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七律·和郭沫若同志

Seven-Part Octet: In Reply to Comrade Guo Moruo

毛泽东

Mao Zedong

名篇Canonical Masterpiece 政治抒情Political Lyric 咏物言志Object Poetry Expressing Ambition 七律Seven-Part Octet

一从大地起风雷，便有精生白骨堆。
僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾。
金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃。
今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来。

From the day the earth rose in wind and thunder, monsters have bred in heaps of white bones.
The monk may be a fool, but he can still be taught; the demon is a ghost of harms that will surely work its ruin.
The golden monkey brandishes his thousand-catty staff; the jade sky is clear of dust a hundred leagues wide.
Today men cheer the Great Sage of the Sun, and only because the fog of demons has gathered again.

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Meaning

The poem answers Guo Moruo's verse on the play “Sun Wukong Beats the White-Bone Demon.” Guo blamed the monk Tang Seng for being abusively kind to an enemy; the poem disagrees and draws the line instead between the deceived and the deceiver, saying that the fool can be taught while the disguised demon must be destroyed. The middle couplet is the engine of the poem: the monkey's staff clears the sky, and the reason the world still cheers him is that the fog has gathered a second time. The fable is contemporary politics read as a story everyone knows.

自从大地上兴起革命的雷霆风暴，就必然会有妖精从白骨堆里滋生出来。唐僧是愚昧之人尚且可以教育，妖魔鬼蜮之流必然酿成灾祸。金猴奋然举起千钧重的金箍棒，万里尘埃被扫净，天地澄清如玉。今天人们欢呼孙大圣，只因为妖雾又一次弥漫袭来。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] Once the earth began to move in storm and thunder, evils have appeared out of old bones. The monk may be a dullard, but a dullard can be taught; a demon in the shape of a ghost will bring ruin. The golden monkey raises his staff of a thousand weights and clears a hundred leagues of dust. The reason the world acclaims the Great Sage is that the fog of evil has come back again. [Structure] The octave builds an argument rather than a picture. The first couplet states the premise — revolution provokes its own counter-revolution. The second makes the distinction on which the whole poem rests: the fool and the demon are not the same, and only one of the two is to be fought. The third is the act of the poem, the blow that clears the air, and the fourth returns to the reader's own world and explains why the story is being told again. [Imagery] Everything is borrowed from the novel: bones, the golden monkey, the staff, the demon's fog, the jade sky. The effect is to put the present inside a story that has been told for centuries, so that contemporary(arguments) can be conducted in a language nobody has to be taught. The poem's energies are in the verbs “breed,” “rise,” “brandish,” “clear,” and in the repeated “again” of the last line, which gives the poem its ring of a warning rather than a victory.

【白话串讲】毛泽东写《七律·和郭沫若同志》：“一从大地起风雷，便有精生白骨堆”。“僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾”——“金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃”——“今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来”——他借孙悟空写斗争。【意象与手法】七言律诗，章法严整而气韵飞动。首联“一从大地起风雷，便有精生白骨堆”以“风雷”喻革命风暴、“白骨堆”喻旧世界残渣，起笔宏阔；颔联“僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾”以“僧”“妖”对举辨明敌我，是全诗立论的核心；颈联“金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃”以“奋起”写主动出击、“澄清”写斗争成果，动词雄健、气象廓清；尾联“今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来”点题收束。全诗以神话承载现实政治。【情感与主旨】毛泽东诗词中政治隐喻艺术的代表作，把七律的严整格律与神话的瑰奇想象结合起来，以古典意象承载现实政治，是“旧体诗词写新内容”的成功实践。【名句点睛】常考“金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃”以雄健动词写斗争的气象廓清；“今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来”点明斗争具有反复性。

Background

The poem was written on 17 November 1961 in reply to Guo Moruo's poem of 18 October on the play “Sun Wukong Beats the White-Bone Demon,” and first appeared in January 1962. The source is chapter twenty-seven of “Journey to the West,” in which the white-bone demon changes three times — a girl, an old woman, an old man — to deceive the monk, and each time the monkey recognises and strikes it, and each time the monk, who cannot tell, drives the monkey away. Guo Moruo read that passage as a condemnation of suasion and of kindness to the wrong people. Mao Zedong's poem answers it by relocating the fault: the fault is not mercy but failing to distinguish. The poem also belongs to the years when Sino-Soviet relations had broken and the international movement was turning against China, and the monster of the poem is generally read as an image of that reversal.

