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南北朝 Northern and Southern Dynasties · 词 Ci lyric

昭君怨

Zhaojun Yuan

庾信

Yu Xin

敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城。
片片红颜落，双双泪眼生。
冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行。
胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明。
方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。

She knits her brows at Guanglu Pass, and looks back toward the city of the Lady.
Petal by petal the red face falls; pair upon pair the tear-dimmed eyes are born.
Across the ice-bound river she leads the horse; down the snow path she rides with hands on the saddle.
The northern wind enters the bones and chills; the night moon shines and makes the heart plain.
Only now does she tune the song on the qin, and find it has become a sound of the hu flutes.
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Meaning

A short set-poem on the Lady Zhaojun, sent out of the Han to the Xiongnu and never to return. It moves from the moment of leave-taking at Guanglu Pass, back toward the capital she will not reach, through the physical trials of the road — ice, snow, a riding horse — to the last line, where the Han melody she tries to play comes out as a foreign instrument. The poem's meaning is in that final transformation: a woman's grief is not only felt, it is changed by the distance that made it, and nothing of her own origin survives the journey intact.

敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城。片片红颜落，双双泪眼生。冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行。胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明。方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The speaker watches a departure and follows it: the brows knitting, the回头, the river crossed on foot or mounted, the moon, and the playing of a tune that turns foreign.[Structure] Ten five-character lines, in couplets, each couplet a movement of the journey rather than a comment on it. The last line turns the whole sequence into sound.[Imagery] The images grow colder as the poem advances: brows, then falling faces, then ice, then snow, then a wind that gets into the bones. Even the moon, the one thing that does not change, is given a task — to illuminate the heart.[Sentiment] Zhaojun's grief is never described directly; it is produced by physical detail. The striking line is 'petal by petal the red face falls,' which turns a person into blossom and lets the frailty be felt. The end is the most original in the poem: the qin string is played, and out of it comes a different music — a border tune, a barbarian sound — as if the distance itself had rewritten the melody.

【白话串讲】 庾信写《昭君怨》：“敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城”——“片片红颜落，双双泪眼生”——“冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行”——“胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明”——他写王昭君出塞——胡风入骨冷。 【意象与手法】 “敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城”以地名写昭君出塞；“片片红颜落，双双泪眼生”以对句写泪落；“冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行”以冰河雪路写苦寒；“胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明”以胡风夜月写心境。对仗工整、凄婉悲怨。 【情感与主旨】 咏史悲怨之作，借王昭君出塞的凄苦写红颜薄命与去国怀乡之悲，以“胡风入骨冷”写异域之寒，是庾信借古写自身身世之感的作品。 【名句点睛】 常考“片片红颜落，双双泪眼生”以红颜落泪眼生写悲怨；“胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明”以胡风夜月写出塞苦寒。

Background

Yu Xin (513–581) was a southern prince's son who was held hostage at the northern Wei court, then served the Western Wei and the Zhou, and spent his last years in the north, never returning to his native Jiangnan. His poems on the Lady Zhaojun belong to a group in which the story of the Han girl sent beyond the frontier was retold by men who were themselves living far from home. The 'ci' form of the title here is a tune name rather than a song; the text is a ten-line pentad poem. Yu Xin is remembered as the last of the southern court poets and as the first great northern one, and this poem is among the shortest and hardest of his pieces.

《昭君怨》为南北朝诗人庾信所作词。庾信（513—581），字子山，南阳新野人，北周文学家，由南入北的重要作家。此词写咏史悲怨，为咏王昭君之作。词中「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」写敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城；「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」写片片红颜落，双双泪眼生；「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」写冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行；「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」写方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。庾信此词以咏史悲怨、变入胡笳声写其悲怨之情，凄婉悲怨，是庾信词中的名篇。此篇《昭君怨》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《昭君怨》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The poem proceeds by accumulation of concrete hardship rather than by statements of sorrow. Each couplet adds a stage: the brow, the look back, the falling face, the weeping eyes, the river, the snow road, the wind, the moon. The one inside the body's journey is the moon — the only image in the poem that does not move — and it is given the work of 'lighting the heart,' so that perception itself becomes part of the suffering. The most unexpected device is the treatment of colour: 'red face' is a face, and 'petal by petal' makes it also a blossom, so the woman's body is quietly transmuted into the flowers that fall — an image that links her to the spring she left and to nothing else that will come. The close is deliberately plain: a tune is played, and it comes out different.

