晚出西射堂

Meaning

Xie Lingyun walks out of the city gate at dusk and looks toward the hills in the west, where layered ridges rise under a deep green that cannot be measured. Morning frost reddens the maple leaves and evening mists close in. The passing of the season awakens a grief that does not lift, and with it a memory of a home and of companions that cannot be recovered. He looks in a mirror and sees his fine hair grown dim, and finds his sash loosened with waiting; arranging one's affairs is only empty talk, and what is left is the solitude of the zither.

步出西城门，遥望城西岑。连鄣叠巘崿，青翠杳深沉。晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴。节往戚不浅，感来念已深。羁雌恋旧侣，迷鸟怀故林。含情尚劳爱，如何离赏心。抚镜华缁鬓，揽带缓促衿。安排徒空言，幽独赖鸣琴。

Appreciation

[Structure] The poem runs in two halves of eight lines each. The first half is landscape — the gate, the far ridge, the layered peaks, the frost and the mist — and closes at the line where feeling joins the scene. The second half turns to the self: two couplets on attachment, then two on the body's decay, then the conclusion in the zither. [Imagery] The landscape is drawn with unusual density: 连鄣叠巘崿, ranges and peaks piled on ranges, and 青翠杳深沉, a green that is dark and measureless. This density is the signature of the landscape poem of the period, and it is joined here to two small, precise garden images — the maple turning red and the mist at dusk — which give the vastness a scale a reader can stand in. [Turning] 节往戚不浅，感来念已深 is the hinge. Before it, the scene is only a scene; after it, every part of the scene is already charged. This is why the same hills that were described in the first lines are remembered differently by the end of the poem. [Feeling] The last couplet is the poem's admission. 安排徒空言, that arranging one's life is only empty talk, is a rejection of the whole official and philosophical programme of the age; what is left is 幽独, solitude, and 鸣琴, a zither. The poem's sadness is thus not about the hills but about the incompatibility of a life with a temperament.

【白话串讲】 谢灵运写《晚出西射堂》：“步出西城门，遥望城西岑”——“连鄣叠巘崿，青翠杳深沉”——“晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴”——“羁雌恋旧侣，迷鸟怀故林”——“抚镜华缁鬓，揽带缓促衿”——他晚出西射堂——羁雌恋旧侣。 【意象与手法】 “连鄣叠巘崿，青翠杳深沉”以叠嶂青翠写暮景；“晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴”以枫丹岚阴写节候；“羁雌恋旧侣，迷鸟怀故林”以羁雌迷鸟写思归；结以“安排徒空言，幽独赖鸣琴”写以琴遣怀。写景精细、借物抒怀。 【情感与主旨】 谢灵运谪守永嘉傍晚出城所作，写城外暮景与羁宦思归之情，借羁雌迷鸟自况，是山水诗鼻祖将山水与羁旅之情结合的典型。 【名句点睛】 常考“晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴”以枫丹岚阴写节候；“羁雌恋旧侣，迷鸟怀故林”以羁雌迷鸟写思归。

Allusions

Several lines carry allusions. 羁雌恋旧侣, the caged bird longing for its old companions, and 迷鸟怀故林, the confused bird remembering its old forest, are two aspects of the same nostalgia, and their plainness is what makes them effective. 抚镜华缁鬓, touching the mirror where the hair has gone dim, is the gesture of a man measuring himself. 揽带缓促衿, gathering the sash so that the collar hangs loose, describes the same thing from the other side, in the clothing. 安排徒空言, that placing one's affairs in order is only empty talk, is the acknowledgment that the philosophical programme of the age cannot answer what is happening. 幽独赖鸣琴 leans on the old figure of the zither as the companion of a solitary man, the instrument of the recluse. The whole poem thus rests on two inherited ideas — that scenery can carry feeling, and that the unattached man keeps his music — used with no visible effort.

诗中「步出西城门遥望城西岑」「连鄣叠巘崿青翠杳深沉」「晓霜枫叶丹夕曛岚气阴」「节往戚不浅感来念已深」「羁雌恋旧侣迷鸟怀故林」「含情尚劳爱如何离赏心」「抚镜华缁鬓揽带缓促衿」「安排徒空言幽独赖鸣琴」等语，皆含典故故实。「步出西城门遥望城西岑」写步出西城门遥望城西岑；「连鄣叠巘崿青翠杳深沉」写连鄣叠巘崿青翠杳深沉；「晓霜枫叶丹夕曛岚气阴」写晓霜枫叶丹夕曛岚气阴；「节往戚不浅感来念已深」写节往戚不浅感来念已深；「羁雌恋旧侣迷鸟怀故林」写羁雌恋旧侣迷鸟怀故林；「含情尚劳爱如何离赏心」写含情尚劳爱如何离赏心；「抚镜华缁鬓揽带缓促衿」写抚镜华缁鬓揽带缓促衿；「安排徒空言幽独赖鸣琴」用鸣琴之典（鸣琴写伯牙鼓琴），写安排徒空言幽独赖鸣琴。诗人以鸣琴等典入诗，不着痕迹，而把写景感怀之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。

Commentary

This poem of Xie Lingyun's is a work of writing on an occasion, and it selects the landscape and the feeling of farewell; it has been among the most reprinted of his poems since the earliest anthologies. Later readers have valued it for its clear and distant manner, and the couplet on morning frost reddening the maple leaves and evening glow making the mists dense is often named as the poem's best. Its worth may be taken in three directions. In theme, it joins the poetry of going out and looking, in which the landscape is not a background but an argument with the self. In language, the dense piling of peaks and the close rhyme on the 侵 sound are the manner of the landscape poetry of the southern dynasties, and the care of the wording is what gives the poem its depth. In feeling, the poem's honesty about not having arranged its life is what makes it modern; it is a poem of a man who finds that the consolations he was taught do not apply. For a reader today it remains one of the best doors onto the landscape poetry of the Liu Song.

这首《晚出西射堂》，是谢灵运写写景感怀之作，写步出西城门、连鄣叠巘崿、晓霜枫叶丹、节往戚不浅、幽独赖鸣琴之情，清丽幽远。起「步出西城门，遥望城西岑」——步出西城门，遥望城西岑。写步出西城门：步出西城门、遥望城西岑——出西城门、望城西岑；「连鄣叠巘崿，青翠杳深沉」——连鄣叠巘崿，青翠杳深沉。写连鄣叠巘崿：连鄣叠巘崿、青翠杳深沉——叠巘崿、杳深沉；「晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴」——晓霜枫叶丹，夕曛岚气阴。写晓霜枫叶丹：晓霜枫叶丹、夕曛岚气阴——枫叶丹、岚气阴；「节往戚不浅，感来念已深」——节往戚不浅，感来念已深。写节往戚不浅：节往戚不浅、感来念已深——戚不浅、念已深；结「安排徒空言，幽独赖鸣琴」——安排徒空言，幽独赖鸣琴（用鸣琴之典）。写幽独赖鸣琴：安排徒空言、幽独赖鸣琴——徒空言、赖鸣琴。这「安排徒空言，幽独赖鸣琴」，是全诗之结：以幽独赖鸣琴写其感怀。全诗清丽幽远，以景写情，正是谢灵运诗中的名篇。

Prosody

Line by line

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