《七律·和郭沫若同志》为毛泽东1961年11月17日所作，是回应郭沫若同年10月18日《看〈孙悟空三打白骨精〉》的和诗。1961年，中苏两党分歧公开化，苏联单方面撤走专家、逼还债务，国际共运掀起反华浪潮，毛泽东以「孙悟空三打白骨精」的故事为喻，把国际上的修正主义势力比作善于变幻、伪装的白骨精，号召全党坚持原则、坚决斗争。郭沫若原诗痛责唐僧「人妖颠倒是非淆，对敌慈悲对友刁」，毛泽东则认为唐僧是「愚氓犹可训」——受骗者可教育，真正的敌人是「鬼蜮」般的白骨精，故和诗有「僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾」的修正。此诗最早发表于1962年1月《人民日报》，后收入《毛主席诗词》。其时毛泽东67岁，正经历大跃进后的调整期与国际反华高潮，此诗以革命浪漫主义的手法，把古典神话的「三打白骨精」转化为国际阶级斗争的寓言，体现了诗人「与天奋斗、与地奋斗、与人奋斗」的斗争哲学，也是其晚年诗词中政治隐喻最鲜明的篇章之一。

Art

The octave is a working exercise in metaphor, and its economy is that of a fable. It never names its subject: the monk, the demon, the monkey and the fog are all the story's original figures, and the poem asks the reader to supply the contemporary referents. The two middle couplets carry it — the first as judgment in a neat parallel (the fool who can be taught against the demon who cannot), the second as action (brandishing, clearing) — and both are built on exactly the sort of parallelism the form requires, so the argument is carried by the same machinery as the picture. The last couplet supplies the poem's ironies: the world still acclaims the monkey, and acclaims him because the fog has returned. There is no explicit political statement anywhere in the poem, and that restraint is what makes it the most striking of this poet's allegorical octaves.

此诗为七言律诗，章法严整而气韵飞动。首联「一从大地起风雷，便有精生白骨堆」以「风雷」喻革命风暴，以「白骨堆」喻旧世界的残渣，起笔宏阔，写阶级斗争的必然——革命兴起，反动势力必然借尸还魂；颔联「僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾」对仗工稳，以「僧」「妖」对举，辨明敌我：受骗者可以教育争取，伪装者必然贻害成灾，是全诗立论的核心，也是和郭沫若诗的关键修正；颈联「金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃」是全诗的高潮，以「奋起」写孙悟空（金猴）的主动出击，以「澄清」写斗争的成果，动词雄健，气象廓清；尾联「今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来」点题收束，以「欢呼」写民心所向，以「又重来」写斗争的反复性，余味深长。全诗以神话写现实，以古典喻今事：白骨精、金猴、千钧棒、玉宇、妖雾，五重意象层层递进，构成完整的隐喻系统；对仗工整而不失气势，用典自然而不见斧凿，正是毛诗「革命现实主义与革命浪漫主义相结合」的典型体现。

Allusions

The framework is chapter twenty-seven of Wu Cheng'en's “Journey to the West,” one of the four great Chinese novels and, by 1961, familiar to every reader in the country; the three transformations of the white-bone demon and the monk's lack of discernment are the whole of the poem's vocabulary. “Ghosts of harms” looks back to “The Book of Songs,” where the line “be a ghost, be a water demon” marks a secret killer. “A thousand catties” borrows the weight of the monkey's iron staff, which the novel gives as thirteen thousand five hundred catties, and describes the weight of the blow rather than its user. “Jade sky” is the classical name for the heavens of the immortals, and here it is simply what the world looks like once the dust has been cleared.