此词艺术上以「凄婉悲怨、以雪写情」见长。全词共十句五联，由敛眉光禄塞而片片红颜落而冰河牵马渡。起「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」写敛眉光禄塞：敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城；「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」写片片红颜落：片片红颜落，双双泪眼生；「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」写冰河牵马渡：冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行；结「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」写变入胡笳声：方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。全词以雪写情，由敛眉光禄塞而变入胡笳声，凄婉悲怨，是庾信词中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

Guanglu Pass (光禄塞) is a Han frontier fortress beyond the northern border, and 夫人城 is the city said to have been built by the Han to shelter Lady Zhaojun's followers; together they mark the exact place of departure and the place that is being looked back at. The Lady is Wang Zhaojun of the early Han, sold by the court to the Xiongnu chanyu and famous in legend for the painting on the palace door whose dot sealed her fate, and for the willow at her tomb that facades south. The hu flute (胡笳) is the reed pipe of the northern steppe; a Han melody cannot come out of it unchanged, and Yu Xin uses that impossibility as the poem's conclusion.

词中「敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城」「片片红颜落双双泪眼生」「冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行」「方调琴上曲变入胡笳声」等语，皆含典故故实。「敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城」用光禄塞、夫人城之典（光禄塞写边塞，夫人城写边城），写敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城；「片片红颜落双双泪眼生」写片片红颜落双双泪眼生；「冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行」写冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行；「方调琴上曲变入胡笳声」用胡笳之典（胡笳写胡乐），写方调琴上曲变入胡笳声。词人用光禄塞、胡笳之典入词，不着痕迹，而把咏史悲怨之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

The poem has been praised from the Tang onward for its economy: ten lines, no narration of a plot, and a feeling that arrives only through physical detail. Later readers have often noticed the last couplet in particular, since it makes the transformation of a woman into a melody a musical rather than a moral event. The story of Zhaojun herself gave Yu Xin, a man stranded in the north, a figure whose separation and fame were both beyond his control; the poem is thus counted among the earliest and most compressed of his reworkings of the legend. Its influence can be traced through the Tang poems on frontier women to the Ming and Qing operas on the same story.

这首《昭君怨》，是庾信写咏史悲怨之作，写敛眉光禄塞、片片红颜落、冰河牵马渡、变入胡笳声之情，凄婉悲怨。起「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」——敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城。写敛眉光禄塞：敛眉光禄塞、还望夫人城——光禄塞、夫人城；「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」——片片红颜落，双双泪眼生。写片片红颜落：片片红颜落、双双泪眼生——红颜落、泪眼生；「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」——冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行。写冰河牵马渡：冰河牵马渡、雪路抱鞍行——牵马渡、抱鞍行；结「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」——方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。写变入胡笳声：方调琴上曲、变入胡笳声——琴上曲、胡笳声。这「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」，是全词之结：以变入胡笳声写其悲怨。全词凄婉悲怨，以雪写情，正是庾信词中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form A short fifty-character poem in the pentad tune named 'Zhaojun Yuan'.词（五言短章）
Rhyme All ten lines are rhymed on the -eng group of the庚 division (城, 生, 行, 明, 声), so the poem is uniform and closed.此词为五言短章，共十句。押韵：「城」「生」「行」「明」「声」押庚部韵。句句自然流转，声情凄婉，正与写咏史悲怨的凄婉悲怨相称，也见其以五言写悲怨的流转。
Tone pattern The rhyme is pitched low and open, and with five characters to a line the pace is even; the two lines of each couplet are of the same length, which slows the reading into the rhythm of a journey continued.句式上，「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」写敛眉光禄塞，音节凄婉；「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」写片片红颜落，音节低回；「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」写冰河牵马渡，音节沉郁；结「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」写变入胡笳声，音节悠长。全词音节随情起伏，由凄婉而低回、由沉郁而悠长，正合五言「流转」之妙，读来如咏史悲怨、变入胡笳声之音，凄婉而动人。
Reading note The poem runs in ten pentameter couplets, each rhymed on the -eng group — cheng, sheng, xing, ming, sheng — so that the whole piece is a single held note. That is not incidental: the uniformity of the sound itself refuses to hurry, in the way the journey refuses to end. Within each couplet the two lines are of equal length, and the poem advances, as it were, one stage at a time; the reader is carried forward by the regularity rather than by any change of metre. Where the verse breaks from this are the two half-lines, 光禄塞 and 胡笳声, which close a couplet on a different note. When reading aloud, the rhyme should be allowed to persist — the same closed, low vowel from line to line — so that the sound of the poem matches the flat, endless quality of the road it describes.此词为五言短章，是庾信写咏史悲怨之作，也是其词中的名篇。全词的艺术特色在于「凄婉悲怨、以雪写情」：「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」写敛眉光禄塞、「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」写片片红颜落、「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」写冰河牵马渡、「方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声」写变入胡笳声。全词凄婉悲怨，以雪写情。尤为精妙者，是「敛眉光禄塞」用光禄塞之典；而「变入胡笳声」用胡笳之典，正是庾信词「凄婉悲怨」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《昭君怨》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城。

She knits her brows at Guanglu Pass, and looks back toward the city of the Lady.

敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城。

Knitting her brows at Guanglu Pass, she looks back toward the Lady's City.

起句写敛眉光禄塞，起笔即见其敛眉。「敛眉光禄塞」用光禄塞之典写敛眉光禄塞，「敛眉」写敛眉、「光禄塞」写光禄塞；「还望夫人城」用夫人城之典写还望夫人城，「还望」写还望、「夫人城」写夫人城。一句写敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城，以敛眉光禄塞写光禄塞、以还望夫人城写夫人城，写尽敛眉光禄塞、还望夫人城之情。以塞起兴，凄婉而悲怨，是「以塞起兴」的妙笔。

The pass. Knitting her brows at Guanglu Pass, she looks back toward the Lady's City. The knitted-brows-at-Guanglu and the looked-back-toward-the-Lady's-City are the opening. To have knitted the brows would be a knitting; the knitting-her-brows-at-guanglu-pass-she-looks-back-toward-the-lady's-city is the knitting.

片片红颜落，双双泪眼生。

Petal by petal the red face falls; pair upon pair the tear-dimmed eyes are born.

片片红颜落，双双泪眼生。

Petal by petal her red beauty falls; tear by tear her wet eyes fill.

此句写片片红颜落，是全词写红颜之态的关键。「片片红颜落」写片片红颜落，「片片」写片片、「红颜落」写红颜落；「双双泪眼生」写双双泪眼生，「双双」写双双、「泪眼生」写泪眼生。一句写片片红颜落双双泪眼生，以片片红颜落写红颜落、以双双泪眼生写泪眼生，写尽片片红颜落、双双泪眼生之情。以颜写情，凄婉而悲怨，是「以颜写情」的点睛之笔。

The petals. Petal by petal her red beauty falls; tear by tear her wet eyes fill. The petal-by-petal-fallen-beauty and the tear-by-tear-filled-eyes are the grief. To have fallen petal by petal would be a falling; the petal-by-petal-her-red-beauty-falls-tear-by-tear-her-wet-eyes-fill is the falling.

冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行。

Across the ice-bound river she leads the horse; down the snow path she rides with hands on the saddle.

冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行。

On the ice river she leads the horse across; on the snowy road she rides holding the saddle.

此句写冰河牵马渡，是全词写冰河之态的关键。「冰河牵马渡」写冰河牵马渡，「冰河」写冰河、「牵马渡」写牵马渡；「雪路抱鞍行」写雪路抱鞍行，「雪路」写雪路、「抱鞍行」写抱鞍行。一句写冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行，以冰河牵马渡写牵马渡、以雪路抱鞍行写抱鞍行，写尽冰河牵马渡、雪路抱鞍行之情。以雪写景，凄婉而悲怨，是「以雪写景」的点睛之笔。

The ice. On the ice river she leads the horse across; on the snowy road she rides holding the saddle. The led-horse-over-ice-river and the held-saddle-on-snowy-road are the journey. To have led the horse across would be a leading; the on-the-ice-river-she-leads-the-horse-across-on-the-snowy-road-she-rides-holding-the-saddle is the leading.

方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。

Only now does she tune the song on the qin, and find it has become a sound of the hu flutes.

方调琴上曲，变入胡笳声。

As she tunes the tune upon the lute, it changes into the hu jia's wail.

结句写变入胡笳声，是全词立意的落点。「方调琴上曲」写方调琴上曲，「方调」写方调、「琴上曲」写琴上曲；「变入胡笳声」用胡笳之典写变入胡笳声，「变入」写变入、「胡笳声」写胡笳声。一句写方调琴上曲变入胡笳声，以方调琴上曲写琴上曲、以变入胡笳声写胡笳声，写尽方调琴上曲、变入胡笳声之情。以笳写情，凄婉而悲怨，是全词最动人处，也是「以笳写情」的点睛之笔。

The flute. As she tunes the tune upon the lute, it changes into the hu jia's wail. The tuned-lute-tune and the changed-into-the-hu-jia-wail are the close. To have tuned the lute would be a tuning; the as-she-tunes-the-tune-upon-the-lute-it-changes-into-the-hu-jia's-wail is the tuning.

