诗确立了臧克家「苦吟派」的风格——炼字精严、白描冷峻、情感内敛，与新月派的形式美、象征派的朦胧美鼎足而立，成为1930年代现实主义诗歌的标杆；闻一多评其诗「没有一首不具有一种极顶真的生活的意义」，此诗正是这种「极顶真」的证明。从思想史看，「老马」成为旧中国农民苦难的经典象征，「总得叫大车装个够」的负重、「横竖不说一句话」的沉默、「压力往肉里扣」的隐痛，被一代代读者读作对旧社会的控诉，其「同情底层」的精神与左翼文学的人道主义传统一脉相承。从传播史看，本诗收入《烙印》后广为流传，长期入选中学语文教材，「老马」一词甚至成为「忍辱负重者」的代称，可见其影响早已溢出诗坛。从艺术史看，四句之短而容量之大，正体现新诗「以少总多」的追求——它证明：写苦难不必呼号，白描即是控诉；写压迫不必指斥，象征即是批判。今日重读，老马的沉默依然令人动容。

Prosody

Form Modern free verse (realist short poem in colloquial syntax, arranged as two rhymed couplets)现代自由诗（现实主义短诗，口语化句式，两行一韵段）

Rhyme The four lines form two couplets, the second and fourth ending in 'hua' and 'xia' of the same rhyme group (a a)—a rare rhymed stanza in free verse; the rhyme feet, one checked and one sunk, fall like heavy stones, somber and abrupt本诗四句两段，每段以「话」「下」押韵（a、a），是自由诗中少见的押韵短章；「一句话」与「垂下」以「话」「下」同韵（姑苏辙），句脚声调一仄一收、一顿一沉，读来沉郁顿挫，如重石落地。

Tone pattern Colloquial lines of unequal length (seven, eight, nine and eight characters): the first is urgent like a pressing voice, the second drawn out like the length of silence, the third heavy like the panting of a burden, the fourth settles like the freeze-frame of a drooping head—quick turning to slow, lifted turning to sunk句式以口语长句为主，间以停顿：「总得叫大车装个够」七字急促，如催逼之声；「它横竖不说一句话」八字拖长，如沉默之延宕；「背上的压力往肉里扣」九字沉重，如负重之喘息；「它把头沉重地垂下」八字收束，如垂首之定格，四句长短相间，声调由急入缓、由扬入沉。

Reading note This poem is a model in new poetry of writing a heavy theme with colloquial rhythm. Its beauty of rhythm comes first from the anchoring force of rhyme: in four lines and two couplets, the second and fourth end in 'hua' and 'xia' of the same rhyme group; the rhymes, though sparse, are firm, nailing the poem's somberness in place like hammer blows—extremely rare in free verse, and showing the poet's care in shaping form. Second is the cadence of the lines: the four lines vary in length, 'The great cart must be loaded to the full' opening with the urgency of a pressing voice, 'it says not one word either way' drawing out the length of silence, 'the weight on its back bites into its flesh' reading heavily like the panting of a burden, 'it lets its head hang heavy down' closing like the freeze-frame of a drooping head—urgent to slow, lifted to sunk, sound and content wholly at one: the urgency of oppression, the length of silence, the weight of pain and the stillness of numbness are all present in the meter. Third is the emotional tone of colloquial speech: words like 'zongdei', 'hengshu' and 'zhuang ge gou' carry feeling in their very sounds, so that reading them one seems to hear the voice and see the manner. A model of vernacular poetry in which sound and feeling are equally rich, it should be read low and slow, a word at a time, to reach the old horse's sorrow.本诗是新诗中以「口语节奏」写「沉重主题」的典范。其节奏之美首先来自「押韵的凝定」：四句两段，二、四句分别以「话」「下」收尾同押（姑苏辙），韵脚虽疏而坚定，如锤击般把全诗的沉郁钉住，这在自由诗中极为罕见，可见诗人对形式经营的用心。其次是「句式的顿挫」：四句长短参差（七、八、九、八字），「总得叫大车装个够」以「总得」起势，如催促之声急迫；「它横竖不说一句话」以「横竖」拖沓，如沉默之漫长；「背上的压力往肉里扣」以「往肉里」三字连读，声调沉重，如负重之喘息；「它把头沉重地垂下」以「沉重地」顿挫，如垂首之定格。四句由急而缓、由扬而沉，声调与内容高度统一——压迫之急促、沉默之延宕、疼痛之沉重、麻木之定格，尽在声律节奏中呈现。再次是「口语的声情」：「总得」「横竖」「装个够」等口语词的声调天然带情绪，读来如闻其声、如见其态。全诗以沉郁顿挫的声律写忍辱负重的主题，是「声情并茂」的白话诗典范，诵读时宜沉重低回、一字一顿，方得老马之悲。

Line by line

总得叫大车装个够，它横竖不说一句话

The great cart must be loaded to the full, yet the horse says not one word either way.

总得让大车装得满满的，它横竖不说一句话。

The cart must be loaded to the full; it, anyway, never says a word.