此诗的全部隐喻，来自吴承恩《西游记》第二十七回「尸魔三戏唐三藏，圣僧恨逐美猴王」——白骨精三变（少女、老妇、老翁）迷惑唐僧，孙悟空三次识破并打杀，反被唐僧念紧箍咒逐走，后唐僧被擒，悟空复归救师。毛泽东取这一家喻户晓的故事为「国际阶级斗争」的寓言：白骨精喻善于伪装的修正主义势力（其「三变」正像国际反华势力的翻云覆雨），唐僧喻一时受蒙蔽者可教育者（「愚氓犹可训」），金猴、孙大圣喻坚持原则的革命者，千钧棒喻革命真理，妖雾喻反华逆流。其中「鬼蜮」一语出自《诗经·小雅·何人斯》「为鬼为蜮，则不可得」，蜮为传说中含沙射人的水怪，「鬼蜮」即阴险害人之辈，毛诗取此古义，加重了「妖」的阴毒色彩；「千钧棒」化用《西游记》金箍棒「重一万三千五百斤」之说，钧为三十斤，「千钧」极言其重，写革命力量之千钧一发、雷霆万钧；「玉宇」本指神话中天帝的居所（《拾遗记》「玉宇瑶台」），此处借指澄清的人间天下。全诗熔《西游记》故事、《诗经》语汇、神话天宇于一炉，古典的意象经政治的点化而获得全新的时代内涵，是「古为今用」的典范。

Commentary

Of Mao's allegorical poems this is the one that has been read most, and read most literally, since the play it answers became part of the school curriculum and the story entered ordinary speech. Its reputation rests on the tightness of its logic: the distinction between the fool and the demon is stated in a parallel couplet, and the whole poem is built to make that distinction the reader's own. Guo Moruo, who wrote the reply, admired the poem, x literary conversations of the early 1960s. From a later vantage the poem is also the clearest surviving evidence of how a classical form could be used for contemporary argument — and how completely the metaphor could take over the poem, so that nothing needs to be named. Its history in the language is the history of its images: the fox and the monster, the staff and the fog, all still available as shorthand.

《七律·和郭沫若同志》是毛泽东诗词中政治隐喻艺术的代表作，自发表以来，其「三打白骨精」的喻象即深入人心，成为一代人理解国际阶级斗争的经典文本。从文学史看，此诗把七律的严整格律与神话的瑰奇想象结合起来，以古典意象承载现实政治，是「旧体诗词写新内容」的成功实践；郭沫若读后激赏，和作《满江红》「沧海横流安足虑」，毛泽东又和之，遂成六十年代初文坛「双和」的佳话。从思想史看，诗中「僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾」的敌我辨析、「今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来」的斗争清醒，浓缩了那一时代「以阶级斗争为纲」的精神气候，也留下值得后人反思的历史印记——其激情与盲信同在，警惕与过度同在。从文化史看，「白骨精」「孙大圣」「千钧棒」「妖雾」等意象已脱离诗境而进入汉语，成为描述伪装敌人与正义反击的通用比喻，「金猴奋起千钧棒」更被谱曲传唱，成为时代的声音记忆。作为经典课文，此诗是理解毛泽东诗词风格、学习律诗格律与体会「古为今用」手法的典型教材，其艺术成就与历史局限，都值得以辩证的眼光细读。

Prosody

Form Seven-part octave (regulated verse)七言律诗（近体诗）

Rhyme The poem rhymes in the “ui” class of the old sound system — ruin, dust, again — held on one flat, open sound for the whole octave, which gives the verse its level, declarative ring.全诗八句四联，押「来」「堆」「灾」「埃」四韵（平水韵「十灰」部），一韵到底，平声韵脚（堆、灾、埃、来）舒展悠长，声情开阔。首联、颔联、颈联、尾联均合律诗平仄，颔联「僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾」、颈联「金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃」对仗工整，颔联「僧—妖」「愚氓—鬼蜮」「可训—成灾」两两相对，颈联「金猴—玉宇」「奋起—澄清」「千钧棒—万里埃」句中对仗，色彩、数量、动作俱相对举。

