秦中寄远上人

Meaning

Meng Haoran, stuck in Chang'an trying without success to enter the administration, writes to a monk who has gone east. He wants to retire to a quiet hillside but has no money to do it; the north was never his wish; he thinks of his old teacher in the Eastern Grove. His money has gone as fast as burning valuable wood, and his ambition has faded year by year. At dusk the cool wind arrives and the cicadas make him sadder still. The poem is a quiet account of a man who cannot both stay and leave.

一丘常欲卧，三径苦无资。北土非吾愿，东林怀我师。黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰。日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] There is almost no scenery in the poem until the last two lines. Most of it is the poet saying plainly what has gone wrong: he wants a hermitage he cannot afford, he never wanted to be in the north, he thinks of his teacher, his money is gone, his ambition is thinning. Only at the end do the weather and the sound arrive — a cool wind in the evening and the cry of cicadas — and they are enough. [Structure] The regulated verse runs in the usual four loads, but the turning point is in the middle: the third couplet is where the poet stops wishing and simply reports, and the fourth couplet converts the report back into weather. [Imagery] The images are domestic rather than beautiful: a hill to lie on, three garden paths, a teacher in a grove, gold, a cool wind, a cicada. The famous images of Meng Haoran — the southern mountain, the chrysanthemums — are absent, which is the point.

【白话串讲】 孟浩然写《秦中寄远上人》：“一丘常欲卧，三径苦无资”——“北土非吾愿，东林怀我师”——“黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰”——“日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲”——他写想归隐却困于长安。 【意象与手法】 此诗写秦中寄友感慨，以羁旅写感慨，是孟浩然的名篇。前四句写志向：「一丘常欲卧，三径苦无资」写一丘常欲卧、三径苦无资——写尽归隐的苦无资财；「北土非吾愿，东林怀我师」写北土非吾愿、东林怀我师——写尽北居非愿与怀师；后四句写感慨：「黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰」写黄金燃桂尽、壮志逐年衰——写尽穷困与壮志的衰减；「日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲」写日夕凉风至、闻蝉但益悲——写尽日夕的悲凉。全诗以羁旅写感慨，写尽归隐不得的感慨，是孟浩然的名篇。 【情感与主旨】 此诗写秦中寄友感慨，以羁旅写感慨，是孟浩然的名篇。秦中指长安一带；远上人为孟浩然的方外之友。此诗写诗人滞留长安，思念归隐而不得的感慨。此诗写志向：一丘常欲卧，三径苦无资——写一丘常欲卧、三径苦无资，写尽归隐的苦无资财；北土非吾愿，东林怀我师——写北土非吾愿、东林怀我师，写尽北居非愿与怀师；黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰——写黄金燃桂尽、壮志逐年衰，写尽穷困与壮志的衰减；日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲——写日夕凉风至、闻蝉但益悲，写尽日夕的悲凉。全诗以羁旅写感慨——那「三径苦无资」写尽归隐的苦无资财，「闻蝉但益悲」写尽日夕的悲凉，写尽归隐不得的感慨，是理解孟浩然羁旅诗的重要篇章。 【名句点睛】 常考「一丘常欲卧，三径苦无资」写归隐的苦无资财；「黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰」写穷困与壮志的衰减；「日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲」写日夕的悲凉；以及全诗以羁旅写感慨、以用典写感慨的手法。

Allusions

The 'one small hill' (yi qiu) is from a saying about the hermit who is content with a single mound of land — the whole of a retired life. 'The three paths' (san jing) come from Jiang Xu of the Han, who, when he retired, cut three paths in front of his house so that his friends could visit; the phrase is the standard way to mean a hermitage, and here the poet says he longs for it but has no means to keep it. 'The Eastern Grove' points to the Buddhist monastery of Hui Yuan at Lushan and so to the poet's teacher; the Eastern Grove was also a name for the monk's quarter. 'Gold spent as if burning incense-wood' takes up the story from the Strategies of the Warring States that in the state of Chu fuel cost more than incense-wood in Chang'an, meaning that a visitor there burns his money merely to stay alive. The cicada at evening is the classical sign of autumn and of a traveller's sorrow.

此诗的用语深植于归隐与羁旅的传统。「一丘常欲卧」令人想到「一丘」写一丘一壑的意象——「一丘一壑也风流」，也令人想到「常欲卧」写常欲归卧的意象——「一丘常欲卧」正是孟浩然的名句；「三径苦无资」令人想到「三径」写三径的典故——陶渊明《归去来兮辞》「三径就荒，松菊犹存」，也令人想到「苦无资」写苦无资财的意象；「北土非吾愿」令人想到「北土」写北方的意象——「北土非吾愿」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「东林怀我师」写东林的典故——东林寺为晋慧远所居，净土宗祖庭；「黄金燃桂尽」令人想到「燃桂」写薪贵于桂的典故——《战国策》「楚国之食贵于玉，薪贵于桂」，也令人想到「黄金尽」写黄金用尽的意象——「黄金燃桂尽」正是孟浩然的名句；「壮志逐年衰」令人想到「壮志」写壮志的意象——「老骥伏枥，志在千里」，也令人想到「逐年衰」写逐年衰减的意象；「日夕凉风至」令人想到「日夕」写日暮的意象——「日夕凉风至」正是孟浩然的名句，也令人想到「闻蝉但益悲」写闻蝉的意象——「寒蝉凄切」。全诗化用三径、东林、燃桂的典故与凉风、蝉鸣的意象，以羁旅写感慨，正是孟浩然「清淡自然」而善用典、承归隐传统写感慨的本领。

Commentary

This quatrain-length regulated verse is counted among Meng Haoran's most characteristic works and is quoted for its plainness: critics of the Tang and Song valued him precisely for writing like a man talking rather than a poet showing off, and the line 'hearing the cicadas only adds to my sorrow' is often cited as an example of feeling stated without any image to disguise it. Later readers have read the poem as a document of the flawed system that made talent depend on patronage — a poet with no money and no post writing from the capital to a monk about why he cannot come home.

此诗历来被推为孟浩然羁旅诗的名篇，也是唐人写归隐不得的代表。历代论者对此诗评价极高：清人评此诗「以羁旅写感慨，清淡悲凉」；近人更指出「黄金燃桂尽，壮志逐年衰」写穷困与壮志的衰减，「日夕凉风至，闻蝉但益悲」写日夕的悲凉，是此诗的名句。在诗歌史上，此诗的特殊价值在于：它以八句的五言律诗写尽归隐不得的感慨——那常欲卧的一丘，那苦无资的三径，那非吾愿的北土，那怀我师的东林，那燃桂尽的黄金，那逐年衰的壮志，那日夕的凉风，那益悲的蝉鸣，都写尽了孟浩然滞留长安的感慨；那「黄金燃桂尽」更以燃桂写尽穷困。此诗与孟浩然《岁暮归南山》（「不才明主弃」）同为感慨名篇，一写「南山归敝庐」的归山（岁暮归南山），一写「一丘常欲卧」的归隐（秦中寄远上人）；又与王维「晚年惟好静」的归隐传统一脉相承，可见盛唐隐逸诗人的共同感慨。对于今日读者，此诗是理解孟浩然羁旅诗的窗口，也是中国诗写归隐不得的经典——那日夕的凉风，穿越千年，仍在诉说着闻蝉的悲凉。

Prosody

Line by line

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