Study

Word focus

敛眉 To knit the brows (敛眉). 敛 is drawing together, and 眉 is the brow; the phrase is a single physical gesture of restraint, not weeping. In the opening couplet it fixes the Lady at the moment of leaving, and stands for everything she does not say. 「敛眉」写敛眉光禄塞，是写敛眉之态的关键。「敛眉光禄塞」着一「敛眉」，写敛眉——着一「敛眉」，写敛眉光禄塞，见其眉之敛。两字写尽敛眉之态，是「以词写眉」的妙笔。「敛眉」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
红颜 Red face, i.e. a beautiful young face (红颜). The colour is the point: it is what makes the falling face comparable to a blossom, and it is the only colour in an otherwise cold poem of ice, snow and northern wind. 「红颜」写片片红颜落，是写红颜之态的关键。「片片红颜落」着一「红颜」，写红颜——着一「红颜」，写片片红颜落，见其颜之红。两字写尽红颜之态，是「以词写颜」的点睛之词。「红颜」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
泪眼 Tear-filled eyes (泪眼). The phrase is normally a noun for eyes that are wet; here the eyes are given a birth ('pair upon pair'), so that weeping is something that happens to her rather than something she does. 「泪眼」写双双泪眼生，是写泪眼之态的关键。「双双泪眼生」着一「泪眼」，写泪眼——着一「泪眼」，写双双泪眼生，见其眼之泪。两字写尽泪眼之态，是「以词写眼」的点睛之词。「泪眼」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
胡笳 The hu reed-pipe (胡笳), the wooden flute of the northern steppe peoples. It is not a Han instrument, so that a melody played on it cannot be a Han melody; the poem makes that fact the whole meaning of its last line. 「胡笳」写变入胡笳声，是写胡笳之态的关键。「变入胡笳声」着一「胡笳」，写胡笳——着一「胡笳」，写变入胡笳声，见其笳之胡。两字写尽胡笳之态，是「以词写笳」的点睛之词。「胡笳」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

水调歌头·明月几时有 Shui Diao Ge Tou: Whence So Bright a Moon? 苏轼 · 同写悲怨感怀、凄婉旷达，一写人有悲欢离合、一写敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城，皆于悲怨之中见凄婉 Both poems are about grief and the comfort that grief refuses; one asks about the moon, this one asks after a lost woman

Su Shi's great tune turns on the couplet 'there are joys and sorrows among men, and waxing and waning of the moon; this has never been complete in any age' — a consolation drawn from the periodic nature of things. Yu Xin's ten lines refuse that argument completely: nothing in the poem repeats or returns, and the only music that comes out at the end is a foreign one. In one poem the suffering is placed inside a pattern and so relieved; in the other the pattern is present as rhyme and metre, and the anguish is placed inside them anyway. The comparison is between a mind that can generalise its grief and one that will not, and the contrast is the whole point of reading them together.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全」，写悲怨感怀、凄婉旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；庾信《昭君怨》则以「敛眉光禄塞，还望夫人城」「片片红颜落，双双泪眼生」写还望夫人城、双双泪眼生。两词同写悲怨感怀、凄婉旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写敛眉光禄塞还望夫人城、以光禄塞写悲怨；一为苏轼之旷达、一为庾信之凄婉，并读正可见词写「悲怨感怀」的两种笔法，皆于悲怨之中见凄婉。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Ba Sheng Gan Zhou: Over the Drizzle-Drenched Autumn Sky 柳永 · 同写边城凝望、凄婉清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行，皆于边城之中见凝望 Both write from a northern border of the imagination; one is a long tune of farewell and weather, this is ten lines about a woman on the road

Liu Yong's famous tune opens 'over the drizzle-drenched autumn sky, one washing has made it a clear autumn,' and spends its length on the relationship between weather and a traveller's sorrow. Yu Xin's poem keeps Liu's territory — ice, snow, frontier, a journey undertaken — but removes the traveller's comfort: there is no one at the other end, and the destination is a burial. The rhymes tell the same story, the one rhymed on the nasal -eng that holds the line, the other on the entering tones that cut it. Read in sequence, the two show the same scene of separation written first as an experience a person can survive and then as an experience a person simply undergoes.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写边城凝望、凄婉清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；庾信《昭君怨》则以「冰河牵马渡，雪路抱鞍行」「胡风入骨冷，夜月照心明」写牵马渡、入骨冷。两词同写边城凝望、凄婉清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写冰河牵马渡雪路抱鞍行、以冰河写悲怨；一为柳永之清丽、一为庾信之凄婉，并读正可见词写「边城凝望」的两种笔法，皆于边城之中见凝望。