Tone pattern The voice is declarative throughout; not one line is a question or an exclamation. The first couplet Is the shape of a necessity, the second of a verdict, the third of an act, the fourth of a fact observed. The measured cadence of the regulated line keeps the tone even, and the severity of the tone is what the poet is aiming for.全诗以陈述、判断的语气为主，句句斩钉截铁：首联「一从……便有」写必然，颔联「犹可训」「必成灾」下判断，颈联「奋起」「澄清」写行动，尾联「欢呼」「只缘」写人心，四联层层推进，由必然到判断、由行动到呼应，语调坚定，气势磅礴。律诗的平仄与对仗约束不仅未损其气，反使其声如金石，字字铿锵。

Reading note The music of this poem is stern and unrelieved, and that is deliberate: an octave built to carry a verdict does not need variations. The single rhyme falls on a wide, flat vowel four times, which holds the whole poem in one key of assertion. The parallel couplets supply the counterpoint in the strictest sense — “monk” against “demon,” “can be taught” against “will work its ruin,” “golden” against “jade,” “staff” against “dust” — so the hearer hears the argument twice, once as proposition and once as sound. The last line is the only place the music softens, and it does so only to place the emphasis on “again,” which is the one word in the poem that is not certain.作为七言律诗，此诗充分体现了毛泽东「旧瓶装新酒」的格律艺术。韵脚「堆、灾、埃、来」同押平水韵「十灰」部，均为平声，韵位疏朗，一韵到底，诵读时音节开阔悠长，正合全诗开阔宏大的意境；四联平仄严整，颔联、颈联对仗精工，而全无雕琢之气——「僧是愚氓犹可训，妖为鬼蜮必成灾」以「僧」「妖」对举、「愚氓」「鬼蜮」相对，辨明敌我；「金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃」以「金」「玉」色彩相映、「千钧」「万里」数量相形，雄奇飞动。更值得注意的是声情与辞情的配合：起句「一从大地起风雷」以「风雷」二字音节响亮，先声夺人；颈联「金猴奋起千钧棒」四仄一平，音势陡峭，如金箍棒当空劈下；结句「只缘妖雾又重来」以平声「来」字收束，余音悠长，暗示斗争的绵延。全诗以律诗的整饬写斗争的凌厉，以平声韵的舒展写境界的开阔，格律与内容相得益彰，是毛诗「革命浪漫主义」在声律上的完美体现。

Line by line

一从大地起风雷，便有精生白骨堆。

From the day the earth rose in wind and thunder, monsters have bred in heaps of white bones.

自从大地上兴起革命的雷霆风暴，就必然会有妖精从白骨堆里滋生出来。

Ever since the thunderstorm rose on earth, demons have sprung from the heap of white bones.

首联起笔，气象宏阔而寓意深远。「一从」（自从）领起，写时间的起点——革命的风雷一自大地兴起；「便有」紧随，写必然的结果——妖精随即从白骨堆中滋生。「风雷」喻革命风暴，语出《周易·益卦》「风雷益」及古人「风雷激荡」之说，毛泽东取以写变革的雷霆万钧之势；「白骨堆」则双关兼指——既实指《西游记》中白骨精的骸骨所在，又喻旧世界、旧势力的残余。两句合观，道出一个深刻的哲理：革命不是一劳永逸，风雷起处，必有残渣泛起、妖孽重生，阶级斗争具有反复性与长期性。这一开篇为全诗定下「斗争」的基调，也为尾联「妖雾又重来」的呼应埋下伏笔。以对仗工整的律句写历史必然，起势雄浑，立意高远，正是毛诗「笔落惊风雨」的气魄。

The storm. Ever since the thunderstorm rose on earth, demons have sprung from the heap of white bones. The thunderstorm on earth and the demons from the white bones are the opening. To have sprung from the white bones would be a springing; the ever-since-the-thunderstorm-rose-on-earth-demons-have-sprung-from-the-heap-of-white-bones is the springing.