开篇两句写老马的第一重苦难——负重与沉默。「总得叫大车装个够」写压迫的施加：「总得」二字写出这种「装」的不由分说、无可商榷，仿佛天经地义；「装个够」更以口语写出压榨的贪婪——装到不能再装为止。第二句「它横竖不说一句话」写老马的忍受：「横竖」是北方口语，意为「无论如何、怎么着都行」，三个字活画出老马（农民）认命般的态度——任凭压榨，绝不吭声。两句一写外部压迫，一写内在忍受，一压一忍，张力自生；「不说一句话」的沉默，与「装个够」的贪婪形成刺目对照，虽无一句议论，而批判已在画面之中，这正是白描手法的力量所在。

The load. The cart must be loaded to the full; it, anyway, never says a word. The overloaded cart and the never-a-word horse are the opening. To have never said a word would be a silence; the the-cart-must-be-loaded-to-the-full-it-anyway-never-says-a-word is the silence.

背上的压力往肉里扣，它把头沉重地垂下！

The weight on its back bites into its flesh, and it lets its head hang heavy down!

背上的压力直往肉里扣，它把头沉重地垂了下去！

The weight on its back digs into the flesh; it lowers its head heavily!

后两句写老马的第二重苦难——疼痛与麻木。「背上的压力往肉里扣」是全诗最惊心的炼字之句：「压力」本是抽象之词，一个「扣」字将其化为有形的钩爪，直往肉里嵌、往里抠，痛感扑面而来，仿佛能看见绳子勒进皮肉的痕迹；「往肉里扣」三字不写「痛」而痛彻骨髓，是白话诗炼字的经典。「它把头沉重地垂下」以动作写麻木：「沉重」既写头颅之重（负重所致），亦写心情之重（无望所致）；「垂下」写认命之态——不挣扎、不嘶鸣，只把头低下，任凭命运碾压。四句至此完成「装—忍—扣—垂」的递进，由外而内、由身而心，老马的苦难被推到极致，而诗人的悲悯与控诉，尽在这一垂头之间。

The lowering. The weight on its back digs into the flesh; it lowers its head heavily! The pressure digging into the flesh and the heavily-lowered head are the close. To have lowered the head heavily would be a lowering; the the-weight-on-its-back-digs-into-the-flesh-it-lowers-its-head-heavily is the lowering.

Study

Word focus

扣 The verb 'kou' (to buckle in, bite into) describes the load's pressure as a hook sunk into flesh—a sharp, grinding pain rather than dull weight—turning the abstract word 'pressure' into something the reader can almost touch, and 'pressure' from concept into picture. 「背上的压力往肉里扣」中的「扣」字，是全诗最见功力的炼字，也是新诗史上著名的「一字千金」之例。「扣」本义为以环相钩、扣紧（如扣门、扣环），此处写重压之绳嵌入皮肉——不是「压」的钝痛，而是「扣」的锐痛：压力如钩爪，一点点往肉里嵌、往肉里抠，如绳勒、如刀割，痛感具体而尖锐。「往肉里扣」三字以「往……里」的趋向结构写嵌入之深，以「扣」的及物性写剥削之主动，仿佛有一个看不见的手在使劲地扣、贪婪地扣。此字一出，「压力」由抽象变为可触，农民的苦难由理念变为画面，是白话诗「以动词写痛」的典范，与「它把头沉重地垂下」的「沉重」呼应，构成全诗痛感的双峰。

横竖 'Hengshu' (either way, no matter what) is a northern colloquialism meaning 'in any case': it paints the horse's resigned acceptance—complaining would change nothing, so it swallows the pain in silence. 「它横竖不说一句话」中的「横竖」是北方口语词，意为「无论如何、不管怎样」，两字活画出老马认命的态度。「横」与「竖」本是空间的纵横，连用则化为「反正、怎么都行」的无所谓——不是「不愿说」，而是「横竖」如此，说了也没用，索性不说。这一个口语词，把农民的逆来顺受、麻木认命写得入木三分：他们不是没有苦痛，而是深知「横竖」无法改变，于是把苦痛咽进肚里。与「总得」的被迫、「装个够」的贪婪相配，「横竖」写尽了压迫者与被压迫者之间的力量悬殊，也暗藏了诗人对「沉默」的复杂态度——既是同情，也是隐忧。口语入诗而神情毕现，正是臧克家从农民语言中提炼诗意的看家本领。

沉重地垂下 'Heavily drooping' freezes the poem's final image: 'heavy' weights both the physical head bowed by the load and the despairing heart, while the slow drooping, like a slow-motion shot, suggests the surrender of struggle little by little. 「它把头沉重地垂下」中的「沉重地垂下」四字，是全诗最后的定格动作，也是老马（农民）悲剧命运的浓缩。「沉重」写头颅之重——背上压着大车，头自然沉重，这是写实；但「沉重」更写心情之重——绝望之重、麻木之重，头不仅被压得垂下，更是被命运压得抬不起来，虚实双关。「垂下」二字写动作之缓、之无奈——不是骤然低头，而是缓缓垂下，如认命般一点一点放弃挣扎。以「地」字连接的状语，把「沉重」化为「垂下」的方式，使这一动作带着沉甸甸的分量，如电影中的慢镜头，把老马的悲剧定格在读者眼前。四字写尽麻木与绝望，是白描中见至情的典范。

老马