金猴奋起千钧棒，玉宇澄清万里埃。

The golden monkey brandishes his thousand-catty staff; the jade sky is clear of dust a hundred leagues wide.

金猴（孙悟空）奋然举起千钧重的金箍棒，天地之间万里尘埃便被澄清扫净。

The golden monkey brandishes his thousand-catty staff; the jade sky is cleared of ten thousand li of dust.

颈联是全诗的高潮，也是意象最雄奇、声调最响亮的两句。「金猴」写孙悟空——「金」字既合其「齐天大圣」的金甲金箍形象，又暗含革命者赤金般坚贞的品格；「奋起」写其主动进击的姿态，一个「奋」字，雷霆万钧；「千钧棒」以「千钧」（约三万斤）极言金箍棒之重，喻革命真理与人民力量的千钧分量。「玉宇」指澄清的天宇，喻理想中纯净的人间；「澄清万里埃」写扫除一切尘埃——「埃」字既承《西游记》中「妖气」之喻，又暗合现实中的污浊逆流。两句一攻一守、一破一立：奋起千钧棒是「破」，澄清万里埃是「立」，动作雄健，气象廓清，如劈空一棒扫尽阴霾。对仗上「金猴」对「玉宇」、「奋起」对「澄清」、「千钧棒」对「万里埃」，色彩鲜明、数量对举，工整而不失飞动，是七律中「诗眼」式的名联，历来为人传诵。

The staff. The golden monkey brandishes his thousand-catty staff; the jade sky is cleared of ten thousand li of dust. The golden monkey and the thousand-catty staff and the cleared jade sky are the climax. To have brandished the staff would be a brandishing; the golden-monkey-brandishes-his-thousand-catty-staff-the-jade-sky-is-cleared-of-ten-thousand-li-of-dust is the brandishing.

今日欢呼孙大圣，只缘妖雾又重来。

Today men cheer the Great Sage of the Sun, and only because the fog of demons has gathered again.

今天人们欢呼孙大圣的到来，只是因为妖雾又再度弥漫袭来。

Today we cheer the Great Sage; only because the demon-mist has come again.

尾联点题收束，以「欢呼」写人心所向，以「又重来」写斗争不息，余味悠长。「今日」与首联的「一从」遥遥相对，构成时间的回环：革命从风雷起于昨日，斗争延续到今天；「欢呼孙大圣」写人民对正义力量的期盼与拥戴——「欢呼」二字，既有神话中百姓对孙悟空的拥戴，更有现实中人民对革命者的信赖；「只缘妖雾又重来」点破欢呼的原因，也点破全诗的主旨：斗争没有终结，妖雾散而复聚，孙大圣的千钧棒仍需高擎。「又重来」三字尤见深意——它不是绝望的哀叹，而是清醒的警觉，是「与天奋斗、与地奋斗、与人奋斗」的斗争哲学的诗化表达。全诗以「妖雾又重来」收束，与首联「精生白骨堆」呼应成环，首尾相衔，喻示阶级斗争的循环往复，章法之严整、寄意之深远，俱见毛诗「卒章显志」的功力。

The mist. Today we cheer the Great Sage; only because the demon-mist has come again. The cheering Great Sage and the demon-mist-come-again are the close. To have cheered the Great Sage would be a cheer; the today-we-cheer-the-great-sage-only-because-the-demon-mist-has-come-again is the cheer.

Study

Word focus

愚氓 “The fool” here is the monk Tang Seng, and the poet's word for him is exact: he is not called evil, only dull and easily deceived. The choice matters, because it moves him out of the category of the enemy and into the category of the misled — a man who can be corrected. The whole second couplet is a judgment about how to treat people, and this is its hinge word. 「僧是愚氓犹可训」之「愚氓」，是理解全诗政治判断的关键词。「氓」本指民（《诗经·卫风·氓》「氓之蚩蚩」），此处「愚氓」即愚昧的民众，特指《西游记》中受白骨精蒙蔽的唐僧。毛泽东以「愚氓」定位唐僧，大有深意：其一，定性为「愚」而非「奸」——唐僧不是敌人，只是受骗者，这就划清了「可以争取」与「必须打击」的界限；其二，指出「犹可训」——愚昧可以教育，受骗者可以觉悟，这就否定了郭沫若原诗「对敌慈悲对友刁」的苛责，体现了「团结—批评—团结」的统一战线智慧。这一字的分寸，正是毛泽东政治策略的浓缩：对敌狠，对友和，区别对待，绝不混淆。以「愚氓」写唐僧，既合《西游记》中唐僧凡胎肉眼、善恶不辨的形象，又为现实政治提供了「教育争取多数」的启示，一词之设，见出政治家炼字的精准。

鬼蜮 “A ghost of harms” combines a ghost and a water demon, an image of something that strikes from hiding and cannot be caught, taken from the old line in “The Book of Songs.” The word gives the poem's enemy its character: not an opponent in the open but a disguised influence, which is why it cannot be answered by argument and must be struck at. 「妖为鬼蜮必成灾」之「鬼蜮」，是全诗定性「妖」之阴毒的关键词。「鬼」为幽灵，「蜮」为传说中含沙射人、使人致病的怪物（《诗经·小雅·何人斯》「为鬼为蜮，则不可得」），「鬼蜮」连用，指暗中害人、阴险诡诈之辈。毛泽东以「鬼蜮」形容白骨精一类的「妖」，极写其阴毒：它不是明枪明刀的敌人，而是善于伪装、含沙射影的暗敌，正如《西游记》中白骨精三变人形、惑乱人心的手段，也如现实政治中口是心非、笑里藏刀的修正主义。妙在「必成灾」三字的判断：伪装者虽能蒙蔽一时，终必酿成祸灾——这是对「妖」的定性，也是对「斗争」必要性的论证：既然「必成灾」，则必须「奋起千钧棒」及早铲除。「鬼蜮」一词古雅而锋利，以两千年前《诗经》的语汇写二十世纪的政治斗争，正是毛诗「古为今用」的典型，一词既出，妖之阴、敌之毒、斗之急，俱在其中。

玉宇 “The jade sky” is the sky as the immortals see it, and the poem uses it the way one would use a clean window: after the dust has been swept, the world is simply transparent. Its plainness is what makes the couplet work — the imagination of a jade sky is worth nothing on its own, and what the poem wants is the reader to see that the clear sky is only the result of the blow. 「玉宇澄清万里埃」之「玉宇」，是全诗理想境界的意象词。「宇」本指屋檐、房屋，引申为天地四方；「玉宇」指晶莹如玉的天宇，本为神话中天帝居所的雅称（《拾遗记》「玉宇瑶台」），唐诗中屡见（如杜甫「玉宇净无尘」），毛泽东取以写革命胜利后的理想境界——万里尘埃扫尽，天地澄澈如玉。其妙在「澄清」二字的搭配：「澄清」本指使浊水变清（《后汉书》「澄清天下之志」），此处写玉宇之洁，既承《西游记》中妖气弥漫、云遮雾障的原境，又喻现实世界中乌烟瘴气的政治逆流被扫除。金猴一棒，尘埃尽扫，天地复明——「玉宇澄清」四字，把斗争的结果写得晶莹剔透、气象一新，是革命浪漫主义对理想世界的最高礼赞。与「万里埃」相对，一玉一埃、一清一浊，色彩对照鲜明，境界高下立判，可见炼字之精、设境之美。